August 2020
Scott Gordon:
Our next speaker is Tyler Griffin, and I think it’s kind of appropriate we have Tyler Griffin speaking near the end on Friday, since we started our talk with Taylor Halverson, and the two of them do a weekly YouTube video entitled Come Follow Me Insights. And it’s a very popular video series. He taught at the Logan LDS Institute. He teaches at BYU. And he’s cofounder of BYU Virtual Scriptures Group, which develops digital learning and resources to enhance scriptural immersion and understanding. And with that introduction, I’m going to turn the time over to Tyler.
Tyler Griffin:
Boy it’s a good thing they have this feature to be able to clean up before. They might need to clean up after too. We’ll see how this goes.
Before we jump into the text of Alma 30 and look for lessons for us today, I want to begin with a little made-up scenario to teach a principle, to set the stage. So notice this on the screen: let’s pretend that you have moved into a stake called the Metaphoreville Stake. In this stake they do things a little differently than they do in the rest of the Church, and when it comes time for a new stake president, or a patriarch, or something like that, they assemble a list of people who are qualified for the position. And then they narrow that down to four or five people and send it out for a vote. Top-two vote getters in this case get the position of stake president and patriarch. Let’s try it out. Who are you going to vote for?
Person Number 1: His father is a prominent church leader. He rebelled in his youth and refused to serve a mission at that time, but since he has shown full repentance and has proven to be a faithful disciple who has served faithfully for many years now. There’s your Person Number 1.
Person Number 2: His father is also a prominent church leader. He’s willing to sacrifice, and occasionally he has direct communication with the Lord. He’s a very successful farmer.
Person Number 3: He’s very short, moves frequently, and is a recent convert to the Church. Many members of your stake do not trust him because of his problematic past. He often makes people angry because he questions traditional practices and authority.
Person Number 4: He demonstrates powerful leadership abilities, is ambitious and hardworking. He’s good at discerning others’ strengths and weaknesses. He has tremendous amounts of knowledge in a variety of areas I would add, and he comes from an excellent family, and is very persuasive.
Person Number 5: He’s developed into a great writer and speaker over the years. He’s charismatic, but many people think he’s a bit deceptive, even though he has spent many months in prison, he’s now out. He still causes occasional riots and unrest, and school is not really his strength.
All right. There you go. You get to vote for two in your mind’s eye here as you look through this list. Most of you are probably going to shy away from certain people that have been narrowed down on this list.
Now let me give you the secret in Metaphoreville Stake. Person Number 1, his father was a prominent church leader, rebelled in his youth, refused to serve his mission, most of you probably weren’t attracted to voting for that guy and you passed up on Alma the Younger.
Person Number 2, his father is a prominent church leader, willing to sacrifice, and occasionally has direct communication with the Lord, successful farmer. Looks pretty good, doesn’t he? That’s Cain, son of Adam and Eve.
Person Number 3, very short, moves frequently, problematic past, questioning traditional practices and authority, that’s Saul who becomes Paul in our New Testament.
How about Number 4, powerful leadership abilities, ambitious, hardworking, all of these discerning strengths and weaknesses. That would be you guessed it, Lucifer himself.
Number 5, great write and speaker. Over the years he’s finally developed into that charismatic, but spent time in prison. Most people would shy away from voting for Joseph Smith Jr.
Now what’s my point? The scriptures tell us, we learn that in the latter days good would be called evil, and evil will be called good. Brothers and sisters, it is not hard to spin truth, to spin reality, to take things as they really are and focus people’s attention on certain aspects of reality. There’s nothing in this description that technically isn’t truth. It’s just I was withholding certain parts of the truth from you and only shining light on certain aspects of these people’s life, or characteristics, or attributes in order to sway you one direction or another. This happens all the time in our world, in our society.
So as we open our scriptures to Alma 30, what we’re looking for here is how Korihor, one of the chief anti-Christ in the Book of Mormon, is able to take things that the prophets international the Book of Mormon have been setting up for years. And with very quick statements, he’s going to systematically try to knock them down and make these claims of truth.
Now this is complex. This is not something that is to be taken lightly or to be refuted in just simple statements, countering what Korihor has said here, just like we shouldn’t take simple statements that he makes and just throw away all of our faith in an instant. Here’s the reality, if any of you have ever played with dominos before, you realize how painstakingly difficult it can be to set up a whole line of dominos. And you know what happens when somebody comes along and very simply bumps your table, maybe even inadvertently—they didn’t mean to—and down come all those dominos. Dominoes are a lot like faith in this regard. It takes a long time to set it up. It doesn’t take very long to knock it down.
