Would Ammon’s approach of teaching the scriptures work today with our youth?

Thomas R. Valletta

“He used the scriptures from both the Old and New Worlds as his basic source (Alma 18:36–39). Ammon’s straightforward doctrinal approach calls to mind President J. Reuben Clark Jr.’s comment about how not to teach our spiritually alert youth, ‘There is no need for gradual approaches, for “bed-time” stories, for coddling, for patronizing, or for any of the other childish devices.’ If Ammon could teach doctrine from the scriptures to a wicked Lamanite who barely knew God existed, surely students in modern Zion deserve to be taught in the same way. Conversion comes, as Mormon explains in Alma 32, when we hear the word of God taught by the power of the Holy Ghost” (Hansen, “Book of Alma as a Prototype,” 269).

The Book of Mormon Study Guide: Start to Finish

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