by Matt Crawford

The widow of Zarephath is one of my favorite stories from the Old Testament. Perhaps the greatest reason that this story resonates with me is because the widow is an outsider. She is not a member of the house of Israel—a fact the Savior confirms (see Luke 4:24–30)—and she meets Elijah at the gate of the city. That is, she is physically on the outskirts of this village where she lives. At least symbolically, the location of the widow’s initial contact with Elijah infers that she is marginalized. Yet her belonging came as she did one thing: she obeyed a prophet.

As Elijah, himself hungry and thirsty, traveled a great distance to meet this widow, I wonder what the prophet thought when he was told that a widow woman would care for his needs. Was he reticent about asking her when he saw her hunting for sticks? Wasn’t she already suffering enough? Would the added stress simply make her life worse? Or did he anticipate the miracle that would occur before he met her and found excitement in talking to her? Whatever the case, he invites her to act, and she responds.

Elijah “said, Fetch me, I pray thee a little water in a vessel, that I may drink…. Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand” (1 Kings 17:10–11).

The widow responds, “I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die” (1 Kings 17:12).

When Elijah assures her of sufficient oil and meal until the famine is over, “she went and did according to the saying of Elijah” (1 Kings 17:15).

The response of this widow is intriguing. It seems to me that she says, in essence, “What do I have to lose? Obeying this man will not make my life more difficult.” She already recognized that she and her boy would die and by doing what this stranger asked her to do she would not be any worse off. That said, she may have wondered why this man would even ask her to do anything. What did he know of her circumstances? How could he possibly help her?

For all the possible questions that she may have had, she did that which was counterintuitive. She chose to do that which was unexpected. Someone preparing to eat a last meal would hardly be asked to feed another first. “According to the world’s standards, following the prophet may be unpopular, politically incorrect, or socially unacceptable. But following the prophet is always right” (Sister Carol F. McConkie, “Live According to the Words of the Prophet,” October 2014 general conference).

Consider the offering of the Filipino widow of Tondo told by one of the children, Len B. Novilla.

There are six girls and a boy in our family—a mix that does not bode well in a society where women are not regarded as men’s equals. I am the fifth child in that brood of seven. I was six when my father[, Tondo,] died of cancer. Our eldest had just turned 18, and the youngest was two years old….

Without a stable breadwinner and with seven children left to a mother without a job or a college degree, our finances were tenuous. We grew up in poverty—not just income poverty but also a scarcity of opportunities. We were too poor to get an education, but my mother persisted in her dream to have each of her children complete a college degree. She believed in the power of education to enlighten and transform lives, to equalize social standing, and to be the vehicle out of our dismal circumstances. She borrowed money even at high interest rates to keep us in school….

Four years after my father died, two young American men knocked on our door looking for my mother. They introduced themselves as missionaries. Behind them was a throng of Filipino children fighting for their attention and calling out, “Hi, Joe.” Under the sweltering Philippine heat, these young men stood out in their white shirts, ties, and black briefcases; to us they looked like a toss-up between James Bond and CIA agents. I was about to say to them that my mother had told me to tell them that she was not home when my mother’s friends and their children, who came with the missionaries, showed up. My mom overheard and motioned to me to let them in. I quietly asked myself, “What are we getting ourselves into?” Inviting these Americans in was social suicide, as my mom was known in our community for her staunch devotion to the dominant faith.

…The year after my father died, martial law was declared in the Philippines. On top of that there was a national shortage of rice—the country’s staple food. To stave off the shortage, rice was combined with corn and rationed to five kilos per family. Food and jobs were scarce. For us to survive, my mom marshaled every inch of strength she had. She talked a friend into allowing her to be paid a meager sum for helping to deliver rice. She would leave at 4:30 in the morning and would come home at 11:00 at night. At the end of the day she would pick up grain after grain of rice and corn that had spilled on the floor of the delivery truck. She would not stop until she had several handfuls for tomorrow’s meals. Our life was already at its worst. How could listening to these Americans help? What could these missionaries offer that would make our life better?

To our surprise, our mother listened to the missionaries….It must have exacted much willpower from my mother to stop drinking coffee and to stop smoking—just because two foreigners barely in their twenties said so—at a time when nicotine patches were unheard of. It must have taken real faith to part with a widow’s mite for tithing.

…My mother, my younger sister Ruth, and myself were the first to be baptized. My older sisters followed months later. My brother was baptized when he turned eight. It took years and a temple in the Philippines for our father to be baptized by proxy and for us to be finally sealed as a family.

What did the missionaries offer? They offered us the opportunity of knowing that families can be together even beyond death—something my father had always hoped we could be. The missionaries taught us that we have a Heavenly Father who knows each of us by name and who loves us dearly—a concept so foreign to us, for the God that we knew lashed out with punishments and heard only memorized prayers….

The fruit of the gospel is remarkably sweet, and we paid a high price for it. Following our baptism, relatives and friends distanced themselves from us. They charged my mother with blasphemy and insanity. Some refused to extend any help despite our needs. The loss of that social safety net was economic suicide for a family already living on the edge of poverty. Even as young children we were not spared from many trials, and we had to grow far beyond our years. When I was attending a private school of another religious faith, a nun confronted me in front of my sixth-grade class for choosing to be baptized as a Latter-day Saint. I came home that day in tears. My sister and I were eventually disqualified from receiving the highest academic honors. We were denied the very measure of success that we had worked hard for. This was not the end. Many more challenges came.

How did we keep the faith? …[I]t was never because we were smarter or stronger, nor were our lives easier. With the help of the Holy Ghost, a conversion rooted within our hearts drove the change. What helped us was that we stayed on course. We did not give up at the very first sign of adversity. We kept going even when the tempests in our lives were raging. We kept paying tithing even when the choices came down to not having enough to eat. We kept coming to Church with the thought that if we continued to do so, eventually principles that were once unclear would make much more sense. We kept going with the understanding that people around us were not perfect but were putting forth the effort to be better….

Has the Lord been mindful of our sacrifices? Yes! He is continually involved in our lives. There was no way that a mother widowed at age 41, without a job and a college degree, could have possibly raised seven children from two to 18 years of age without divine help. Heaven must have heard her many pleadings and interceded in so many ways that it amazes us even to this very day. Through the Lord’s design and blessings, each of us was able to complete our studies: two doctors, a nurse, a lawyer, an accountant, a hotel and restaurant manager, and an IT support specialist. Thus was the promise of Elijah also fulfilled to the widow of Tondo:

“And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days.

“And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah” [1 Kings 17:15–16] (Len B. Novilla, “Journey of the Soul, Anchors of the Heart,” BYU Devotional, February 1, 2011).

Preservation, strength, and ability to keep going come as we obey the words of prophets.

I personally observed this reality several years ago. Through the example of an extremely old brother, I am reminded to obey the prophet’s invitation to serve in the Church.

I visited a sacrament meeting and watched a hunched old man, an usher, ever so slowly shut one set of side doors to the chapel in preparation for the blessing and passing of the sacrament. As I observed his movements, I wondered if I was watching slow motion footage on television I wondered if he was going to be able to get the doors shut before the prayers began. With the sound of the closing click, the prayers started. He had done it. Following the completion of the sacrament, as if in slow motion replay in reverse, he opened the doors and set the doorstops.

After the meeting I inquired about this man. I found out that he was officially called and set apart as an usher and faithfully fulfilled his calling every week.

Following the prophet and doing what he asks is simply not easy all the time. It generally is not convenient. And it definitely takes faith in things we cannot see. Yet a poor, hungry widow, as well as many others, continue to show me how to trust prophetic words.

More Come, Follow Me resources here.

Matt Crawford is a husband, father, teacher, and writer. He resides with his family in Layton, Utah.

The post Come, Follow Me Week 27 – 1 Kings 17–19 appeared first on FAIR.

Seek the Lord Jesus Christ

By Elder Kim B. Clark

(An address given at the 2020 FAIR Conference)

I want to begin today with a story about Charlotte, my granddaughter, who is seven years old. Charlotte loves to read, and in recent months she has fallen in love with reading the Book of Mormon. Before the schools were closed she would take the Book of Mormon in her backpack, and read it in the bus on the way to and from school every day. She also loved the Book of Mormon stories for children. One day she came to her mother holding a copy of the Book of Mormon stories for children and asked, “Mom, did these things really happen?” Her mother looked at her, and said, “Yes, Charlotte, they really did happen.”

