“Persuadeth Them to Do Good”

Alan C. Miner

According to Dean Garrett, Nephi wrote to communicate with the heart and the spirit of man, and persuaded his readers "to do good; [because his record] maketh known unto them of their fathers; and it speaketh of Jesus, and persuadeth them to believe in him, and to endure to the end, which is life eternal" (2 Nephi 33:4). Those who read Nephi's writings need to decide their effect: whether they encourage them to accept Christ and live a Christ-like life, or rather encourage them to do evil and reject Christ. No reader can miss the Christ-centered emphasis of Nephi's record. As George Q. Cannon concluded after having read the book for the first time, "An evil-minded man could not have written it, and a good man would not have tried to write it with intent to deceive" (Evans and Cannon 35). [H. Dean Garrett, Nephi's Farewell," in The Book of Mormon: Second Nephi, The Doctrinal Structure, p. 379]

Step by Step Through the Book of Mormon: A Cultural Commentary

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