If you’re not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or any of the other splintered organisations descending from Joseph Smith, you might not have read the Book of Mormon – and maybe you don’t think there’s any reason for you to do so. But before you click away, please read this from Baptist minister, Lynn Ridenhour:

I’m a licensed Southern Baptist minister and I embrace the Book of Mormon.

That is, I believe the truths recorded in it. No, I’m not a convert to the Mormon faith, nor am I a member of any particular “spin-off” restoration group such as the RLDS (Reorganized Latter-day Saints), Hedrikites, or Strangites. I’m still a Baptist minister. To be exact, I’m “charismatic Baptist.” That is, I still embrace the “born again” experience. I still believe you’re saved by grace. By the shed blood of Christ. Salvation is by faith alone in His finished work on Calvary. I still believe in the Baptism in the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit. I believe and embrace those cardinal doctrines of Protestantism.

And you know what?…

 I still believe the Book of Mormon too!

…The two go hand in hand, really–Protestant doctrine and the Book of Mormon. They’re not at odds. The Book of Mormon is filled with Protestant cardinal doctrines, believe it or not. In fact, I discovered, the Book of Mormon is more “Baptist” than the Baptist hymnal in places. I know that’s hard to believe, but it’s so. I read the Book from cover to cover and found as a Baptist minister, there is absolutely nothing in it that contradicts the Bible.

For example, the book uplifts the blood of Christ (Mosiah 1:118), declares that salvation is only by God’s grace (2 Nephi 7:42), defends the grand theme of salvation (Mosiah 1:108), and proclaims that salvation comes only through faith on the Lord Jesus Christ (Mosiah 3:8,9). Other themes such as repentance, atonement by Christ’s blood, redemption, and forgiveness run like a scarlet thread through the book as well (Alma 3:86, Helaman 2:71, Alma 13:13, Mosiah 2:3,4). Thus, our “tongue ‘n’ cheek” title, The Baptist Version of the Book of Mormon. I’m telling you, the grand themes of Protestantism are found recorded through and through. From cover to cover. (1)

If you’re intrigued by that quote, you should read the full article. As you might probably imagine, given how much I quote from the Book of Mormon myself, I absolutely love that quote – and to be honest, couldn’t agree more. The Book of Mormon, in content, is Baptist, is Methodist, is Catholic, is Episcopalian, is Lutheran, etc, etc. If you love Christ and want to learn about Him and from Him, you really should read the Book of Mormon. It is non-denominational and totally awesome!

Latter-day Saints (Mormons) should appreciate it already (although I don’t think we really do), but for everyone else, if you can bring yourself to pay attention to the Book of Mormon, there are some wonderful messages in it.

Central to it is Jesus Christ’s physical appearance among the people after His resurrection. Just prior to this, there was a terrible destruction across the land, with the most wicked people destroyed (2). As the people were mourning the loss of family and friends, and with complete darkness covering the land, the Lord spoke to them out of that darkness.

Amongst the things he said to them, was this:

‘And ye shall offer up unto me no more the shedding of blood; yea, your sacrifices and your burnt offerings shall be done away, for I will accept none of your sacrifices and your burnt offerings. And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost, even as the Lamanites, because of their faith in me at the time of their conversion, were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and they knew it not.’ (3 Nephi 9:19-20)

There is so much of importance in this passage but I want to focus on the new sacrifice required of us – that of a broken heart and a contrite spirit. This wasn’t a new doctrine to the Nephites, just as it wasn’t a new doctrine in the New Testament. The Law of Moses was always intended to lead people to the higher law; the preparatory gospel is always intended to lead people to the fulness of the gospel.

Behold, my soul delighteth in proving unto my people the truth of the coming of Christ; for, for this end hath the law of Moses been given; and all things which have been given of God from the beginning of the world, unto man, are the typifying of him. (2 Nephi 11:4)

Behold, they believed in Christ and worshiped the Father in his name, and also we worship the Father in his name. And for this intent we keep the law of Moses, it pointing our souls to him; and for this cause it is sanctified unto us for righteousness, even as it was accounted unto Abraham in the wilderness to be obedient unto the commands of God in offering up his son Isaac, which is a similitude of God and his Only Begotten Son. (Jacob 4:5)

Behold, he offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law, unto all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit; and unto none else can the ends of the law be answered. (2 Nephi 2:7)

The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. (Psalms 34:18)

Something I find interesting about the word ‘spirit’ is its Hebrew – ruach. It can also be translated as breath, wind, or mind. Having this in mind is important for our study of developing a broken heart and contrite spirit, because the opposite is often described as having a hard heart, and blind mind. We’ll get into that a bit later.