Charlotte’s question is a wonderful question – did these things really happen? It is not only a question about the events and people in the Book of Mormon, but it is a question about the Lord Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice and resurrection. It is a question about Moroni and golden plates, and about the call of Joseph Smith to be the great prophet of the restoration. It is a question about the translation of the Book of Mormon by the gift and power of God. And, it is a question about living prophets and continuing revelation in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

As President Russell M. Nelson has taught, we need to seek powerful, enduring answers to Charlotte’s question and all of its corollaries. This is a pivotal time in our lives and in the Lord’s true and living Church. The Prophet has invited us to transform our homes into “sanctuar[ies] of faith” and “center[s] of Gospel learning.” [1]  He has urged us to “…stretch beyond [our] current spiritual ability to receive personal revelation”, warning us that in the days ahead  “…it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.”[2]

These invitations are a call from the Prophet of the Lord to rise up and do better and be better. President Nelson has said:

…we need to do better and be better because we are in a battle. The battle with sin is real. The adversary is quadrupling his efforts to disrupt testimonies and impede the work of the Lord. He is arming his minions with potent weapons to keep us from partaking of the joy and love of the Lord.[3]

Answering Charlotte’s question, and responding with energy and focus to President Nelson’s call, is a journey of faith in Jesus Christ, and in our Heavenly Father. I would like to share with you today something of my own journey of faith, and what I have learned about Jesus Christ, about faith in Him, about testimony, and about the joy of redemption. I want to share with you two stories many years apart.

Story #1: Believe in God

The first took place in southern Germany. I had been on my mission for two months. It had been a difficult time and I was very discouraged. The language was hard, and we had been rejected and ridiculed and cast out many times. It felt like we were under attack. People had argued with us on points of doctrine, told us we were from the devil, and much worse. I felt the temptations and whispers of doubt about what I was doing. One morning I knelt in prayer and told Heavenly Father of my troubles. It was a heartfelt prayer of real intent. I said to Him, “Heavenly Father, please help me.” As I prayed I heard a voice, as distinct and clear as though someone were standing right next to me. The voice said: Believe in God.

I asked my companion if there were a scripture that said, “Believe in God?” He sent me to the Book of Mormon, Mosiah 4:9.

I sat on the bed and opened the Book of Mormon and read the inspired words of King Benjamin:

Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend.[4]

As I read those words I felt as though King Benjamin were speaking to me. I felt the power of the Holy Ghost in my heart. I knew this was the answer to my prayer. My prayer was: Heavenly Father, please help me. The answer sent me to the Book of Mormon where I received two messages.

• The first message: these are my words; this is my book, it is true.
• The second message: believe in me. I know all things and I have all wisdom and all power. Trust me.

So, that is what I did. I decided to get up, eat breakfast, pray and go to work, and keep praying and going to work every day. The trials and challenges did not disappear. And there were times ahead when I would feel attacked again. But I knew what I had heard. I knew the message was from the Lord. And so, I trusted in Him.

That experience was a pivotal moment in my life. But there would be more; here is one from many years later.

Story #2: Put on the Whole Armor of God

The second story took place at a very difficult time for me, for my wife Sue, and for our family. We faced significant challenges and setbacks in our lives, especially in our family. It felt like we were under attack. It felt that way because we were. I was plagued by unsettled feelings, doubts about myself, and temptations to take counsel from my fears. It was a hard time.

One night I had a terrible nightmare. I woke up feeling great anxiety that did not leave when I was awake. I got on my knees and pleaded with Heavenly Father for help. As I prayed, words came into my mind that I knew were scripture:

…for we wrestle not with flesh and blood, but with principalities, with powers, with the rulers of the darkness of this world, with spiritual wickedness in high places.[5]

Thankfully, I went back to sleep. When I got up in the morning I looked up the scripture. I had not remembered that it is part of the Apostle Paul’s great statement on the armor of God. This is what I read:

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.

Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.[6]

The message that morning was clear: put on the whole armor of God – no chinks, no gaps, no missing parts. Sue and I were active in the Church. We served the Lord and we sought to raise our children in righteousness. But the Lord called us to rise up, to do better and be better. With that message the Lord put our journey of faith onto a steeper trajectory. At the heart of that journey was this invitation from Moroni:

And now, I would commend you to seek this Jesus of whom the apostles and prophets have written, that the grace of God the Father, and also the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, which beareth record of them, may be and abide in you forever.[7]

This invitation comes with a promise from the Lord, that I know is true: “Draw near unto me, and I will draw near unto you. Seek me diligently, and ye shall find me…”[8] “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search with all your hearts.”[9]

I want to share with you today what I have learned about seeking – and finding – the Lord Jesus Christ. What I am going to share did not happen all at once. Beginning those many years ago, the Lord gave us line upon line and precept upon precept. Over the years we have learned that small and simple acts of devotion open our hearts to the Lord, and invite the Holy Ghost to minister to us. We have made these simple things the framework of our lives and I want to share them with you.

I will speak about six small and simple activities, but I have organized them into pairs. That is how I think about them; they are companion activities.

Small and Simple Acts of Faith and Covenant Devotion

Pair 1: The first pair is prayer with real intent, and feasting on the words of Christ, especially in the Book of Mormon.

Praying and studying the scriptures are companions. As Elder Robert D. Hales once said, “…when we want to speak to God, we pray. And when we want Him to speak to us, we search the scriptures.”[10]

When we began this journey, Sue and I prayed together and individually and with our family morning and night. We read the scriptures every day. And yet, the Lord taught us that we needed to do better. In time, we learned to pray with more gratitude, with greater faith, and with real intent to do what the Lord wanted done. We felt the Lord nudging us to pray more often, and to pray about everything, as Amulek taught. And we had a prayer in our hearts. There were times when we prayed vocally and in our hearts all day long.

We pondered more, reflected more, and spent more time in the scriptures every day, studying them, keeping a scripture journal and really feasting on them. We learned to prayerfully dig deeper into the scriptures than we had ever dug before. Revelations came as the Lord guided us and blessed us. It really was a feast!

The companionship of prayer and the scriptures became more meaningful and more powerful. They have become crucial elements in the framework of our lives.

Pair 2: The second pair is daily repentance and partaking of the sacrament.

President Nelson has taught:

Nothing is more liberating, more ennobling, or more crucial to our individual progression than is a regular, daily focus on repentance. Repentance is not an event; it is a process. It is the key to happiness and peace of mind. When coupled with faith, repentance opens our access to the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.[11]

The Lord’s call to Sue and me to rise up meant that we had to change things in our lives, we had to repent. The Lord taught us that we should always be asking ourselves two questions: what am I doing I should stop doing? What am I not doing I should start doing?

These questions lead to daily repentance. In the first place, the things we are working on take time and daily attention to them is important as we turn away from old patterns of thought and action, and turn to the Lord for forgiveness, for His redeeming power and for His help to create new, more righteous patterns of life.

Second, we are subject to temptation and we make mistakes. We say things we should not say, or fail to heed a prompting, or do things we should not do. Daily reflection on the day, and daily repentance helps us catch those mistakes before they grow into something far more serious. Daily repentance is a gift of protection and spiritual power from the Lord.

Daily repentance may sound daunting, even discouraging. But repentance is not a dour doctrine. As President Nelson taught, it is liberating and full of hope. I testify that this is true. Repentance is not a distant doctrine in my life. I have felt the joy in daily repentance, when my focus is on Jesus Christ. In those moments of reflection and change I see what I need to do, and I try to do better. With the assurance of the Holy Ghost I feel stronger and I know that with the Lord’s help I can do better and be better.

The ordinance of the sacrament is a wonderful companion to daily repentance. Sue and I have always loved to partake of the sacrament. Yet, as we began asking ourselves those two questions, and as the Lord taught us, our experience in that sacred ordinance changed. The sacrament became more a time of love and gratitude for the Savior, and His Atonement and resurrection. It became more a time of reflection on our repentance, and of renewed covenant making. It became a time to seek the Lord and to find in Him healing power and personal revelation.

