Alma 4: The Silk Was There in Chapter 1 Too

I think Alma 4 gets taught as a chapter about nice clothes, and I don't think clothes are what it's worried about. Verse 6 is the one that sticks, with its fine silks and fine-twined linen and then "very costly apparel." It's easy to hold up in a lesson and easy to agree with. The verse I'd underline is 12.

The timing is what I'd look at first, since verse 5 closes out the seventh year with about three thousand five hundred people baptized and "continual peace," and verse 6 opens the eighth year with a church grown proud.

A year. That's the chapter's own count.

Is it the silk that Alma 4 is worried about?

Go back to Alma 1. Once the church had steadied, verse 29 says they "began to be exceedingly rich," with flocks and gold and silver and "silk and fine-twined linen, and all manner of good homely cloth." Same silk, same linen, same church. I spent most of the post on Nehor and Gideon on the early verses of that chapter, and the silk was sitting in verse 29 the whole time.

What Alma 1 says about the money comes one verse later: "they did not set their hearts upon riches," and they "did not send away any who were naked, or that were hungry." Put Alma 4:8 next to that. The church began to "set their hearts upon riches." And verse 12 has them turning their backs on exactly the people verse 30 says they didn't send away.

Yea, he saw great inequality among the people, some lifting themselves up with their pride, despising others, turning their backs upon the needy and the naked and those who were hungry, and those who were athirst, and those who were sick and afflicted. (Alma 4:12)

So the wealth is the same and the cloth is the same, and two things have turned around. The hearts went from off the riches to on them. The door went from open to shut. Verse 6 says the wealth was "obtained by their industry," so nobody in this chapter is accused of stealing it, and verse 9 says the pride grew to "exceed the pride of those who did not belong to the church." Alma 1:32 describes those outsiders as people "wearing costly apparel." The apparel is the part anyone could see from the road. Verse 12 is what it was a sign of.

Alma more or less confirms the order when he gets to the sermon. In Alma 5:53 he asks whether they'll "persist in the wearing of costly apparel," and two verses later he asks whether they'll "persist in turning your backs upon the poor, and the needy, and in withholding your substance from them" (Alma 5:55). Both are on his list, and the second is the longer question.

My father-in-law, Robert Pearson, is a family dentist in St. George and has worn the same Timex since he bought it at a Kmart in 1991. A few Christmases ago his five kids split the cost of a Seiko for him, $340 all told. He thanked them and wore it through dessert, and by Monday he was back in the Timex. Diane said to the whole kitchen, "He's wearing that Timex at you," and Melissa had to set down the pan she was holding.

I wouldn't call the Timex pride. A wrist can't tell you that either way, and Alma 4 doesn't ask a wrist. It asks who is standing outside in verse 12.

Why did Alma give up the judgment seat?

Alma had held two offices since Mosiah 29:42, where he's named "the first chief judge, he being also the high priest." In Alma 4:16-18 he splits them. He picks "a wise man who was among the elders of the church," Nephihah, and gives him power to "enact laws" and "put them in force," and he keeps the priesthood office for himself. If you want to know how that seat got built in the first place, I covered it in the Mosiah 29 post on judging the judges.

The reason sits in verse 19, and it's blunter than I'd remembered. He went out so that he could "pull down, by the word of God, all the pride and craftiness and all the contentions," because he saw "no way that he might reclaim them save it were in bearing down in pure testimony against them." That fits what Alma 1:17 had already shown from the bench: "the law could have no power on any man for his belief." Envy and scorn and a turned back aren't things a court can fine. So he gave up the office that could compel and kept the one that could only persuade.

Somebody has to sit through the cases, and Nephihah gets one verse of credit and one adjective for it.

Alma paid too.

Verse 15 says he "began to be very sorrowful," and in the same breath that the Spirit of the Lord did not fail him, which is a sentence you only write about someone who thought it might.

Then there's verse 20, where he "confined himself wholly" to the testimony of the word. Compare Alma 1:26, where the teachers in the church worked with everyone else and "the preacher was no better than the hearer." That was year one. By year nine the high priest has stopped doing anything but preach. I can see why. I'm also not sure the two arrangements are the same thing, and I wouldn't call the second one a mistake.

What changed between year seven and year eight?

Before the silk there was a bad stretch, in verses 2 and 3, when Lamanites trampled the grain, people had lost brethren and flocks, and "every soul had cause to mourn." They took it as judgment and "were awakened to a remembrance of their duty." Then peace comes in verse 5, and by verse 6 the silk is out. The chapter doesn't say whether it was the peace or the money or one more easy year, and I wouldn't pick.

One line in verse 4 changes the sermon for me, which is that many who joined in those years "were baptized by the hand of Alma." When he goes out in verse 19 to bear down on the proud, a good number of them are people he put under the water himself, and that's a harder sermon to give than one to strangers.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did Alma stop leading the church when he gave up the judgment seat?

Verse 18 says he "retained the office of high priest unto himself," and verse 20 says he gave himself wholly to it. What he dropped was the civil bench. He went out among the people, which is more work than a chair in Zarahemla, so no.

Does Alma 4 say it's wrong to be wealthy?

Not that I can find. Verse 6 says the riches came by industry, and Alma 1:29-30 describes the same church with the same wealth and open hands. The chapter is hard on what they did once they had it, and the hungry in verse 12 are its measure.

Who was Nephihah?

All this chapter gives is verses 16 and 17, a wise man from among the elders who was given power "according to the voice of the people" and made chief judge. I'd rather not fill in the rest from memory.

Why does verse 10 say the church "began to fail in its progress"?

Verses 9 through 11 give the cause as contention inside the church and then the example it set outside. Alma "saw also that the example of the church began to lead those who were unbelievers on from one piece of iniquity to another." Thousands had joined the year before, so a lot of people were watching.

What I still don't like about this chapter is how it treats the people in verse 12. The hungry and the sick get a long, careful sentence. Verses 13 and 14 name some others for feeding them, and after that the needy never come up again. Everything from verse 16 on is about the proud and what Alma does about them. Alma 5:55 asks the question, so I know he didn't forget, but this chapter ends with a sermon planned and nobody fed. Verse 19 also sounds more sure than I'd be. Alma sees "no way" besides testimony, and Alma 1:26-30 had shown a church running on labor and open hands, and it had worked.

— D.