Rhetoric: Benjamin again asserts that his catalog of achievements is not a boast. Rather, he shifts the focus back to Yahweh, a skilled rhetorical movement that acknowledges but moves beyond his possible “accusation.” Benjamin reminds his people that his efforts in their behalf have not come from a desire for personal gain, but rather from a relationship with Yahweh.
He then extends this relationship with Yahweh to his people. This sentence is an important transition to the rest of his sermon, because he will ask his people to rename themselves as part of a new covenant. The Nephites always declare their relationship to Israel and hence see themselves as people of the covenant. Benjamin is not dismissing that covenant, but presenting a new social covenant that includes a renewal of the covenant with Yahweh. They will still be Israelites, but a newly formed body of Israelites with new communal bonds and a renewed declaration of their client/patron relationship with Yahweh. He establishes their ability to enter into a personal relationship with Yahweh, just as Benjamin has and just as they have with Benjamin.
In ancient Mesoamerican society, the people were culturally primed to accept a special relationship between king and God, even to accept the king as God. The culture of Zarahemla assumed such a relationship. Thus, many, if not most, of Benjamin’s audience would have been culturally inclined to believe that lineage and rank created that relationship; but Benjamin removes these exclusive elements by assuring them that the special relationship stems from actions that anyone can perform, regardless of lineage or rank, regardless of poverty or wealth. For this reason, he tells them that he is teaching them “wisdom,” clarifying their understanding of the truth. This teaching, by implication, also stands in contrast to what they would learn from the surrounding kings. Benjamin, through the use of his personal example, becomes a tangible manifestation of how the assumed exclusive relationship of king and God may be expanded, enjoyed by all.
Scripture: How is it possible that “when ye are in the service of your fellow beings, you are only in the service of your God”? The first implication is that of a servant-master relationship, with benefits to each party. It is the master’s responsibility to provide appropriately for the servant, and the servant’s responsibility to fulfill the master’s will. While the servant is certainly bound to obey, he benefits by the right to and responsibility for goods and actions that might otherwise be unavailable to him.
In the divine relationship, we become the Lord’s servants when we enter his service. With the Lord as our master, we also have access to abilities and possibilities that are otherwise unavailable. We willingly yield him our obedience in exchange for greater blessings. Our modern world places such an emphasis on freedom that we can easily miss how we benefit. As analogy, an employee of a large firm willingly exchanges his “freedom” to be elsewhere than the office for the rewards and compensations that the firm offers its employees. In accomplishing the company’s goals, the employee gains experience and increases his talents in ways not previously available. While exploitive employers, like wicked masters, are certainly a risk of such relationships, it is not a danger in a relationship with the Lord. Rather, the relationship offers only benefits.
Benjamin here invites all of his people to enter into the same kind of personal servant/master relationship with Yahweh that he has. The key element of establishing this relationship is to serve—in this case, to serve one’s fellow beings. This interesting formulation is echoed in two different teachings of Jesus. First, Jesus also condensed the essential relationship with God into a single concept, that of love: “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matt. 22:37–40).
Second, Jesus also commanded his followers to serve their fellow beings: “And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matt. 25:40).
Understanding such Godlike love can be the entire basis for one’s relationship to God (the purpose of the law and the prophets) because such a love will govern one’s actions as though it were God. Service emerges from such love. Because Benjamin’s people have been schooled in the law of Moses (Mosiah 2:3), Benjamin is refocusing them much as Jesus did—away from the particulars of the law and into the heart of it.