In the ordinance of the sacrament we look back on the daily repentance of the week behind, and forward to what we need to do in the week ahead. These companion gifts from the Lord are central to the framework of our lives.

Pair 3: The third pair is ministering to all, and worship in the holy temple.

Ministering is a beautiful principle of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Savior said:

…whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister;

And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant:

Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.[12]

We minister in our families, making our homes sanctuaries of love, and faith and centers of gospel living. We minister in our assignments to our brothers and sisters, and in our callings and to our neighbors and friends, inviting all to come and feel the Lord’s love and enjoy all of His blessings. We minister to those on the other side of the veil, that they might also enjoy the blessings of salvation and exaltation.

In all these opportunities to serve, the Lord has called us to minister in a higher and holier way, with His love and with His power. When we seek revelation and then go and do the work, we find the Lord goes with us. We take upon us His yoke, and He works with us and through us to accomplish His glorious purposes. As we seek to minister to all, we find Jesus Christ, for that is where He is. He ministers to all and He calls us to join Him in His work.

The ordinances and covenants of the holy temple are a powerful companion to ministering to all. We minister to all so that they may walk the covenant path, receive their temple blessings and, as often as they can, be in the presence of the Lord in His House. If they keep their covenants they will be “…armed with [His] power, [His] name [will] be upon them, and [His] glory … round about them, and [His] angels [will] have charge over them…”[13]

Of course, these also are our promises and our blessings. We minister to help others go, but we also go. In fact, we go so that we can help them go. We go to the House of the Lord to serve and to worship as often as we can. We go to claim the great and precious privileges and promises the Lord has given us. The temple is a house of prayer, fasting, faith, learning, glory, order, holiness and revelation. It is a house of miracles. It is the house of the Lord and we will find Him there.

All Things in One in Christ

These three companions – prayer and the scriptures, daily repentance and the sacrament, ministering to all and worship in the Holy Temple – are small and simple things. Yet, they bring great blessings. These small and simple acts of faith in Christ work together in a marvelous, even miraculous way. The Apostle Paul taught the Ephesians this principle. Speaking of our day, he wrote:

That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him.[14]

This surely applies to the continuing Restoration of the Gospel in the Lord’s true and living Church. But as Elder David A. Bednar has taught, it also applies to us individually:

…the power of the Savior’s gospel to transform and bless us flows from discerning and applying the interrelatedness of its doctrine, principles, and practices. Only as we gather together in one all things in Christ, with firm focus upon Him, can gospel truths synergistically enable us to become what God desires us to become and endure valiantly to the end.[15]

With Elder Bednar’s statement in mind, please take a moment and see in your mind’s eye these simple things as interconnected and standing as a whole. Can you see what they really are? These acts of covenant devotion are, very simply, the Lord’s work of salvation. I know He connects and unifies them in Him.

If we do these things consistently and diligently, we are doing the Lord’s work! We have to do them every day, and every week, every month, as often as we can, and we have to do them with faith in Jesus Christ. But if we do, we open our hearts to the Lord and qualify for the ministry of the Holy Ghost. The Lord’s work of salvation becomes the unified framework of our lives. It focuses our lives on Him – we pray in His name, feast on His words, turn to Him to repent, remember Him in the sacrament, minister with His power, and worship in His House.

His work of salvation frames our lives, providing structure to our days, our weeks and our months. The plan of salvation becomes the way we see our lives. It becomes the lens through which we see everything around us. The work of salvation and the Father’s plan inform everything we do, at home, at work, in the Church, in the community.

My dear brothers and sisters, I bear witness of Jesus Christ. He is the Living Son, of the Living God. I know that seeking the Lord Jesus Christ in prayer and the scriptures, in daily repentance and the sacrament, in ministering to all and in the House of the Lord brings great, great blessings. If we seek Him with all of our hearts, we will find Him, and we will hear His voice. His love, light and power will flow into our lives. He will sanctify us, heal us, change our hearts, and lift and strengthen us by His mercy and His grace. We will do better and we will be better, and the work of strengthening faith in the Restored Gospel will go forward more powerfully than ever before. I so testify, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

More Come, Follow Me resources here.

[1] Russell M. Nelson, “Becoming Exemplary Latter-day Saints”, Ensign, November 2018

[2] Russel M. Nelson, “Revelation for the Church, Revelation for Our Lives”, May 2018

[3] Russell M. Nelson, “We Can Do Better and Be Better”, Ensign, May 2019

[4] Mosiah 4:9-10.

[5] Ephesians 6:12

[6] Ephesians 6:10-12

[7] Ether 12:41

[8] Doctrine and Covenants 88:63

[9] Jeremiah 29:13

[10] Robert D. Hales, “Holy Scriptures: The Power of God Unto Salvation”, Ensign November 2006

[11] Russell M. Nelson, “We Can Do Better and Be Better”, Ensign May 2019

[12] Matthew 20:25-29

[13] Doctrine and Covenants 109:22

[14] Ephesians 10:1

[15] David A. Bednar, “Gather Together in One All Things in Christ”, Ensign November 2018

Elder Kim B. Clark was sustained as a General Authority Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on April 4, 2015. He was released on October 5, 2019. During his time in the Seventy he served as the Commissioner of the Church Educational System. At the time of his call, Elder Clark was serving as the president of BYU-Idaho.

Elder Clark received a bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. He joined the faculty of the Harvard Business School in 1978 and was named dean of that school in 1995. In 2005 he became president of BYU-Idaho. Elder Clark currently serves as the NAC Professor of Management at the BYU Marriott School of Business.

Kim Bryce Clark was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on March 20, 1949. He married Sue Lorraine Hunt in June 1971. They are the parents of seven children, and grandparents of 26 grandchildren.

The post Come, Follow Me Week 23 – Judges 2–4; 6–8; 13–16 appeared first on FAIR.

Trying to Serve the Lord Without Offending the Devil

By Nick Galieti

(Originally published on February 11, 2015 as part of our “Rise Up” podcast for youth)

When it comes to living our lives, we have a lot of choices placed before us. We have our choice of schools to attend after high school, or even a choice of career path. Spiritually speaking, we have a choice to make. When viewing the world around him, even Joshua in the Old Testament dealt with this same question. In Joshua 24:14-15 he was speaking prior to his death and reflecting on the different choices that he made in his life when he recorded this often quoted passage:

14 ¶Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord.

15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

When Jesus Christ was ministering personally on the Earth both in the Old World and in the Book of Mormon lands, he made a rather declarative statement that leaves little room for confusion. A statement that invites the one who hears it, to search their heart and make an assessment of where they are at in their life. In Luke chapter 16:13 or in 3 Nephi 13:24 we read: “No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.” The bible dictionary teaches us that the word Mammon is Aramaic for “riches.” In other words, this scripture is saying that you cannot serve both God and the things of this world.

In my time with FAIR, and even for some years prior to volunteering, I would come across a variety of people that seemed to struggle with this idea. When I say struggle, it isn’t something that they consciously notice. To a certain extent, we all will have time in our lives where it seems like we might be serving one more than the other. But there are those who “Try to Serve the Lord without Offending the Devil.” It is a concept that was addressed by Elder James E. Faust at a BYU devotional back in 1994. I want to share some of his counsel with you, not only because he says it better than I could, but also because it is important to hear the voice of the Lord’s chosen apostles. They have been blessed with the ability and spiritual capacity to guide us through some tough questions we might have about how to approach our lives. Here are some highlights from that presentation.

In the great universities of the world, one does not often choose to speak of the influence of Satan. Perhaps it is not cool to address this subject, but I choose to do so anyway. Someone said in these few words: “I have heard much about the devil. I have read a great deal about the devil. I have even done business with the devil, but it didn’t pay.” Your generation lives in a day when many things are measured against the standard of social or political correctness. Today I challenge that false doctrine of human behavior. The influence of Satan is becoming more acceptable. Elizabeth Barrett Browning said, “The devil is most devilish when respectable”

It is not good practice to become intrigued by Satan and his mysteries. No good can come from getting too close to evil. Like playing with fire, it is too easy to get burned: “The knowledge of sin tempteth to its commission” (see Joseph F. Smith, GD, p. 373). The only safe course is to keep well distanced from him and from any of his wicked activities or nefarious practices.