So as we open up Alma 30, we’re introduced to Korihor, who comes. And he’s going to play dominos. Not setting-up-faith dominos, but rather knocking down dominos of faith that have been set up. So let me diagram it like this on a little white board here. If these are dominos that are set up, Korihor comes along. And you’ll notice what the first domino is that he attacks? First domino to go down? Notice in Alma 30 verse 12 “and this Anti-Christ whose name was Korihor, (and the law could have no hold upon him) began to preach unto the people that there should be no Christ. And after this manner did he preach, saying.”
So his first domino should be labeled ‘no Christ’. So if we push over that domino, if we just play pretend for a minute, pretend like there isn’t a Christ, what then happens? What else topples downstream? What are the offshoots of having no Christ? Well, look what he says in verse 13, “O ye that are bound down under a foolish and a vain hope.” Notice how easily he takes something like the tribute of hope, hope in our future, hope in good things to come, and in one simple statement he shines a negative angle on it. And he says basically there is no such thing as hope, because that you have that you call hope? It’s foolish, and it’s vain. It’s not real. It’s not going to do anything for you.
Notice he goes on to say, “Why do ye look for a Christ? For no man can know of anything which is to come.” In other words—I won’t keep labeling the no here; I’ll just put it down—there is no prophecy. There’s no hope of you looking for anything in the future with certainty. No man can know anything of that. By the way, you’ve noticed this cognitive dissonance going on here if you look at it from the angle of he’s telling you no man, that’s zero percent, no man can know of anything in the future. And there is no Christ in the future. So he’s telling us what’s not in the future, while in the next breath telling you nobody can know the future, so let me tell you the future.
Look at verse 14, “Behold, these things which ye call prophecies, which ye say are handed down by the holy prophets, behold, they are foolish traditions of your fathers.” So there’s no such thing as wisdom from the past, from people who have come before, who have lived long lives, in complex settings, in situations, and trials, and tribulations, who are blessed with the spirit of prophecy and revelation, and are commanded to write it down, and it comes down to us. He’s like, none of that is worth anything. It’s all foolish. There’s nothing to it.
How about verse 15? “How do ye know of their surety? Behold, ye cannot known of things which ye do not see.” So there’s no such thing as this thing you’re calling faith. You can’t learn by faith, because you can’t know of something you can’t see. There’s no such thing as stepping out into the darkness and discovering truth, because you acted in faith. That’s all just vain.
Now before I go any further with anymore dominos from Korihor, I need to pause here. You’ll notice how easy it is for somebody to come in, like I’ve said, and attack hundreds of pages worth of prophetic teaching in the Book of Mormon. And in a matter of four, or five, or six verses he has just made simple statements one after another, after another, and he is trying to tear down everything. In a matter of 60 seconds he could work his way through this list. It wouldn’t take a long time for him to do it.
Let’s not keep it that simple. Let’s peel back a couple of layers of meaning here and look at what might be going on underneath the surface. Korihor, as we learn later on in the chapter, he was getting his marching orders from the devil, who (we’ll talk later) appears unto him as an angel of light. I would suggest to you that Korihor is doing more than just tearing down the doctrine of Christ and the truth claims from a whole litany of prophets who have come before. I would suggest to you that what he’s really doing here is putting on a silver platter for us the attributes and the characteristics of the devil. If you’ve ever wondered what it might be like to be a devil in hell, you just look at Korihor’s teachings. He just described it to you. There is no Christ. You have no claim on a Messiah. There’s no reclaiming me if I’m Satan down in hell or one of his minions, based on the scriptural records that we have. And if I have no claim on Christ, look back at these dominos. How much hope do I have for anything in the future? How much hope is there in the corridors of hell? I’d suggest to you that there is none. How much spirit of prophecy do devils experience? How much wisdom do they gain from the past that they can apply to the present, while preparing for and looking to the future? They can’t. They don’t. How much faith do they have? None.
So as we move forward, when I was younger I often wondered why did Mormon give us so much information, so much specific detail from this incredibly eloquent and powerful anti-Christ? I think there’s a lot to the idea that to know the enemy is to be able to defeat the enemy more powerfully. Like in sports, you prepare for the specific plays that are going to be coming at you. That’s very helpful. But in this context I love the fact that the Book of Mormon portrays heaven and hell so powerfully next to each other in all of these stories that keep working their way through the text, so that you can see this contrast between the two so clearly. And hopefully in seeing that contrast, recognize in our own life what we’re experiencing, and then choose accordingly to follow the light.
