Redaction: Without any transition except this announcement, Moroni terminates his explanation of liturgy. Chapter 7 is a sermon, apparently quoted verbatim. The text, which uses first-person pronouns, is given as Mormon’s words, just as Mormon himself had earlier quoted sermons by others.
A possible connection between the liturgical information in the previous chapters and this sermon comes from the final verse of the previous chapter: “And their meetings were conducted by the church after the manner of the workings of the Spirit, and by the power of the Holy Ghost; for as the power of the Holy Ghost led them whether to preach, or to exhort, or to pray, or to supplicate, or to sing, even so it was done” (Moro. 6:9).
Moroni’s liturgical discussion ended with a generalized description, but not a specific one, of activities in church meetings. This sermon, which follows immediately, seems to be a specific example of preaching and exhorting. It would be only a sample, for spontaneous preaching and exhorting led by the Spirit would change with every meeting. In modern LDS worship, we understand that there will be speakers in sacrament meetings but expect different subjects from week to week, even though certain themes will recur and certain phrases will be familiarly repeated.
Verse 1 also discloses that the Nephite terminology for a place of worship has continued, since Mormon gives this discourse in a synagogue “which they had built for the place of worship.” Synagogues had been mentioned also in Alma 16:13 and Alma 26:29. Joseph may have used “synagogue” as a convenient label in his translation, or it may indicate a conceptual continuation of the previous practice. In the Old World, a rift developed between the non-Christianized Jews and the Christians. The wider the rift, the greater the divorce in practice and descriptive language. One result is that modern Christians meet in churches, not synagogues; the different terms developed to define differences, to emphasize discontinuity. In the New World, there was no such rift. There is no indication that non-Christianized Nephites continued to exist, especially in the first 200 years after the visitation. Their theology had already been pre-Christian, and the great destruction before the Messiah’s appearance destroyed “the wicked,” or those who did not accept Yahweh-Messiah. The Savior’s appearance created a rather dramatic new beginning, but not one that had to differentiate between the new and the old that occurred in the Old World.