However, Brigham Young said that it is important to “study . . . evil, and its consequences” (DBY, p. 257). Since Satan is the author of all evil in the world, it would therefore be essential to realize that he is the influence behind the opposition to the work of God. Alma stated the issue succinctly: “For I say unto you that whatsoever is good cometh from God, and whatsoever is evil cometh from the devil” (Alma 5:40).

My principal reason for choosing this subject is to help young people by warning them, as Paul said, “lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices” (2 Corinthians 2:11). We hope that young people, unfamiliar with the sophistries of the world, can keep themselves free of Satan’s enticements and deceitful ways.

I owe my text to Elder Marion G. Romney, who, at a BYU devotional in 1955, stated: “Now there are those among us who are trying to serve the Lord without offending the devil.” This is a contradiction of terms. President Romney goes on:

“Must the choice lie irrevocably between peace on the one hand, obtained by compliance with the Gospel of Jesus Christ as restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith, and contention and war on the other hand?” [Marion G. Romney, “The Price of Peace,” Brigham Young University student body, March 1, 1955, p. 7]

Yogi Berra is reported to have said, “If you come to a fork in the road, take it.” But it doesn’t work that way. The Savior said,

“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” [Matthew 6:24]

Today many of us are trying to serve two masters: the Lord and our own selfish interests, without offending the devil. The influence of God, our Eternal Father, urges us, pleads with us, and inspires us to follow him. In contrast, the power of Satan urges us to disbelieve and disregard God’s commandments.

In another address President Romney continues:

“The consequences of [mortal man’s] choices are of the all-or-nothing sort. There is no way for him to escape the influence of these opposing powers. Inevitably he is led by one or the other. His God-given free agency gives him the power and option to choose. But choose he must. Nor can he serve both of them at the same time, for, as Jesus said, ‘No man can serve two masters: . . . Ye cannot serve God and mammon.'” [Marion G. Romney, CR, October 1962, p. 94]

Here then is the challenge, in what issues do we see this “riding the line,” or trying to serve the Lord without offending the devil. One current issue that is causing some discord or one where one may feel that is walking that line, is the issue of homosexuality or gay marriage. Elder Faust addresses the issue this way:

The Church’s stand on homosexual relations provides another arena where we offend the devil. I expect that the statement of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve against homosexual marriages will continue to be assaulted. Satan is only interested in our misery, which he promotes by trying to persuade men and women to act contrary to God’s plan. One way he does this is by encouraging the inappropriate use of sacred creative powers. A bona fide marriage is one between a man and a woman solemnized by the proper legal or ecclesiastical authority. Only sexual relations between husband and wife within the bonds of marriage are acceptable before the Lord.

Any alternatives to the legal and loving marriage between a man and a woman are helping to unravel the fabric of human society. I am sure this is pleasing to the devil. The fabric I refer to is the family. These so-called alternative lifestyles must not be accepted as right because they frustrate God’s commandment for a life-giving union of male and female within a legal marriage as stated in Genesis.

I suggest that the devil takes some delight every time a home is broken up, even where there is no parent to blame. This is especially so where there are children involved. The physical and spiritual neglect of children is one of the spawning grounds for so many of the social ills of the world.

Sometimes these issues are not so charged. Sometimes these issues involve matters of temptations and personal conduct, and not necessarily social issues. Elder Faust continues with this counsel:

I now turn to milder ways of not offending the devil. Nephi has given to us the pattern or formula by which Satan operates:

“And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well—and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell.

“And behold, others he flattereth away, and telleth them there is no hell; and he saith unto them: I am no devil, for there is none—and thus he whispereth in their ears, until he grasps them with his awful chains, from whence there is no deliverance.” [2 Nephi 28:21–22]

C. S. Lewis gave us a keen insight into devilish tactics. In a fictional letter, the master devil, Screwtape, instructs the apprentice devil Wormwood, who is in training to become a more experienced devil:

“You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. . . . It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. . . . Indeed, the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” [The Screwtape Letters (New York: Macmillan, 1961), p. 56]

So-called small sins include the challenge to the “sin laws” that seek to control forms of gambling, alcohol, and drug consumption. Some who wish to appear broad-minded say, under the guise of not imposing religious belief, “I don’t drink or gamble, but I don’t think we ought to have any laws to control others that wish to.” This completely ignores the health and social costs to society of the vices. They foolishly argue that laws cannot control human behavior. My long legal career has led me to conclude that all criminal laws have a moral basis.

I now come to some even milder forms of trying to serve the Lord without offending the devil. Having a temple recommend and not using it seems mild enough. However, if we live close to a temple, perhaps having a temple recommend but not using it may not offend the devil. Satan is offended when we use that recommend, going to the temple to partake of the spiritual protection it affords. How often do we plan to go to the temple only to have all kinds of hindrances arise to stop us from going? The devil has always been offended by our temple worship.

I want to add my own voice to the principle and importance of temple work as a way to help protect us even from our own desires that might not fall in line with God’s principles. When one spends time on the internet or in reading material that some would call anti-Mormon, or even material that is is critical of the Church, the leaders of the Church, or otherwise, it can take a toll on our spiritual immune systems. It starts to wear people down and bring a sort of unhappiness into their lives that slowly creeps in, poisoning the spirit of peace. It is the power of the temple and temple service that can cast aside that anger, and helps us to find a place for the peace that comes from feeling close to the Lord.

Elder Faust concludes:

I wonder how much we offend Satan if the proclamation of our faith is limited only to the great humanitarian work this Church does throughout the world, or to our beautiful buildings, or to this great university, marvelous as these activities are. When we preach the gospel of social justice, no doubt the devil is not troubled. But I believe the devil is terribly offended when we boldly declare by personal testimony that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and that he saw the Father and the Son; when we preach that the Book of Mormon is another witness for Christ; when we declare that there has been a restoration of the fullness of the gospel in its simplicity and power in order to fulfill the great plan of happiness.

We challenge the powers of darkness when we speak of the perfect life of the Savior and of his sublime work for all mankind through the Atonement. This supernal gift permits us, through repentance, to break away from Satan’s grasping tentacles.

We need not become paralyzed with fear of Satan’s power. He can have no power over us unless we permit it. He is really a coward, and if we stand firm, he will retreat. The apostle James counseled: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). And Nephi states that “he hath no power over the hearts” of people who are righteous (l Nephi 22:26).

Satan has had great success with this gullible generation. As a consequence, literally hosts of people have been victimized by him and his angels. There is, however, an ample shield against the power of Lucifer and his hosts. This protection lies in the spirit of discernment through the gift of the Holy Ghost. This gift comes undeviatingly by personal revelation to those who strive to obey the commandments of the Lord and to follow the counsel of the living prophets.

I emphasize that fasting and prayer is a great way to receive the moral strength and spiritual strength to resist the temptations of Satan. But you may say this is hard and unpleasant. I commend to you the example of the Savior. He went into the desert, where he fasted and prayed to prepare himself spiritually for his ministry. His temptation by the devil was great, but through the purification of his spirit he was able to triumph over all evil.

I testify that there are forces that will save us from the ever-increasing lying, disorder, violence, chaos, destruction, misery, and deceit that are upon the earth. Those saving forces are the everlasting principles, covenants, and ordinances of the eternal gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. These same principles, covenants, and ordinances are coupled with the rights and powers of the priesthood of Almighty God. We of this church are the possessors and custodians of these commanding powers that can and do roll back much of the power of Satan on the earth. We believe that we hold these mighty forces in trust for all who have died, for all who are now living, and for the yet unborn.

I pray that we will dedicate our lives to serving the Lord and not worry about offending the devil. I also pray that through the spreading of righteousness, the evil hands of the destroyer might be stayed and that he may not be permitted to curse the whole world. I also pray that God will overlook our weaknesses, our frailties, and our many shortcomings and generously forgive us of our misdeeds. I further pray that he will bring solace to the suffering, comfort to those who grieve, and peace to the broken-hearted, and I leave this witness and testimony and blessing with you in the holy name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

More Come, Follow Me resources here.

