July 22-28: Alma 32-35
Plant This Word in Your Hearts
Brent Croxton (American, born 1955)
seed/flower/tree/fruit (2024)
Digital image
Collection of the artist
Used with permission of the artist
Alma 32 is a chapter about faith, shared in allegory. Testimony is compared to a seed, which swells, sprouts, grows, and takes root. Artist Brent Croxton visualizes Alma and Amulek’s teachings through other symbolic representation.
From the artist: “I’ve been working on a symbolic interpretation of Alma’s discourse on the faith in Alma 32. It’s titled seed/flower/tree/fruit. This is a 4-paneled image, each panel representing one of the following: the seed, the flower, the tree, and the fruit. Behind each of these symbols are the ancient, sacred geometries of the seed of life, the flower of life, and the tree of life.
Elder Holland said this about Alma 32: ‘In brilliant discourse, Alma moves the reader from a general commentary on faith in the seed-like word of God to a focused discourse in Christ as the Word of God, grown to a fruit-bearing tree, a tree whose fruit if exactly that of Lehi’s earlier perception of Christ’s love…Christ is the seed, the tree, and the fruit of eternal life.’”
Discussion Questions:
The Zoramites cast the poor out of their synagogues. Alma favorably refers to these outcasts as "without stubbornness of heart" (Alma 32:16). Have you ever had a stubborn heart? How did your heart become softened?
Alma retells the story of Moses in the wilderness when he held up a brass serpent on a pole and all who looked up at the serpent were healed (Numbers 21:7-9). Alma explained that the serpent was a symbol for Jesus and if we look to Him, we can be healed. How can you look to Jesus to lift your burdens (Alma 33:23)?
Alma explains that even after we "have done all these things," if we do not share and show compassion to others, all the rest "is vain" (Alma 34:28-29). Why is being charitable such an overarching principle in following Jesus?
Questions for Youth & Children:
Alma taught the people the gospel in their synagogues, in their houses, and even in the street (Alma 32:1). Where have you shared the gospel? Can you think of a specific time when you shared a gospel principle or something about Jesus with someone? How did it make you feel?
Alma told the people that they do not need to be inside a church to worship and they should not just worship once a week (Alma 32:10-11). How can you worship God on Monday through Saturday?
Alma explains how faith is like a seed that grows into a tree with fruit (Alma 32; 26-43). Draw a storyboard of planting a seed, including what the seed needs to grow and what happens as it grows. How do the events in your storyboard relate to faith? In what gospel principle do you have faith and how has it grown like a seed?
