Korihor makes a second major mistake. He first visits the people of Ammon, and then he attempts to preach in Gideon. When we read the account of Alma’s early preaching circuit, we noted that while he chastised Zarahemla, he praised the faithfulness of Gideon (Alma 7). For some reason, Korihor has attempted to preach in what appear to have been strongholds of Nephite religion. Perhaps it is not coincidental that the people in Gideon were also a people who had significant experience in Lamanite country. The people of Gideon are those who came from the land of Nephi where they had experienced the secularized administration of King Noah.
Once again, however, Korihor misunderstood the nature of the experience of the people of Gideon. These people had been under the firm tribute-demanding thumb of the Lamanites, and had returned to faith in the Nephite God and gospel as a prelude to being led from that land and captivity. Korihor apparently thought that the previous Lamanitish beliefs of both the people of Ammon and of Gideon might have made them easy targets to revert to those beliefs. What Korihor found instead where those whose personal experience with God had shown them the difference, and they were of no mind to return to an ideology that did not have the force of their current knowledge.
Legal: Mormon has spent time telling us of the Nephite law that allowed everyone to believe as they would. This certainly applies to Korihor, but when Korihor preaches in both Jershon and Gideon he is bound and brought before the judge. Isn’t this a contradiction? Doesn’t it appear that in these two cities they acted illegally?
While we do not understand the particulars of the Nephite law, there is a principle here that we can understand. While Korihor had the right to preach, the people Gideon and Korihor had the right not to listen. It is quite probable that there was no law against the removal of a person from their midst. The legal difference is that there was no punishment for Korihor’s beliefs, but there was an apparently legal ability of the people to remove an unwanted influence from their community. Even though we in the modern world have neither the legal option nor the unified communal will to bind up our unsavory influences, we nevertheless individually have the ability to symbolically bind and remove them. As did the peoples of Jershon and Gideon, we may bind and remove such influences from our families, and from our hearts. There are some influences that we may physically remove from our homes, and some against which our strong faith alone must stand in defense. In all such cases, the examples of the peoples of Jershon and Gideon show us that firm faith transcends our prior worldview. Even with past acceptance of such influences we are not precluded from a true repentance and a firm future rejection of those influences that we may have, in the past, embraced in times of our lesser faith.