Nick Galieti is an experienced podcaster for organizations like FAIR, LDS Perspectives and Book of Mormon Central, as well as his own podcast, LDS MissionCast. Nick Galieti was recipient of the 2015 John Taylor: Defender of the Faith Award by FairMormon for outstanding service and contributions to Latter-day Saint Apologetics. Since starting podcasting in 2011, Nick has produced or hosted over 800 Podcast episodes.

Nick Galieti is also the author of the books “Tree of Sacrament,” and is a contributor and editor for the volume “D&C 4: A Lifetime Study in Discipleship.” Nick has directed and produced two feature length documentaries on Joseph Smith: “Picturing Joseph,” and “Murder of the Mormon Prophet.”

Nick is a Broadcast and Events Language Producer, and enjoys traveling the world. Nick married his wife, Heidi, in 2001 and they have 5 daughters.

The post Come, Follow Me Week 22 – Joshua 1–8; 23–24 appeared first on FAIR.

“Have You Been Saved By Grace?” How Do We Respond?

by Brad Wilcox

(This is from a presentation given at the 2018 FAIR Conference)

Grace, like many English words has multiple meanings. It can mean elegance and beauty. It can mean kindness and courtesy. It can be a title, ‘Your Grace.’ It can be a salutation, “Grace be unto you,” like we read in the in the New Testament, and it can also be a prayer–we’re saying grace. With so many different meanings, no wonder there’s confusion. If we go back to the Hebrew word that was translated as grace, then the word means favor or goodwill given with compassion. No wonder Christians grabbed that word to describe God’s favor, God’s goodwill given with God’s compassion. But Latter-day Saints understand that grace is not just a description of God’s attributes. It is how he engages with us as we strive to attain those very attributes. Listen to what President Dieter F. Uchtdorf has said:

He says, “Grace is the divine assistance and endowment of strength by which we grow from the flawed and limited beings we are now into Exalted Beings.”

So grace is the strength He gives us to make us strong. It is the divine help He gives us to make us divine. When I was younger, I always thought that grace was somehow waiting for me at a finish line; that I had to do everything I possibly could to get to the finish line. I had to be down on my hands and knees. I had to be scraping with dirt under my fingernails and then somehow grace would come. But now I understand that grace is not waiting at the finish line. It’s the power that gets me to the finish line. It’s not a light waiting at the end of the tunnel. Rather, it’s the light that surrounds me here and now and moves me to the end of the tunnel.

When I was younger, I kind of felt like grace somehow supplemented my works or that my works somehow supplemented Jesus’s grace as if we had to meet some sort of minimum height requirement to get into heaven. But now I understand that it’s not about height. It’s about growth. So instead of seeing grace as something that supplements or works as something that supplements, I realized we get to heaven, not by supplementing but by covenanting. And the covenant is a warm relationship, a relationship that is greater than the sum of its parts. So instead of speaking about God’s part and my part, now I speak more about God’s heart and my heart, loving each other and being conformed to the same image.

Listen to what Elder D. Todd Christofferson has said: “We do not need to achieve some minimum level of capacity or goodness before God will help. Divine aid can be ours, every hour of every day, no matter where we are in the path of obedience.”

Now, that said, we have to be a little careful that we don’t let grace become a catchall word for every divine interaction which has happened in a lot of mainstream Christianity. A grace kind of defines everything that God does, everything that He is, every interaction He has in our lives. But we need to keep grace as a word in its place because there’s a whole umbrella that covers the many ways that God interacts with his children. We have answers to prayer. We have tender mercies.

But grace is a little different than that. The reason it’s important to point that out is because we can then recognize grace in our lives even when we don’t see answers to prayer; even when we don’t see tender mercies.

When my son Russell was 16, he always lost the keys to the car. Well, his mom got smart and she made an extra set. So Russell would come home and say, “I lost the keys to the car,” and I’d say, “Mom has an extra set,” and we got through just fine until the day he said, “I lost the keys.” I said, “Mom’s got an extra set.” He said, “Those are the ones I just lost.” And so I said, “Get over here, we’re going to pray.” So we said a prayer and Russell was led to find the keys in a place he’d already looked several times and our family recognized an answer to prayer. Now that kid grew up and became a nurse anesthetist. It’s a little scary if you think about it. “Hey, I know there’s a body around here somewhere. Where did that body go? Oh, mom’s got an extra.” Uh, I mean, it’s a little scary.

He called me when he first graduated and said, “Dad, now we have something in common.”

I said, “What’s that?”

He said, “We both put people to sleep.” I didn’t know how I felt about that one. But when Russell was training, he was assigned to go to a hospital for a rotation that was about five hours from his home in Sacramento and that had them nervous because my little daughter-in-law had two toddlers and a brand new baby. She thought, ‘How am I going to handle this with him gone for days and days at a time?’ The baby wasn’t sleeping well, the baby wasn’t eating well and she thought, ‘I just can’t keep up with this.’ Well, the minute that his rotation started, the baby started sleeping through the night. The minute his rotation started, the baby started eating better and holding down the food and our family recognized a tender mercy. We couldn’t call it an answer to prayer because we weren’t even smart enough to pray for it. God just saw a need and He stepped in and met that need and we recognized a tender mercy.

Now grace is a little different from those blessings because grace or the interactions from heaven that change us; that change us.

It’s the Holy Ghost, acting as the minister of grace, the messenger of grace, who sanctifies us and that’s when we can see God shaping us and transforming us. I know a young man who joined the church in Las Vegas. He was a young teenager when he first started getting interested in religion and he started going from church to church and attending church with a lot of his friends from high school. His stepdad was just furious at him. He said, “You’re young. This is when you’re supposed to be smoking pot and sleeping with girls and drinking.” He says, “Good grief. Why are you going to churches?” But when the kid ended up joining the Mormon Church then his stepdad kicked him out of the house.

A family in the ward took him and helped him get ready for his mission and he was in the MTC preparing to go to Japan. When he wrote me this letter, he was a convert of only a year. He says, ‘Some General Authority just came and told us that we’re supposed to love our parents.’ He says, ‘That’s a hard one for me. How am I supposed to love a man I don’t even like? How am I supposed to love a man that I don’t respect it all? How am I supposed to love a man that I hope I never even see again?’

And then he wrote this, ‘I guess for me right now, love is going to have to mean that I feel sorry for him and that I won’t give up hope that one day maybe he can change.’

That’s grace, when God just reaches into our very hearts and helps us begin to forgive when we think we can’t, helps us begin to open a door to love when we think that door has been slammed shut, when God reaches into our hearts and helps us try once more to break a bad habit that we’ve tried so many times to break before without success. In those moments, we see grace in our lives.

Now, President Nelson has cautioned us to be careful as we use the word atonement because many members of the church say, “Oh, the atonement helped me.” “The atonement comforted me.” “The atonement changed me.” “The atonement blessed me.” And President Nelson reminds us that it’s not the atonement that does that. It’s Christ who does that – through his atonement.

When he cautioned us, his talk was called Accessing the Power of Jesus Christ. We have a name for that power. The name is grace. That is the power of Jesus Christ–that, as Sheri Dew says, “…flows from the atonement.” So the atonement was something that people look forward to and now it’s something we look back on. Jesus’s suffering was real, but it was an event. The thing that allows that event to have continuous force both before and after it happened, is the grace that flows from that atonement, the grace that the atonement makes possible in our lives, and that’s why we call the power, the power of the atonement, an enabling power. If you’re ever reading the scriptures and you come to the word grace, try replacing the word with power and see if the scripture makes a little more sense to you. Now we sing a song in the church. We sing a hymn that says, ‘I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me, confused at the grace that so fully he proffers me.’ When Charles Gabriel wrote that hymn, confused didn’t just mean ‘baffled’ or ‘bewildered’, or ‘I don’t get it’. Confused also could mean ‘standing in awe, standing in reverent awe of the grace, the enabling power, that so fully he proffers me.’ There’s another word we don’t use very often. We use the word ‘offer’. I can ‘offer’ you this clip, but he would have to come forward to get it. If I ‘proffer’ it to him, I’m putting the prefix ‘pro’ onto ‘offer’, making ‘proffer’, meaning I’m pro-actively offering him the gift. That means I’m going to come down. I’m going to literally put it right in his hand. See, I’m going to make it almost impossible for him to refuse it. That’s proffer.

