The question has been asked repeatedly: what are the battle scenes in the Book of Mormon for? I have heard a variety of answers, but somehow the one that most surfaces seems to be that one day, we, too, may engage in a battle and need to use some of these strategies. While I won’t totally dismiss that, I think so many people just plain look those scenes for what I really believe them to be: allegories and parables. I truly believe that most if not all of those scenes can be applied to our lives, if we would just take the time to ponder them in depth.
Let me give you an example we came across in our family scripture study a few days ago. We were reading Alma 49, where Amalickiah sends the Lamanite army to attack the city of Ammonihah. You see, the Lamanites had already had success in the past with attacking this city, and also the city of Noah, which they make an attempt at. They knew that these cities had been weak places in the Nephite defense system.
But the Lamanites weren’t the only ones who knew these two cities were a problem. As the chapter begins, Captain Moroni instructed the soldiers to “cast up dirt round about to shield them from the arrows and the stones of the Lamanites” (verse 2).
Moroni knew that the Lamanites would attack them in their weak places, and so he made sure that the people fortified them. Today, Satan attacks us in our weak places, at the chinks in our armor. He knows what we struggle most with, and that is where he hits us. If we have a problem with tithing, he probably won’t take his primary aim at our scripture study; he’ll go for the financial chink. If he knows we have problems with patience, you can bet he’ll challenge us on it every time.
It is up to us, like Moroni, to fortify ourselves, to make ourselves stronger. In fact, that’s what we just discussed tonight in our scripture study. We discussed how, over and over again, Moroni made sure the Nephites fortified themselves against the Lamanite attack – even when there wasn’t an attack in progress. I asked my kids how we could fortify ourselves against Satan, using the battle scenes again as a learning experience.
In case you think it is just me, since I am an English major and doomed to look for underlying meaning, a friend of mine told me a few years back how her bishop had compared one of the Book of Mormon battle scenes to her family struggles. She talked about building a wall and focusing on strengthening the inside – her immediate family – first. I don’t remember the exact reference, but the point is, I’m not the only crazy person around here.
In all seriousness, I do believe that the battles in the Book of Mormon contain a great number of things to learn and apply in our personal lives. When I envision Mormon chiseling for endless hours these scenes, I know there was a reason. Furthermore, Nephi often repeats the entreaty to use the plates for spiritual teaching, and not for history. This seems to support the idea that we can learn so much from applying these scriptures to our lives.
Related Articles:
Gospel Doctrine: Why Speakest Thou…In Parables?
Gospel Doctrine: The Parable of the Sower
Gospel Doctrine: Seeking Out the Lost