“Jesus Looked Upon the Twelve He Had Chosen”

Brant Gardner

There is no clear basis for this deletion, and it is perhaps unfortunate, for it provides an important context. These verses have focused on the principle that anxiety over accumulating an excess beyond one’s needs is not the proper goal. Jesus contrasts his listeners to the Gentiles, whom he portrays as concerned for accumulating excess. Indeed, in the Old World, his audience would have been well aware of the Gentiles’ excess accumulation since it was their own labor that created it.

Book of Mormon Context: The people of Bountiful would readily see in these sayings the Nephite egalitarian ideal. After the Gadiantons, with their emphasis on social hierarchy and the accumulation of visible wealth, had destroyed the Nephite polity, this teaching would strike a chord to which they would respond.

Second Witness: Analytical & Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 5

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