Well, yes, we stand amazed at the grace Jesus proffers us. Think about the emblems of the sacrament. In many churches, those are offered to the congregation. People come forward to receive them, but not in our church. In our church, those are proffered to us. They are literally placed in our hands even when we’re late and in the foyer, and don’t ask me how I know that, but even then, those emblems are proffered to us. They’re placed right before us. It’s a gift that we almost can’t refuse, and yet, just as we stand amazed at Christ’s gift and how freely he proffers it, He must stand a little amazed at how few people there are in this world who are willing to receive the gift, who are willing to pick up those emblems and internalize them.

In Doctrine and Covenants 88, we read: ‘For what does it profit a man if a gift is bestowed upon him and he receive not the gift. Behold he rejoices not in that which is given unto him, neither rejoices in him, who is the giver of the gift.’ In my class the other day, I’m teaching the second half of the New Testament. So we’re talking about grace and I said, “How many of you have ever received a Christmas gift from an aunt or a grandmother, a mother, a father, a cousin, something that you’ve said, ‘Oh, thank you. This is wonderful.’ And then you’ve thrown it out, given it to DI or put it in your closet, never to see the light of day again?” Every hand went up. They all know how it feels to get a gift and then not value it because they don’t use it.

So the way they value the gift is demonstrated by how well they receive and utilize the gift. In the same way Christ knows who values his grace, not who’s given his grace, because he gives that so freely, but he sees who values his grace by looking to see who receives it, who receives that grace and who receives it and utilizes it.

I know a sister who went to the temple for the first time and she came out and I said, “How did it go?”

And she said, “Well, I was kinda disappointed that it wasn’t more focused on the atonement.”

I mean, it sounded to me like she just said, ‘I just walked through a forest and I wish I’d seen a tree.’ I mean, how did she miss the atonement in the endowment? But then I realized, ‘Oh, she was expecting to see portrayals of Christ in Gethsemane; portrayals of Christ on the cross; portrayals of Christ rising from the empty tomb. Instead she saw the story of Adam and Eve.’ That’s when I explained to her something that’s been taught by Sister Marie Hafen and her husband, Elder Bruce C. Hafen in their book, ‘The Consecrated Heart’, and they teach that in the temple, we don’t learn how Christ gives us the atonement, we learn how Adam and Eve and all of us receive the atonement. And how do we receive this gift? The same way they did – by covenant, by entering into a covenant relationship with Christ that allows us more and more and more access to His grace.

Grace is not a one-time gift. Rather it’s a gift that we’re given more and more of as we utilize what we’ve been given. When I think about that, I think about reading books to my grandkids. When my little grandkids were born, the first thing I do is read a book to him. Now everybody in the hospital laughs because I’m holding the baby and I’m holding the book and the book is bigger than the baby, but I read that book to those babies and I don’t care how many people laugh. I know I’m being smart because I want that kid surrounded by language and love and books right from day one, so I read books to them. Now some of those kids are old enough that they can read little books to me and the minute they do, I give them another book. See if they read one book, then I give them more books, and that little exchange helps me understand how Christ gives us grace.

Listen to what we read in 2 Nephi 28  ‘I will give unto the children of men, line upon line, precept upon precept, and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts and lend an ear to my council for they shall learn wisdom and for unto him that receiveth, I will give more.’

My daughter Whitney called me one day and she said, “Dad, I just read the parable of the talents in Matthew 25 and I think it’s about grace.”

I said, “No, no honey, that’s about money because talents were money, so it’s talking about money.”

She says, “Dad, read it again.”

So I read it again, and with this lens that my daughter had provided, suddenly I started seeing it a little differently. Unto one servant, he gave five talents, or, we could say, five books. Unto another servant, he gave two books, and unto another servant, he gave one book. Well, the first two read their books. So the Lord said, “Well done. You have been faithful over a few books. I will give you many books. Enter into my library.” Now to the other servant, he takes the book away. Why? Because he’s punishing the very servant who needs it the most? No, it’s because the servant already cast it aside.

What good is a book to someone who refuses to read it? We all know the pain of giving away a copy of the Book of Mormon and then having the person reject it. That choice doesn’t say as much about the missionary and the book as it does about the person who has been given a gift that hasn’t been valued, given a gift that hasn’t been utilized. So even if the Lord said, “Well, gosh, third servant, I love you anyway, and so come on, you can go into my library.” Is the servant even going to want to be there? I mean, until she learns to value what she’s been given, until she learns to love what her father in heaven loves, then more books would be burden rather than blessing. And so, even though initially it may seem unfair that those who got more get even more, when we consider how the gift is utilized, how the gift was used, then we see the fairness in having the book taken away from the very one who rejected it. And we can see that this gift of grace must be used. Sometimes, when I teach young people, I compare grace to a scholarship. I say getting grace is like getting a scholarship. It’s not a student loan. You’re not expected to pay it back. It’s not money you’ve earned in a job and saved up. It’s a gift.

The one giving the gift doesn’t want to get paid back. The one giving the gift wants to see the gift utilized. Because simply getting a scholarship does not guarantee learning and getting a scholarship does not guarantee graduation. It facilitates it, and in that covenant relationship with Christ, then His grace facilitates our growth and our change and our transformation. Making covenants is not a declaration that we need works more than grace. Making covenants is our way of acknowledging God’s grace, accepting God’s grace, appreciating God’s grace and showing him that we are ready for more. So a kid comes into the church at age eight and gets the gift of the Holy Ghost. As he makes more covenants, as he renews that covenant in sacrament meeting at the sacrament table, then he receives more. Then he enters the temple and he makes more covenants and he receives more grace. So our works are not in place of faith. Rather, our works grow out of and are an inevitable consequence of our faith.

So for us, the question, ‘Have you been saved by grace?’ is tricky to answer, but not because of the word grace. When someone says, “Have you been saved by grace?”, Latter-day Saints should answer, “Yes, absolutely. Completely. With total gratitude. Yes, yes, yes, yes.” If we have a discussion with nonmember friends, the word to discuss is not grace. That’s something we have in common. The word to discuss is ‘saved’. That’s where we’re different. What does salvation mean to them versus what does salvation mean to us? Our complete dependence on Jesus Christ is an absolute either way, but what is salvation? For many, Christian salvation is just getting to the other side of the wall of heaven. I know a lady in the South who told me, “I’m going to slip Saint Peter a twenty and slide on through.”

That’s her idea of grace. That’s her idea of being saved. That’s what it is – just getting into heaven. But for Latter-day Saints, that’s a little teeny piece of a salvation that is massive – a salvation that doesn’t just include getting to heaven, but becoming heavenly, not just going back to God, but becoming like him. Our salvation is huge and Jesus’s grace is a large enough gift to be able to help us reach salvation in its fullness. So the question to consider is not just ‘Have we been saved by grace?’ but ‘Have we been changed by grace?’ Not just ‘Are we going to be resurrected? Are we going to go back to God’s presence or Christ presence for the judgment?’ Those things are already answered. The question to consider is, ‘How comfortable will we be on that occasion?’

How comfortable will we be when we are expected to live as Christ lives and love as He loves and create as He creates and be as He is? For us, grace is not just about salvation at a basic form, but it’s about salvation that is large enough to include exaltation. For us, grace is not just about justification at a basic level, but it’s about sanctification. Do you remember when Elder Holland spoke in general conference and he talked about how we’re all like a big choir? Do you remember that talk? And he mentioned the sopranos, the altos, the baritones and the basses. And I have a friend who’s a tenor in the word choir, and he said, “All the tenors said they were going to resign. They were all going to quit and have a protest because they were offended that Elder Holland did not mention the tenors.” Well, we remember that talk and a phrase from that talk that has always stuck in my mind is this, ‘Come as you are, but don’t expect to stay that way.’ That’s grace. Come as you are, but don’t expect to stay that way. For us, grace is not a get out of jail free card. It’s not permission to procrastinate and sin. Rather grace is how we can begin to emulate our Savior and not just do as He did, but become as he is. Now for Latter-day Saints, we have to remember that that’s a transition that takes time. We all want it to happen quickly. We want it to happen so fast. We want it to happen Harry Potter style – abracadabra – phssht. I think I just killed you. I don’t know. It’s been a while since I read the books, but I think I just used the wrong spell. We want the change to happen quickly and it doesn’t always happen quickly.

