Episode 112: Use Boldness but Not Overbearance (Jan J. Martin)

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BYU Religious Education

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4.8 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 15 September 2024

⏱️ 44 minutes

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Summary

As Alma mentored his sons in teaching the gospel, he counseled them not only to cultivate qualities such as diligence, temperance, humility, and self-reflection, but to also use “boldness, but not overbearance” (Alma 38:12) as part of their approach. The words boldness, bold, and boldly are used twenty-seven times throughout the Book Mormon, primarily to indicate that a person, or a group of people, have spoken or acted with “courage, daring, fearlessness; confidence, assurance, [and] security” (Oxford English Dictionary Online, OED). On the other hand, overbearance is used only once and seems to mean “to overcome, put down, or repress, as by power, authority, influence, or emotional pressure” (OED). In this episode, Dr. Jan J. Martin, associate professor of ancient scripture, discusses Alma’s stylistic teaching advice given to his son Shiblon. She highlights two critical areas of Alma’s methodology: the origin of his prophetic and fatherly counsel for teaching the gospel and his practice of leaning into the Holy Ghost for inspiration on what and how to teach. Alma’s experiences in Ammonihah provide important instruction for anyone with leadership or teaching responsibilities who desire to be bold but not overbearing.

Publications:

· “Use Boldness but Not Overbearance” (Book of Mormon Insights: Letting God Prevail in Your Life, Religious Studies Center, 2024)

· “‘Filthy This Day before God’: Jacob’s Use of Filthy and Filthiness in His Nephite Sermons” (Jacob: Faith and Great Anxiety, Religious Studies Center, 2024)

· “The Prophet Nephi and the Covenantal Nature of ‘Cut Off,’ ‘Cursed,’ ‘Skin of Blackness,’ and ‘Loathsome’” (They Shall Grow Together: The Bible in the Book of Mormon, Religious Studies Center, 2022)

· The Power of Christ’s Deliverance (Religious Studies Center, 2021)

· “Samuel the Lamanite: Confronting the Wall of Nephite Prejudice” (Samuel the Lamanite: That Ye Might Believe, Religious Studies Center, 2021)

· “The Theological Value of the King Hames Language in the Book of Mormon” (Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, 27, 2018)

Click here to learn more about Jan J. Martin

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello my colleague Robbie Taggart told me that the town mood notes that God
0:07.5	gave the Torah to Moses in a white fire engraved with black fire.
0:14.0	Tradition has interpreted this statement to mean that when God revealed the scriptures to Moses,
0:19.0	there were blank spaces between the inspired words, but that these spaces were also divine fire, inspired of God.
0:29.1	In other words, gaps were built into scripture to allow for individual application of its precepts and
0:35.1	principles. This insight has been helpful for me in my recent scripture study. We have
0:41.0	the words on the page but taking time to ponder about those blank spaces has helped me find insights that I might have otherwise missed.
0:50.0	For example, as I recently thought about Alma giving up his role of Chief Judge, so that he could focus on being the high priest, I wondered if that was easy for him.
1:01.0	When we read about it in the scriptures, it's just sort of matter of fact, this is what happens.
1:05.8	But honestly, if I had a prestigious office and chose to give it up, I think I still might sometimes
1:12.1	wonder if I made the right choice. Were there days when
1:15.6	Alma was out preaching but wishing he were at some awesome banquet that he was missing
1:20.0	in the land of Zarahemla? Maybe so. But as I thought about Alma I felt a conviction inside
1:26.2	my heart that Alma didn't have FOMO. He had Jomo, the joy of missing out.
1:33.3	That's a real thing, by the way, you can fact check that.
1:36.1	I think that Alma was happy to miss opportunities in Sarah Hamlet
1:39.5	so that he could have the joy of sharing the gospel with others. All of these insights came from looking at the
1:45.8	white spaces of scripture. Today we're going to explore another example of how looking at the
1:51.6	white spaces can help us glean new insights.
1:55.2	For example, we know that Alma counseled his son Shiblon to be bold but not overbearing.
2:01.7	Did this teaching perhaps come from Alma's own experiences?
2:05.9	He's trying to increase his ability to call on the power of faith and the power of God to
	...

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