In Moroni 7:3, Mormon began by saying, “I would speak unto you that are of the church.” It appears that the text in Moroni 7 is Mormon’s opening speech after being commanded to teach and build up the church. In Mormon 3:2, he had received the call to preach again. The Lord had said, “Cry unto this people. Repent ye and come unto me and be baptized and build up again my church and ye shall be spared”—a principle with a promise. In verse 2, Mormon explicitly said, “I am permitted to speak unto you at this time.” The Lord had permitted it, after a period of being asked not to preach, and he began by speaking to the more faithful.
Mormon’s wording aimed right at the hearts of his audience. He said, “I would speak unto you that are of the church, that are the peaceable followers of Christ, that have obtained a sufficient hope by which ye can enter into the rest of the Lord from this time henceforth until ye shall rest with him in heaven.” Any Nephite listening to Mormon would have been weary from being on the run. They were a war-torn generation. All they had known was strife and instability. Yearning for the peace that comes from entering into the rest of the Lord would have been a very powerful way for him to begin his talk, especially as a ten-year period of peace had been negotiated.
“And now my brethren, I judge these things of you because of your peaceable walk with the children of men.” He is speaking to his synagogue, his beloved brethren, his church, and his people. He was blessed with an inner-group of faithful believers. He was leading Nephites, Jacobites, Josephites, Zoramites, and many different people; but here, he is likely addressing the leaders, the ones who really held the Nephite tradition together. They were people who had hope in the “Rest of the Lord.” They had a start, and he wanted to stir them to greater works. Fourteen times, Mormon interrupts his train of thought by calling out to his “brethren,” and nine of those times he refers to them as “my beloved brethren.”