Now, let’s finish off the dominos for a minute. Look back at verse 16. “Ye look forward and say that ye see a remission of your sins. But behold, it is the effect of a frenzied mind.” You’ll notice that he’s using all kinds of devilish tactics, not just revealing devilish attributes, but he’s using devilish tactics. Belittling, shaming, you’ve got this frenzied mind, because what’s the problem? He says, you see a remission of your sins, and he says, there is no such thing as a remission of sins. Why? Let’s take it one step further. What do we hear from echoes in a premarital realm? I will lose none of them. I will save them all. There is no sin. There can be no remission of sins if you can’t sin. Why? There’s no God. There’s no atonement.
I could keep listing all of these things on dominos. Verse 17, “many more such things did he say unto them, telling them that there could be no atonement made for the sins of men, but every man fared in this life according to the management of the creature; therefore every man prospered according to his genius, and that every man conquered according to his strength; and whatsoever a man did was no crime.” You can do whatever you want, live it up, survival of the fittest, that’s the message. Which ties in directly with everything else you hear to one degree or another, this is just a variation on the theme from the devil throughout time. It’s consequence free liberty. Do whatever you want and don’t worry about any consequences. Just enjoy what you have right here, right now.
In essence, what we have going on here is Korihor is taking us in the present time, and he’s cutting you off from everything that you could possibly gain of light, truth, knowledge, intelligence, and glory from God or from heaven, he’s trying to cut us off from that past wisdom and those past words that would give us the strength to move forward in faith. Not only that, he tells us that in the end, when we die, that’s the end thereof. You’ve lost your opportunity to enjoy life if you’ve fettered yourself with these foolish traditions of your fathers to keep you in check, to make you easier to govern. So what he basically did here is he’s cutting you off from any thoughts, or any hope for a future. Which leaves you with what? It leaves you with me, here, now. It’s what do I want in this instant, right here, right now, with no thought of any consequence, no thought of propriety from anything coming to me in the past. Boy, that makes the devil’s job really, really easier, or much easier than it otherwise would have been, if he can isolate you into the present, which is exactly what Korihor has done here.
Now, unfortunately there are many who believe him. There are many who love this doctrine, and they start following. Gratefully there’s a group that doesn’t love this teaching. So they bind him, and they take him before the judge to be judged. And notice—let’s pick up the story when Korihor is now brought in front of Alma. Let’s learn some lessons here. It’s an interesting concept if you step back from the story a few feet and just look at it from a big-picture perspective. In your mind’s eye you can picture Alma the younger and Korihor. And Korihor is rising up in his bold speech, ready to tear down everything that Alma holds dear. And the grand irony is Alma knows exactly what it’s like to be where Korihor is. But Korihor doesn’t have a clue to be what it’s like to be where Alma is. Alma has been down this same path before. He’s been down the ‘tear down the gospel of Jesus Christ, pull people away from the Church at all costs and with all effort before’. He’s done that. He’s lived that live, and he described what it was like to shift away from that life to his current life to his son Helaman, and a little bit to Shiblon, and in other places we get it, using phrases like “wracked with eternal torment; experience the pains of a damned soul.”
Alma is not standing there, or sitting there in judgement thinking, huh, pretty persuasive. There’s a part of the natural man inside of me that would really like this doctrine to be true, Korihor, because then life would be a lot more pleasurable, a lot more excitement for me, because he already knows that wickedness never was happiness, which is what all of these domino-toppling statements are leading to.
So thus begins the conversation. He says verse 34 to Korihor, “now, if we do not receive anything for our labors in the church, what doth it profit us to labor in the church save it were to declare the truth, that we may have rejoicings in the joy of our brethren” Isn’t it interesting both of these men are claiming are trying to bring more joy and rejoicing to the people, making the same claim, but coming at it from 180 degrees opposite. One is saying lift up your head and rejoice by bursting these fetters, these commandments, and these covenantal connections that are so foolishly binding you. And the other is saying, we know that there is only one way to experience enduring joy. And to borrow President Nelson’s phrase, “it’s only found on the covenant path.”
Moving on Alma says to him verse 37, “Believest thou that there is a God?” And he answered, “Nay.” And Alma said, “Will ye deny again that there is a God, and also deny the Christ? For behold, I say unto you, I know there is a God, and also that Christ shall come. And now what evidence have ye that there is no God, or that Christ cometh not? I say unto you that ye have none, save it be your word only.”
Now watch what happens. Let’s go back to the screen here, back to our original dominos. You’ll notice how Mormon gives us these specific teachings from Korihor, but the vast majority of the column space and words are devoted to the opposite, which is the establishing of these dominos. So just change each of the dominos to this word, they’re teaching us—here Alma is going to keep teaching us elements of how to come to know Christ. Not just know that He exists, or that He’s a real being somewhere out in the far stretches of the universe, but that He’s real, and He’s a part of our life. Alma has tasted of His goodness. Alma has come to know Christ. And because he knows Christ, he knows hope. He has come to find hope. And because he’s known hope, he knows the prophecies. He knows wisdom. He knows faith now. It’s the same thing in reverse, but it’s beautiful, and it’s glorious. But you’ll notice it always begins with the Lord Jesus Christ. It was that way with Heavenly Father’s plan in heaven. It was that way in the Garden of Eden. It’s that way throughout the scriptural stories that we know and love. And it’s that way in my life and in your life today. It begins with putting Christ in that first position before we can start having any of these other dominos established to any lasting degree, because they’re not a house of card, and they’re not on a wobbly card table. They’re built firmly on the rock of the Redeemer himself, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.
Now watch as Alma continues to go through this discussion with Korihor how it shifts. Look at 43, “now Korihor said unto Alma: If thou wilt show me a sign, that I may be convinced that there is a God, yea, show unto me that he hath power, and then will I be convinced of the truth of thy words.” Hmm. I wonder if there’s any connection with that request back to Matthew chapter 3 where Satan says to Jesus, “If thou be the son of God, command these stones that they be turned into bread,” almost as if to say, then I will believe that you’re really the Son of God. Prove it. Show me a sign. Show your power, only then will I believe. As if God’s power is given to people on the earth simply to satisfy the demands for being convinced by people who don’t want to believe first and see second. They want to see first and then grudgingly perhaps believe second.
Now I have to be kind of careful here before I go further into this story. This is complex, and it sounds like I’m absolutely passing final judgment and condemnation on Korihor. That is not my role, that is not my intent. I’m simply judging this story from the words we get on our scriptural page from Alma 30. It’s the Lord’s job to judge Korihor not mine. But it is my job to discern what it going on and what I can learn about the Lord and about the devil in the process with this incredible example on the page in front of me.
By the way most of you are probably familiar with the statements that Joseph Smith made about sign seeking, that it is a wicked and an adulterous generation that seekers after signs is Jesus’ statement, and Joseph referred to that saying, “a man who unrighteously seeks after a sign is an adulterer.” Now a lot of people would look at that and say, I don’t see what those two have to do with each other? When in reality, at the root, at the core, it’s the exact same problem. A sign seeker does not want to act in faith. They don’t want to have to read their scriptures every day. They don’t want to have to go to church. They don’t want to have to fast, or pray, or try to keep any kind of commandments or covenantal obligations in order to have truth distill upon their soul line upon line, precept upon precept. They want the answer now with very little effort.
Well, what does an adulterer want? They just want what they want, right here, right now. They don’t want to have to work through a process. They don’t want to have to have self mastery. They just want what they want right here, right now. And that’s what seems to be happening here with Korihor is, look, I’m not going to do the work that you had to go through. That’s painful, Alma. Just show me a sign and then I’ll believe. It’s that simple. And if you can’t show me a sign, then that means it’s not true and I’m justified, and I’m vindicated in my unbelief.
Well, Alma goes on and speaks a little bit more with him, at which point Korihor in verse 48 says, “I do not deny the existence of a God, but I do not believe that there is a God; and I say also, that ye do not know that there is a Good; and except ye show me a sign, I will not believe.” He puts all of the responsibility squarely on Alma’s shoulders. If you won’t show me a sign, then I will not believe. I love the fact that in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, faith is a choice to a large degree, and he’s not willing to make that choice. So now he’s playing this more agnostic card in the debate. At which point, look at Alma’s response, verse 49, “Now Alma said unto him: This will I give unto thee for a sign, that thou shalt be struck dumb, according to my words; and I say, that in the name of God, ye shall be struck dumb, that ye shall no more have utterance.” At which point Korihor is struck dumb, and apparently he’s struck deaf too, because he has to be written to. And for him to communicated he writes.
So notice the outcome here of the story, we usually end in verse 52 and 53, but let’s take it one step further after that. “Korihor put forth his hand and he wrote saying: I know that I am dumb, for I cannot speak; and I know that nothing save it were the power of God could bring this upon me; yeah, and I always knew that there was a God.” I always knew that there was a God, which causes us to pause and say, how does this happen? How does somebody who deep down knows something allow himself to be in a position where all of a sudden he pushes that aside and goes 180 degrees opposite? Again, it’s not my job to judge Korihor. I don’t know his history. I don’t know if he fasted and prayed for many days, and sought the Lord’s will for months and years, and felt completely forsaken or cut off. I don’t know any of his background in that regard. All we get is what we have on the page from Mormon.
