Moroni now understands that even though there may be weaknesses in the text that he and his father produce, those very weaknesses will become strengths. In the case of the Book of Mormon, there will be those who will understand those weaknesses, but use them to come to the Lord to understand the Book.
To such a one, they will not be taking the Book to one who is learned, for it truly is a book that is sealed to the learned. It is sealed not with bands of metal, but with chains of scholarship and walls of academia. It is sealed to those who would seek proof of it, precisely through those weaknesses that Moroni sees in the text, and perhaps by many that we see even more clearly than did Moroni.
However, it is those very weaknesses that will drive the humble to approach the Book of Mormon from a different perspective. They will not take it to the learned, but directly to God, through whom all truth may be known. The end result of the process will not simply be a belief in the Book of Mormon, but a transformation of the soul that comes through the faithful exercise of faith against the resistance of those weaknesses.
“If the Gentiles Have Not Charity, That Thou Wilt Prove Them”
Translation: this verse is one of the most difficult in the entire text of the Book of Mormon. Multiple allusions are mixed into the translation of Moroni’s meaning, but the allusions only serve to confuse, rather than clarify. Sorting out the intent from the odd combination of allusions requires some careful reconstruction.
[if the Gentiles have not charity, because of our weakness]:Moroni is picking up a theme from his text. This theme is the mocking of the Book of Mormon by the Gentiles because of the perceived weakness of the writing (verse 23-26). This must be the context in which we see the Gentiles in some sort of relationship to the weakness of the writing. However, where the earlier relationship was one of mocking, it is now a lack of charity. Therefore, we expect that this phrase should be a reprise of that earlier theme, indicating the relationship of the Gentiles to the text of the Book of Mormon, and indicating that such a relationship is one in which the Gentiles would mock the book. However, here we have a lack of charity rather than mocking.
This replacement works when we use charity in the sense of good will towards others. However, it makes less sense when we replace the word charity with love. Thus Joseph’s “translation” of the meaning of the phrase reverts to the English connotations of charity rather than the relabeling he has so carefully done to equate charity with love. It is perhaps possible to say that the Gentiles do not have sufficient love of their fellow man to accept the Book of Mormon, but then the object is man, not the weaknesses of the writing.
[thou wilt prove them]: The proving of man is understood as the testing of man against some command from God: