These verses flow from the need to discern false prophets. The problem with a false prophet comes when that prophet professes to be a true representative. It is easy to discern the false prophet who makes no claim to be Christian. However, there were to come those who did profess the gospel who would come and attempt to lead the community of Christ astray. The documentary history of the early church as we know that documentary history, suggests that there were large numbers of differing opinions and writers. The Nag Hammadi texts are a collection of Gnostic texts that were part of an entire library of materials representing a Christian movement that was not part of what became known as mainstream Christianity.
The people who wrote the Nag Hammadi texts were certainly believers, and certainly faithful. Their faith was simply in a different flavor of Christianity. Certain for the mainstream church, the Gnostic movement would have represented a type of church that would have prophets who proclaim to have done works in the name of Christ. Jesus warns his community that not only would false prophets arise, but that they would be difficult to detect because they would proclaim the name of Christ. Of course there was a difference in the authority of one to work in Christ’s name, and simply claiming the name was insufficient.
Book of Mormon Context: As with the section on the false prophets, this saying would have had little relevance to the Mesoamerican Nephites.
Textual: There are no changes from the Matthean text.