A young man wrote me from the MTC and he said, ‘Where’s God? Where’s God when I need him the most? Why has he abandoned me?’ I wrote him back and I went, ‘What the heck? You are in the MTC! God lives there. He has a room right down the hall from you.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Where’s God?’ he says. ‘I have been here for three weeks and I still don’t speak Spanish.’

Now, do you see what he wants? Poof, you speak Español. Poof. Taco, burrito, enchilada, and poof. You know he wants it to happen quickly. I wrote him back and I said, ‘Look, you didn’t learn English in three weeks when you were a baby, so give yourself a little time and keep working at it. You’ll be fine.’ He writes me back and he says, ‘Don’t we believe in the gift of tongues?’ Do you see what he wants? Poof. Gift of tongues. Poof. Instant. I wrote him back and I said, ‘Yes, we believe in the gift of tongues and sometimes in church history that gift has been instantaneous, but usually not. Usually it’s a gift that’s bestowed over time.’

Grace is a gift that is bestowed over time. Time becomes the medium through which the power of Christ’s atonement is made manifest in our lives. Time becomes the medium through which the power of the atonement is made manifest in our lives.

Now, why? Because God can’t change him instantly. Can’t teach him Spanish overnight. Well, I guess God could, but we have to consider what God’s purposes are. He doesn’t just want that kid to look like he knows Spanish. He doesn’t want him to fake it for a few days. He doesn’t want him to be able to get through the airport and go order food in a restaurant. He wants him to teach the gospel in Spanish. He wants him to testify in Spanish. He wants it to be part of him, and so he chooses to change us over time.

Yeah, but Christ changed water to wine in an instant. But water doesn’t have freewill. Water doesn’t have to choose to be changed. Water doesn’t have to want to be changed – but we do. So the change typically happens over time and slowly but surely, week after week and weakness after weakness, we are transformed.

Have you ever gone to a family reunion or come home from a mission and suddenly you see that everybody’s changed? Have you ever seen that? Have you ever seen a brother get home from a mission and go, “Oh, my gosh, my younger brothers have shot up.”

And little kids say, “No, I’m the same as I was yesterday. I haven’t changed.”  Because they have seen themselves in the mirror everyday so they don’t notice the change, but when you’re away from it, when you step back, suddenly you see the transformation. There are too many Latter-day Saints who feel like, ‘Gosh, I’m not changing. The change that’s happening to me isn’t happening. When is this change going to happen?’ But if we’ll step back and then we’ll realize ‘I’m doing a little better than I was 20 years ago. I’m doing a little better than I was 10 years ago. I’m certainly doing a little better than I was five years ago. At least. Now I don’t try to pretend like it’s not fast Sunday. I may not like it, but at least I’m done with playing the game of eating my breakfast really quick and then saying, ‘Oh, I forgot it was fast Sunday.’ I mean, at least I’m over that, so I may not be where I want to be, but look how far I’ve come through the grace of Jesus Christ. Look how far I’ve come.’

I spoke at a young single adult conference one time in Kirtland, Ohio, and what an experience that was. The young people had their workshops and their food and their dances, but they also got to go to the historic sites. They got to hear these wonderful missionaries testify and teach in these historic sites. It was great. The final day we had a sacrament service right in the Kirtland temple. Now we don’t own that building, so I don’t know who knew somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody, but we ended up with permission to have a sacrament service. There we sang, “The spirit of God like a fire is burning” in the very place that it burned. I mean, we renewed our covenant with Christ by taking the sacrament in the very place where he renewed his covenant with us in this dispensation. I mean, it was just thrilling and when I stood up to speak, I said, “Notice the woodwork. Notice the woodwork around the windows. Notice the woodwork on the pillars. Notice the woodwork on the pulpits. See how intricate and how carefully, how beautiful it is, and how carefully it was done.” Well, then I pointed out that these early saints, they were very careful. They gave it their all, but they were volunteers. They weren’t professional craftsman, they weren’t professional builders and they were poor. They were stretching their resources.

Now, the reason I pointed that out is because earlier in the day they had taken me down into the basement of the temple and I got to see the original support beams underneath the Kirtland Temple. They were laid incorrectly. Not only were they laid horizontally rather than vertically – see a vertical beam can support more than a horizontally placed beam. Not only was that a problem, but they had stretched their resources so thin that they had placed the support beams too far apart from each other and under the heaviest part of the building where the pulpits were-no support beams, none. Now they have them. Now they’ve got steel reinforced things and all this stuff, but not back then. There were no support beams. They’re lucky they didn’t sing, ‘The Spirit of God like a’- whoosh -and just fall right through the floor. Think of how many people crammed into that building during the dedication, not to mention the angels that were on the roof. That building should have collapsed, but the flaws did not keep Jesus from coming and the flaws did not keep Jesus from accepting that building as His. And where there was weakness, He gave strength and He turned that flawed building into a holy temple and that’s what He is doing with us. We just have to be patient. We just have to be patient with ourselves. We just have to be patient with each other as we go through this transformation process that takes a lifetime and more. We just need to be patient.

Brethren, how many of you have ever blessed the sacrament? How many have you ever blown it, said the wrong words? Yeah, girls. You just have no idea how hard it is to read a paragraph. I mean, you just have no idea. So what happens when the little 16 year old is blessing the sacrament? He blows it. He’s blessing the water. It should be the bread. What happens in a moment like that?

He turns to the bishop. Bishop nods his head and the bishop says, “Go one more time.” Well, now he’s really nervous because no one ever listens to the sacrament prayers ever until the priest blows it, and then everybody’s like, ‘Whoa, I didn’t even know there was a problem,’ and so then suddenly everybody’s listening. Well then the nervous little priest blows it again. Well, what happens then? Does the bishop have a trap door? I mean, can he push a button, open the trap door and suck illiterate priests into the basement of the church? No, there is no trap door. The bishop can raise and lower the podium. That is the extent of his power. There’s no trap door. The bishop just nods. The kid starts one more time. Well, what if he blows it again? I mean by now all the teachers are like, ‘Gosh, you’re taking my whole lesson time.’ I don’t know – if he blows it again, he starts again. The bishop cannot excuse the mistake. The bishop can’t pretend it didn’t happen. The bishop has to verify that those words are spoken perfectly. Did you catch that? Perfectly. ‘Oh, the Mormons have such high expectations. They expect perfection.’

Yeah, but not immediately–eventually—and not alone, but with the help, the grace of Jesus Christ. So the bishop nods, the priest starts once more and this is the point when he finally gets it right, it’s counted as perfect for him and for the entire congregation. Let’s remember that lesson and when we slip up, when those we love slip up, when a young kid comes home early from a mission, let’s remember that lesson because we have many, many opportunities to turn to the bishop and to start one more time and one more time after that and one more time after that. When I was in high school, I was on the debate team and it wasn’t because I was any good. Debbie Peterson knows, she was one of my teachers when I was in high school and she knows dang well. She was a student teacher, but she knows dang well I wasn’t very good at debate, but some girls talked me into joining. You know sisters, you have no idea the power that you have in your lives. Some girls say, “Hey, we want you to join the debate team and come be with us,” and I’m like, “Okay,” and I joined the debate team.

So we’d go around the state and we’d do these debate competitions and then at the end of the competition we’d drive back here to Provo, which was my home, on a school bus, but we’d get bored so we’d play a little game. The game was called Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Some of you might remember this game. You clap your hands on your legs, you clap your hands, you click your fingers and you get a little rhythm going, and then when you click your fingers, you’re supposed to say somebody else’s name or somebody else’s number. How many know what I’m talking about? Yeah. I tried to explain this to some BYU students the other day and some girl says, “Oh, that’s Big Booty.”

I said, “We called it Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. We are obviously more righteous than you.” But whatever you call the game, I think you know how it’s played and when you make a mistake then you had to go to the back of the bus. The goal was to get up to the front. Well, I’d be moving along and people would make mistakes, so I’d start moving up and I think, ‘Wow, this is great. I’m going to win this thing. I’m going to be right up there at the front. I’m going to win this thing.’ And then somebody would call my name or my number and then my brain would freeze. Now it’s not that hard. I mean all you have to do is say three or five or seven. I mean, that’s all you have to do, but my brain would freeze. Then everybody would laugh and they’d send me to the back of the bus and then I’d spend about five minutes saying, “This game is stupid and anybody who likes this game is stupid.”

