This was hard doctrine, even as Peter over in Jerusalem was already discovering. This meant that to be a Christian under the new covenant, male converts need not be circumcised. This was shocking. Circumcision had been the token of the old covenant since the days of Abraham. And there would be no more blood sacrifices. These Nephites would soon learn, as the disciples in Jerusalem had learned, that the Sabbath would no longer be on Saturday, the seventh day, but on Sunday, the first day of the week, which memorializes the Savior's resurrection.
And that was not all. There was nearly 2,000 years of ritual and tradition which was to be set aside and replaced by a whole new Christian religious life style. To gain some idea of the monumental implications of this shattering of past tradition consider the following which would now be abolished:
Only a faithful disciple practicing the law of Moses would appreciate what the new law of the covenant was going to do to so many of the things they had previously considered sacred and unchangeable. One can well imagine what a challenging assignment it was to be a missionary among the Jews in those days, and now among the Nephites.