Benjamin begins to describe a series of attributes that describe one who has continued in humility and faith. He is now describing the actions that will flow from the spiritual humility and acceptance of the gospel. What is most interesting is that while all of these actions may be construed individually, they are all social actions.
We return again to the contentions that were so recently banished from their midst. Those contentions split apart the community. Benjamin’s purpose is to heal and restore the community which he will ultimately do with the covenant attached to their new name. We err if we separate these communal interests from Benjamin’s discourse. While the traits may be applied to the individual, the result of the actions is a type of community, and a type of communal interaction.
In this context, it is very significant that the first communal benefit from this new humility and accepting of Christ is that “ye will not have a mind to injure one another, but to live peaceably….” The relevant to the internal contentions is obvious. One of the fruits of their new acceptance of Christ (a communal acceptance of Christ) will be that they will have no more desire “to injure one another.” Both through the removal of the source of contentions, and the infusion of a new spirit, the old antagonisms will be gone. There will be no more civil war, but they will “live peaceably” with themselves!
The final phrase of these new conditions will be that they will “render to every man according to that which is his due.” What does Benjamin intend here? The only clear reference is that previously there were conditions when every man did not receive his due. It will become clearer as we examine the rest of the communal actions Benjamin declares, but our understanding of the internal conflicts within the Nephite community at the time of Jacob are suggestive. Zarahemla is at this period in time a comparatively wealthy town, and therefore contains comparatively wealthy people. To the degree that wealth is used to create social distinctions, some men are not receiving their due because wealth becomes concentrated in a limited number of hands. This was the downfall of the City of Nephi, and was probably part of the cultural inheritance of the Zarahemlaites (the Nephites who fled the City of Nephi would have seen the destructiveness of class divisions, and indeed, were likely fleeing from them – those Nephites, Benjamin among them, would be much more sensitive to the redistribution of wealth).