Look at the reason he gives, “But behold, the devil hath deceived me; for he appeared unto me in the form of an angel, and said unto me: Go and reclaim this people, for they have all gone astray after an unknown God. And he said unto me: There is no God; yeah, and he taught me that which I should say.” At which point most of us are thinking to ourselves, Korihor, buddy, come on! An angel appears unto you and says there is no God, you should have asked a few questions here. Right? Such as, so who sent you? Or where did you come from? Or if there’s really no God, then why do you care to come and tell me anything? If there’s no God, it doesn’t matter what anybody says. There’s no reason for me to even try to preach anything, because it doesn’t matter. If there’s no God, then nothing matters. But he didn’t ask those questions. Why? “I taught them because they were pleasing unto the carnal mind; and I taught them, even until I had much success, insomuch that I verily believed that they were true; and for this cause I withstood the truth, even until I have brought this great curse upon me.”
It is not hard in today’s world with social media, with our culture, it is not hard to teach things that at first we may be doubting. We may know better, but we teach them anyway. But then we watch the number of followers, or the number of likes, or the number of positive comments, and the accolades, and then applause of the world, and say, hey! And we start to believe more and more of that which at the beginning we kind of knew wasn’t right. But we kind of go with the flow. We can relate to Korihor without condemning Korihor to the degree at which he took this problem.
Now, let’s go back to the core. He told Alma, if you’ll show me a sign, then I will believe. Well, that already kind of blew up, because we find out he already did know. Not just believe, but I always knew there was a God. So he didn’t really need the sign for his own faith to be built or to believe. He was simply using the sign to disprove or discredit Alma when no sign, he thought, was going to be coming. So now here’s the problem. The sign’s been given. He’s experiencing it. He apparently can’t hear, and he definitely can’t speak, and he knows it. And he says, you couldn’t do this to me, Alma. No person is doing this to me. Only God could have done this to me. So the sign, check. We got it. It’s in place. Good.
Now, what was the outcome? Then will I believe. You’ll notice the problem? It wasn’t, show me a sign, Alma, and then I’ll change; then I’ll change my heart, I’ll change my life, I will hunger and thirst after righteousness, I will repent with all my heart. He didn’t say any of that. He just said, show me a sign and I’ll believe. Well, the sign is given.
Now look at verse 54. “Now when he had said this, he besought that Alma should pray unto God, that the curse might be taken from him.” Did you notice that? He didn’t fall down. And we don’t know the reasons why he didn’t. Nothing seems to have changed for Korihor. He turns to Alma, and he says, you fix the problem. You take away the sign. He doesn’t fall to his knees and turn to God, and say, O, God, please forgive me for all of the wrongs. We don’t know what would have happened had that occurred. What we do know is that Alma looked at him and said verse 55, “If this curse should be taken from thee thou wouldst again lead away the hearts of this people.” Why could Alma say that with such authority or such a spirit of prophecy? I don’t think it took a ton of spiritual prophecy to recognize that Korihor’s heart hasn’t changed just because his tongue can no longer speak and his ears temporarily cannot hear.
And now he goes among the Zoramites, the one group of people among the Nephites, the one group that more than any other should have embraced him, and loved him, and taken him in, and accepted him because of his doctrinal teachings. And it’s there where he says that he was begging for food for his support, and while he was among them he was trampled upon, “trodden down, even until he was dead.” And we don’t know the details there.
Now here’s part of the story that’s a little more complex. Because it’s easy for people to look at this and say, oh, see? If you do that, then for sure you’re going to be destroyed. And in fact Mormon jumps in, in verse 60 and says, “and thus we see the end of him who perverteth the ways of the Lord; and thus we see that the devil will not support his children at the last day, but doth speedily drag them down to hell.” Here’s the problem, some people look at the Book of Mormon and they say, oh really? So Korihor got trodden down among the Zoramites and died, but Abinidi got burned to death. Many other prophets and apostles through the history of time have been killed in really, really violent and bad ways. And so does that mean that God didn’t support them? Joseph Smith got martyred in Liberty Jail. So does verse 60 apply to them?
I think what Mormon might be saying here is referring a lot less about the physical aspects of the story and much more about the eternal aspects of the story. Because of the fact that he throws in this little line here, “the devil will not support his children at the last day.” I think the last day in his case, in the devil’s case, not just applying to the physical attributes of Korihor’s life, but I think it has the potential from Mormon’s perspective to refer to the eternities. Notice he says, “but doth speedily drag them down to hell.” That’s an interesting word, drag. That implies that people who become servants of the devil aren’t running to hell. It implies that the closer they get to the gates of hell the less they want to go. It implies that at that point they’re being dragged. Which means they’re probably digging their heals in. No. No I don’t want to go. I don’t want to go, and being dragged.