In the Lectures on Faith, Joseph Smith taught:

‘And he being the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, and having overcome, received a fulness of the glory of the Father—possessing the same mind with the Father, which mind is the Holy Spirit … The Father and the Son possessing the same mind, the same wisdom, glory, power and fulness: Filling all in all—the Son being filled with the fulness of the Mind, glory and power, or, in other words, the Spirit, glory and power of the Father … being filled with the fulness of the Mind of the Father, or, in other words, the Spirit of the Father: which Spirit is shed forth upon all who believe on his name and keep his commandments.’ (LoF 5:2) (3)

As we start to use the terms ‘spirit’ and ‘mind’ interchangeably, we’ll begin to see a number of scriptures open up to us. For example:

And the Lord called his people ZION, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them. (Moses 7:18) In other words, Zion consisted of people who had all made the sacrifice of a broken heart and a contrite spirit.

Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart. (Doctrine & Covenants 8:2) Here we note that the Holy Ghost witnesses to the very same parts of our being that we must sacrifice to the Lord. I believe it follows that we will only be able to feel the Holy Ghost in our lives to the degree that we have made this sacrifice of a broken heart and a contrite spirit. Alma elaborates on this point:

And now Alma began to expound these things unto him, saying: It is given unto many to know the mysteries of God; nevertheless they are laid under a strict command that they shall not impart only according to the portion of his word which he doth grant unto the children of men, according to the heed and diligence which they give unto him. And therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full. And they that will harden their hearts, to them is given the lesser portion of the word until they know nothing concerning his mysteries; and then they are taken captive by the devil, and led by his will down to destruction. Now this is what is meant by the chains of hell. (Alma 12:9-11)

Later in the same sermon, Alma teaches:

But God did call on men, in the name of his Son, (this being the plan of redemption which was laid) saying: If ye will repent, and harden not your hearts, then will I have mercy upon you, through mine Only Begotten Son; Therefore, whosoever repenteth, and hardeneth not his heart, he shall have claim on mercy through mine Only Begotten Son, unto a remission of his sins; and these shall enter into my rest. (Alma 12:33-34)

Christ said something similar to the Nephites:

O ye house of Israel whom I have spared, how oft will I gather you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, if ye will repent and return unto me with full purpose of heart. (3 Nephi 10:6)

The Hebrew word for ‘broken’ is shabar and also can mean crushed, destroyed, shattered or smashed.

For ‘contrite’, the Hebrew is dakar, and can mean crush, crouch or collapse.

Stop and think about that. Our sacrifice for the Lord is to be our hearts becoming crushed, shattered or smashed; and our spirits crushed or collapsed. That sounds pretty extreme. My experience is that it is exactly this extreme. It’s not possible to come to Him half-hearted. 

To say that Christ is a man acquainted with grief is such a dramatic understatement (see Isaiah 53:3). He carried everything, right? The weight was so great, He even asked the Father to remove the cup if it was possible (see Matthew 26:39). It was almost too much for even God.

Fortunately, we don’t need to take upon ourselves anything remotely close to what He suffered, but our bitter cups will still take us to the brink and beyond. They will still break us. They must, because most of us are simply incapable to truly giving Him all of our hearts, every tiny bit of our spirits and minds, until we truly realise, like Moses, that compared to Him – that without Him – we are nothing (see Moses 1:10). We need him in our lives in a way we can’t understand until we need Him so desperately. We’re not supposed to carry the burden of our sorrows and griefs and pains without Him.

The great beauty of it is that when we do finally make that realisation and we truly offer Him so willingly our broken hearts and contrite spirits, He will immediately be there for us. He’s waiting for us.

© Copyright 2025, Jeffrey Collyer

1. http://www.centerplace.org/library/bofm/baptistversionofbofm.htm
2. When reading the Book of Mormon as an apocalyptic text, this passage should make us think about events leading up to Christ’s second coming.
3. I find it so frustrating that the Church removed the Lectures on Faith from the Doctrine and Covenants (D&C). One of the key drivers for removing them was that parts appeared to conflict with other parts of the D&C; but ironically, it only conflicted with parts that the Church had itself added in the 1870’s. In other words, the Lectures on Faith harmonised perfectly well with the D&C as it was published under Joseph Smith. It only started conflicting when the Church started changing what was in there, and the result was the removal of the part of the D&C that Joseph considered to be the doctrine.