The Invention of Church
As I was reading in Mosiah a few weeks ago, I did a double take at these verses: "And he commanded them that they should observe the sabbath day, and keep it holy, and also every day they should give thanks to the Lord their God. . . . And there was one day in every week that was set apart that they should gather themselves together to teach the peple, and to worship the Lord their God, and also, as often as it was in their power, to assemble themelves together" (Mosiah 18:23, 25). Do you see what's so odd about these two verses? First Alma commands them to keep the Sabbath day holy, and then he sets apart one day in the week on which the people of God are to gather together and worship. From our modern perspective, these two verses seem redundant because we honor the Sabbath by attending church, gathering together to worship. In fact, I initially tried to rationalize this apparent redundancy in three ways: 1) Perhaps, because of King Noah's wickedness, Alma and