For contrast, because the Book of Mormon puts the light and the dark right next to each other, the good and the evil superimposed next to each other often. Look at the contrast in Alma 31. If you have your scripture page open in front of you, look over at verse 5, “And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just.” Two very interesting verbs in contrast. The devil dragging his children down to hell and Christ leading His children into heaven by the preaching of the word, because that has a tendency to cause them to want to walk. To the point where the closer you get to the gates of heaven, the more your heart longs to be there. The more faith, and trust, and love you have in your Savior, opposed to Alma 30, the closer you get to hell the more fear, and trembling, and forbidding, and anger, and weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth you experience. Oh, the contrast is stark.
So as we close the page on Alma 30, it’s important for us to recognize that Korihor was just one guy. And again, it’s not my role to condemn him ultimately or to be his final judge. That’s for the Lord to do. And I don’t get any great satisfaction out of seeing this man suffer in hell or in life. It doesn’t make me happy to see that kind of thing happening. But I am so grateful that the Lord inspired Mormon to include so many details from his story. And what’s more, I am so grateful that the Lord inspired Mormon to include other anti-Christs, like Nehor in Alma chapter 1. Because quite frankly if you were to put Nehor and Korihor on a debate stage, those two would not agree with each other on almost hardly anything. They’re coming at this from totally different perspectives.
And then you throw Sherem from Jacob 7 on the debate stage with them, and he’s coming from a totally different angle as well. Sherem and Nehor both believe in God. They both believe in salvation. Sherem says you get it by keeping the Law of Moses, there’s no Christ. Nehor says, you get it because God loves you and He’s going to save all of His children regardless of what you do or don’t do in this life. In fact many of you who have read carefully Alma 1, you’ve probably noticed that we always lump Nehor in with the anti-Christs. And yet the grand irony is Nehor never once mentions the Messiah or the Christ, never once brings up the Christ figure. But we call him an anti-Christ, because anything that would teach you how to live your life, or how to seek salvation without Jesus Christ would be considered anti-Christ. So these three are coming at it from totally different directions. And the devil inspired all three of them.
It’s fascinating that we often call it the doctrine of Christ. But when it comes to the devil, we call it the doctrines—plural—of the devil. Doctrines, because Satan doesn’t care which strange path of forbidden road you takes that leads you away from God. He just wants you to turn away from God. But in the end there’s only one path that leads to God. There’s only one covenant path, one straight and narrow path that leads to life eternal. And that path has a name, it’s in and through Jesus Christ and Him alone.
I leave my testimony with you that Jesus is the Christ, that He is the only way that we can find hope, faith, future blessings, and promises, as well as present relationships that matter, that we can find a remission of our sins, and that we can restore all of these dominos that Korihor sought to knock down in one fail swoop. And I leave that with you in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Moderator:
Thank you so much for that conversation about the Book of Mormon.
Tyler Griffin:
You’re welcome.
Moderator;
I have to admit, it just never even dawned on me that the three main antagonists there took such a varied approach.
Tyler Griffin:
Yeah. They would not agree with each other. I mean Korihor: no God, no Christ. Nehor and Sherem, yeah there is a God, and God is wanting to save us. But then you put Sherem and Nehor in conversation, and Sherem would say you have to keep the Law of Moses in order to be saved; there’s no Christ that saves you, it’s keep the Law. And Nehor would say, pff, no, God’s love saves you. Just live, you’re fine, do whatever you want, lift your head up in wickedness, it’s okay. God will save you.
Moderator:
The other thing that comes to mind, of course from my background with FairMormon and such, since we’re always talking with people who are struggling with faith and belief in the Book of Mormon, is what would it take for a Joseph Smith to write a book with such intricate characters, representing this variety of positions and such? To me it’s just another testimony that the book didn’t come from Joseph Smith.
Tyler Griffin:
Yeah. That’s what it says to me too. He would have to be far beyond any genius level to be able to keep this all straight. And not just those three anti-Christs, but Jacob in conversation with Sherem. And then Alma and Alma in conversation with these other two, Nehor and Korihor. And to watch the thought process unfold, and to watch God’s prophet learn through those experiences, and gain some insights into what it was like to deal with Korihor and Nehor, and then to watch how he interacts with his own children, especially a struggling son named Corianton, who’s starting down a path after the order of the Nehors, following some of the ideals of Korhir, and going, uhh, we need to turn this ship around right now.
Moderator:
Yeah. We need to talk.
Tyler Griffin:
Yeah. Let’s talk about doctrine here.
Moderator:
I like what my wife commented when we were reading about Corianton, and she noted that Corianton had a lot of questions. And so it wasn’t just the issue that he was dealing with, but he also had all these other questions. So my wife said, “So did the questions come first and it led down some things? Or did he go down a path and then have questions, and question whether he was doing the right thing or not?”
