The Church Among the Nephites

In the Old Testament, at least the King James version, the word church does not appear anywhere.  It was Christ in the New Testament who announced that He would “build my church” and many references to a church are found throughout the book of Acts and the epistles (Matt. 16:18).  In the Book of Mormon, we first read of a church in Nephi’s reference to “the brethren of the church” who were the associates of Laban (1 Nephi 4:26).  Other than that, Nephi prophesied much about churches that would be built up in the last days: he spoke of “the formation of a great church” and the “great and abominable church” as well as “God and the people of his church” (1 Nephi 13:4, 22:13; 2 Nephi 26:14).  He predicted that there would be “many churches” in the last days that would be built up and that they would become corrupted (2 Nephi 26:20).  But he never spoke about a “church” among the Nephites of his day, only “those who believed in the warnings and revelations of God” (2 Nephi 5:6). 

               The first that we hear of a church among the Nephites was with Alma the Elder.  When Alma gathered his followers at the waters of Mormon, he baptized the people “and they were called the church of God, or the church of Christ, from that time forward.  And it came to pass that whosoever was baptized by the power and authority of God was added to his church” (Mosiah 18:17).  It appears that this was the first time that the people of the Nephites were officially organized into a church.  The text makes that clear in several other references.  Mormon recorded that Alma “had formed a church of God through the strength and power of God, and faith on the words which had been spoken by Abinadi” (Mosiah 21:30).  Alma was considered “the founder of their church” by the people, and when the Lord spoke to him, He said, “And blessed art thou because thou hast established a church among this people; and they shall be established, and they shall be my people” (Mosiah 23:16, 26:17).  When Alma joined back up with the Nephites and King Mosiah we read that “king Mosiah had given Alma the authority over the church” (Mosiah 26:8).  It appears that the king was the ultimate spiritual leader of the people, but he granted Alma the authority to direct the affairs of the church.  “King Mosiah granted unto Alma that he might establish churches throughout all the land of Zarahemla; and gave him power to ordain priests and teachers over every church” (Mosiah 25:18-19).

               I’m not sure exactly why there was this shift at this time with an official “church” being first established about 500 years into the history of the Nephites or how exactly it differed from what they had previously as their religious organization.  Perhaps the reason for the change had something to do with the big transition at this same time of moving from a king to a system of judges.  The new government made it so each person could more fully “answer for his own sins” (Mosiah 29:38).  Each person took on more responsibility for the success of the Nephite society with the system of judges, and in a similar way each member of the church became more responsible for the welfare of others as they covenanted to “mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort” (Mosiah 18:9).