Tyler Griffin:
That’s an interesting question to consider, because from my perspective faith is built one experience at a time. Using Elder Bednar’s example of assurance leads to action, which then produces evidence, which evidence then becomes higher assurance for the next time I have to act in faith. And it’s this spiral staircase that’s increasing my faith. I think the same process occurs in reverse. It’s one experience where I don’t act in faith, where I don’t take what assurance I have, or what knowledge I have, and act appropriately in faith on that. That decreases my level of assurance, and the evidence I have for God’s goodness, and His mercy, and His merits, and His grace. so that next time I’m in a situation I’m actually at a lower level of faith, and then a lower level, and a lower level. I don’t think Corianton, or Korihor, or Nehor went from being a faithful member of the Church for instance to all of a sudden an anti-Christ, or in Corianton’s case, running of to Siron after the heart of Isabelle. I think it comes a little bit. And then maybe there’s a little cliff experience. But it’s a progression or a digression.
Moderator:
Yeah. It’s one of those things along your faith journey, as they say.
Tyler Griffin:
Yeah.
Moderator:
So here’s a question I have from our audience. “How do we apply your presentation to today’s climate of critics? Or today’s”—they wrote anti climate.
Tyler Griffin:
Yeah. This is a good question for us to wrestle with in this setting, the questions that come up, they’re complex. And it doesn’t take a genius. It is not hard to paint truth claims into a negative corner. It’s not hard to take good people and make them look bad, or take bad people and make them look good. Or causes, it doesn’t even have to be people.
Just consider for instance, if I were to go back in time and interview say an enemy of the Savior in 32 AD in Jerusalem, pull him aside and say, hey, we’re new here. We’re strangers. What can you tell us about this character Jesus of Nazareth? What would you hear from a group of these people? What would they say? You would probably hear things like, he has zero respect for the Law of Moses. He’s a blasphemer. He has no respect for the temple, and for the sacrifices we perform here, and for the priesthood, and for the authority of the priests. And could you even see somebody in the background coming forward when everybody else had said their say, and he says, oh you want to know about Jesus of Nazareth? I’ll tell you about Jesus of Nazareth. One day I was coming to the temple and I saw a blind man who was begging at the gate of the temple. He was begging. And your Jesus of Nazareth you’re asking about? He came up and spit on the ground, and took the spittle clay and shoved it in this guy’s eyes. That’s your Jesus of Nazareth.
Moderator:
Right. Right.
Tyler Griffin:
It’s not hard to make even the only perfect person who ever walked look really bad by making some—by stating truth in certain lights, or from certain angles. So in answer to that question how do I see the in today’s religious climate and all the claims? I would say, oh be careful that you analyze sources, and authority, and where are people getting their information? And what is their intent? Why are they sharing this with you? Is it to try to make you happy? Korihor would say, I’m trying to make them happy. I’m trying to lift their head up so they can enjoy life. But Alma’s example in the scriptures if very clear what it’s like when you go down that path and have to figure—gratefully he figured out how to come back with his experience with the angel.
So as we move forward, I would just so be so careful not to take anyone’s claim, or anyone’s representation of things as they really are, when it’s so easy in today’s world for anyone to be an expert.
Moderator:
Right. Right. I watched that on YouTube once, so they’re from an expert.
Tyler Griffin:
Yeah. So it must be true.
Moderator:
It must be true. Right. Or Facebook even is more true. Right?
Tyler Griffin:
Yeah.
Moderator:
So here’s a question, “I’ve heard it said that the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our apologetics, and you’ve shown that the story of Korihor is the perfect example. What other Book of Mormon stories can be helpful lessons in how to maintain and defend the faith?”
Tyler Griffin:
So I would just say that Mormon, and Moroni, and Nephi, and Jacob—the four chief writers on the plates that actually end up getting translated—they saw the Lord. They saw in vision certain things, at least in Nephi’s and in Mormon’s and Moroni’s case where they tell us explicitly they’ve seen clear into the future, they saw our day. I think Nephi makes it pretty clear in 2 Nephi 28 what he sees in the latter days regarding truth claims, and religious struggles to spread the truth and those who are fighting against the truth; and the whole idea there in 2 Nephi 28 this idea of trust in the arm of flesh, trust in the wisdom, we’re going to cut you off from God and the Spirit, because he’s not a miracle God anymore. You’ve just got to trust me. Listen to my learning. Listen to my words. In my mind, the best thing we can do as teachers is not to say to people, just trust me. Just trust me. I know what I’m saying, and show them all of our credentials, and tell them everything that we’ve studied, and why we’re so smart, and smarter than the people who are making opposite claims.
The most powerful position we have is to simply teach truth from sources that can be triangulated. So you don’t just prooftext one verse here, and one verse here, and one statement here from your favorite leader or favorite social mover across the world. But you look at truth from all possible angles in as many authorized sources as you can find. And then you invite, after teaching those truths—triangulated truths—then teach people to turn to the Lord and ask Him to guide them to know how that all applies.
Moderator:
That’s all very good. I always try to teach my students, just read the footnotes. Follow the footnotes. See what they really say. See if it says what the writer claims it says, because often it doesn’t.
Tyler Griffin:
It doesn’t. There’s a lot of interpretation going on.
Moderator:
Right. So in addition to your excellent explanation and presentation, could it not also be that Korihor is justifying his own abandonment of previous belief on his part?
Tyler Griffin:
No question. No question that’s at play. And again, I need to be so careful, because sometimes when we’re in a teaching setting in the Church, it’s so easy to demonize people, and to make fun, and to point fingers of scorn and say, what an idiot. Doesn’t he—yeah, I know that I am dumb, and we chuckle, yeah, you are dumb. That’s not helpful. That’s not helpful for people who are struggling in the faith, or for people who feel abandoned by the Lord, and who are seeking answers. The reality isn’t to preach Korihor into hell. It’s to learn from Korihor’s experience, as well as Alma’s experience superimposed side by side with that, and say, what was Korihor’s journey like as far as what I have access to? And how can I prevent following that same path in my own life, and in the life of people that I have influence over?
Moderator:
That’s very good. I like that. So in your experience as a religious educator, what are the most common questions and/or doubts you hear from your students?
Tyler Griffin:
Good question. Some of the most common ones are things that today different than they were 25 years ago when I started my career as a seminary teacher. Today it’s a lot of the social issues. It’s a lot of the very core questions in our society, that our whole society and culture are wrestling with. And they’re looking for answers. And the old, just pat them on the head and tell them don’t worry about it, just pray, read your scriptures, go to church used to work. That’s not working anymore. So now when you tell people pray about it and they say, I have been, for five years I’ve been studying and I still don’t have an answer. It’s interesting, because we have a culture that wants instantaneous results. And often when we read scriptures, because of the compressed nature of the abridgment or the storytelling, it makes it feel like, well see? He had this question. He had this problem or this situation. He did X, Y, and Z, and success! Happiness. Prosperity. Peace. It’s all good. It’s wonderful.
And what the scriptures don’t often show you, a classic example of that would be Mosiah chapter 21 and 22, Limhi’s people. You read that and you’re like, yeah, three failed attempts against the army to release themselves. And then finally the Lord sends Ammon. And you read it, and you can read it so quickly that it feels like that could have happened within six months, when in reality it stretched over 21 years of intense suffering and bondage, and suffering with losing loved ones, and having to pay these taxes, and working. And it’s hard. And our society I think wants instantaneous results, when in reality God doesn’t seem to be in a hurry when it comes to helping us work through trials of faith. Sometimes they stretch on way longer than people are comfortable with.
Moderator:
Right. Right. I remember I had not a question, but a question somebody asked me, and I thought, no problem. I’ll get that answered right away. And I could not find an answer. And I looked, and I looked, and I looked. And it took months. And finally several months later I went, oh, okay. I came across a source that really laid it out clearly, and my mind opened up, and it answered all the questions. But for a long time I was going, okay I know the Church is true, but I don’t know the answer to this question at all.
Tyler Griffin:
Yeah.
Moderator:
So it takes a while. So here’s another question. Obviously desire and work are keys to studying scripture. What counsel would you give to someone to deepen their study in the Book of Mormon? How can you move from reading the stories to studying the teachings in a way that increases understanding?
Tyler Griffin:
That, that is a great question. And that’s at the core of what I’m talking about, which is changing from having your scripture study being this socially acceptable thing that a member of the Church does every day so they can check a box, but rather saying, I need help. I need a handbook for how to find truth, and live my life in accordance with that truth to the greatest degree that I can find it. So consequently when I open up my scriptures, I’m not looking to read the story of people who lived 2,000 years ago and leave it at that. That’s history. Let me rephrase that, that’s his story. I want to learn from his story. I want to learn from her story. I want to learn from the past and make it my story. Which means when I open up my scripture page, every page I’m asking the question, So what? Who cares? Therefore what? How does this relate to what I’m going through in my life? Where am I on this page? Which character? Which object? Which part of the story is applicable, it’s relevant, it’s urgent in my life to see that? And in so finding myself, I’m also looking for the Lord on every page through the stories, and the characters, and the people. And I’m looking for the opposition. Because like it or lump it, the opposition is part of my life, every day. There’s never a day when the devil gives me a free pass and says I’ll leave you alone today. So I want to know what he’s up to. I want to know his tricks. Look for it on every page.
Moderator:
We really appreciate your presentation. It’s very enlightening and very helpful. Thank you so much.
Tyler Griffin:
Thank you. It was a pleasure.