I’d sing that song for a while and then I’d start moving up again and I’d think, ‘Okay, this time. Last time I blew it, but this time I’m going to do this thing.’ And we’d get all excited and I’d get moving up and then somebody called me again and I’d end up blowing it and being sent to the back of the bus. Now, what I realize now that I didn’t realize then is that wherever I sat on that bus, the bus was still taking me home. Even when I blew it. Even when I got sent to the back of the bus, the bus was still moving me forward. So when you say, “I’ll never do it again,” and then you do it and then you say, “No, I swear I’ll never do it again,” and then you’d do it, we don’t have to look down in shame and we don’t have to look sideways for excuses. “Well, I read on the Internet that Joseph Smith wasn’t a prophet. Well, I read on the Internet that the church isn’t even true and so I don’t have to break my bad habits.” We’ve got plenty of people playing that game.

We don’t have to look down or sideways. “Well, he does it too. Well, she does it too. The church is wrong to have such high expectations.” We don’t have to play that game. Instead we can look up, we can look up for the help that Christ is so willing to proffer us. We can look up for his grace and we can be changed. When we say, “I’ll never do it again,” and we break that promise, even a pinky promise. (you know, I saw a deacon and a beehive fighting the other day and they were fighting over which is stronger – pinky promise or scout’s honor, and I said, “It doesn’t matter because you’re going to break both of them,”) so when you break pinky promise and when you break scout’s honor, and when we struggle with promises made before God, angels and witnesses, we stay on the bus. We don’t get off the bus; we stay on the bus; we stay in the church; we stay in our covenant relationship with Christ and he will get us home. He will get us there.

Grace is not a prize for the perfect. It is the power to help us through the perfecting process. Grace is not a reward for the righteous. It is the source of righteousness. Grace is not a prize, a trophy for the worthy. It is the source of worthiness and it’s real.  It’s a real force and that makes a real difference. It’s not Mulan’s lucky cricket, it’s not self-fulfilled prophecy. It’s not wishful thinking. It’s not luck or coincidence. It’s a real force. I’ve seen it change so many and I see it changing me. I bear testimony of the reality of Christ’s existence, the reality of his atonement and the reality of His grace, and I thank all of you for caring in a world that’s giving up religion, in a world of Latter-day Saints that are caving in to any argument that flits across the computer screen. I’m grateful for those who are working to present Mormonism fairly, to present our faith fairly, for we do not simply believe because we are mindless sheep. We believe because we are making an intelligent choice. We don’t believe we’re earning our way to heaven with our works. We believe that we’re learning to be heavenly with the help of Christ’s grace.

And, as we stay in that covenant relationship, we don’t depend on his part and our part. It’s not a ratio. It’s a relationship and within that loving relationship, we are tutored, we are educated, we are blessed, and we are given grace to be changed. Thank heaven, literally, for the atonement that allows us, instead of being condemned by our mistakes, to be educated and uplifted and made better because of our mistakes. I bear this testimony and all of my gratitude for those who work toward this end in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

More Come, Follow Me resources here.

Brad Wilcox is a professor in the Department of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University and has been the second counselor in the Young Men general presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since April 2020. He is the author of the book The Continuous Atonement and the BYU devotional “His Grace is Sufficient.” Brad grew up in Provo, Utah, except for childhood years spent in Ethiopia, Africa. He served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Chile and later returned to that country to preside over the Chile Santiago East Mission from 2003 to 2006. He and his family have also lived for a time in New Zealand and Spain where he directed study abroad programs for Brigham Young University. Brad has served as a member of the Sunday School General Board. He and his wife, Debi, have four children and six grandchildren. Reading, writing, teaching, and traveling are some of his favorite things. He loves Peanut M&M’s and pepperoni pizza, but he realizes that doesn’t sound too healthy so he is really trying hard to learn to love salads.

The post Come, Follow Me Week 19 – Exodus 35–40; Leviticus 1; 16; 19 appeared first on FAIR.

Sarah Allen has been writing a 60+ part series of articles responding to the “CES Letter” at r/lds on Reddit, which is now also being published on the FAIR blog. In this interview with Amber Rothamer, she talks about how she got started and the experiences she’s had over more than a year in writing the rebuttal.

Sarah’s “CES Letter” response series can be found on the FAIR website here:

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Sarah_Allen_CES_Response_Posts

Sarah Allen is brand new in her affiliation with FAIR. By profession, she works in mortgage compliance and is a freelance copyeditor. A voracious reader, she loves studying the Gospel and the history of the restored Church. After watching some of her lose their testimonies, she became interested in helping others through their faith crises and began sharing what she learned through her studies. She’s grateful to those at FAIR who have given her the opportunity to share her testimony with a wider audience.

Amber Rothamer currently operates as the Project Manager at FAIR, streamlining the volunteer application process and organizing the many operations of FAIR into easy to manage teams led by its volunteer base. Amber has over 5 years experience spearheading marketing campaigns for radio and social media as a social media marketing manager, and specializes in written and visual content creation. She has a Bachelor of Science degree from Brigham Young University Idaho where she majored in Broadcast Journalism with a minor in music and worked for both the school paper and the school radio station. Amber is driven by a passion to connect people through effective communication both professionally and personally. At home she focuses on building her young family of herself, her husband, and infant son, on open and honest communication. When Amber is blessed with free time, she enjoys traveling with her family, family history, and singing songs for her son.

The post Faithfully Informed Podcast #2 – Interview with Sarah Allen, author of 60+ part “CES Letter” Rebuttal appeared first on FAIR.

This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference. If you would like to watch all the presentations from that conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

Tarik D. LaCour, Intro to Mormon Natural Theology

Tarik D. LaCour is a Ph.D student in philosophy and MA student in neuroscience at Texas A&M. Primary research interests are in philosophy of neuroscience, philosophy of mind, moral psychology and epistemology. He is a traditional Latter-day Saint and author of the blog Mad Dog Naturalist. He has interest in developing rigorous apologetic arguments rooted in an empirical philosophical approach and plans on continuing his contributions to Latter-day Saint apologetics.

The post FAIR Conference Podcast #80 – Tarik D. Lacour, “Intro to Mormon Natural Theology” appeared first on FAIR.

This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference. If you would like to watch all the presentations from that conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

Derek Sainsbury, “We mean to elect him”: Electioneer Experiences during Joseph Smith’s 1844 presidential campaign

Derek’s book, Storming the Nation: The Unknown Contributions of Joseph Smith’s Political Missionaries, is available from the FAIR Bookstore.

Derek R. Sainsbury has worked for 26 years in the Seminaries and Institutes of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Currently, he is an instructor in the Church History and Doctrine department at Brigham Young University. He holds a PhD in American History from the University of Utah. He is the author of “Storming the Nation: The Unknown Contributions of Joseph Smith’s Political Missionaries,” the award-nominated first book-length treatment of Joseph Smith’s presidential campaign. He has also authored other academic articles and conference papers. He volunteers for Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants Central. He resides in Bountiful, Utah with his wife Meredith and their three sons and three dogs.

The post FAIR Conference Podcast #79 – Derek Sainsbury, “We mean to elect him”: Electioneer Experiences during Joseph Smith’s 1844 presidential campaign appeared first on FAIR.

Amber Rothamer is FAIR’s Project Manager. She will be hosting a new podcast series called “Faithfully Informed.” In this first episode, she interviews Kerry Muhlestein on his new book, Learning to Love Isaiah: A Guide and Commentary.

Autographed copies of Learning to Love Isaiah: A Guide and Commentary are available from the FAIR Bookstore.

Kerry Muhlestein received his BS from BYU in psychology with a Hebrew minor. He received an MA in ancient Near Eastern studies from BYU and his PhD from UCLA in Egyptology. He taught courses in Hebrew and Religion part time at BYU and the UVSC extension center, as well as in history at Cal Poly Pomona and UCLA. He also taught early-morning seminary and at the Westwood (UCLA) institute of religion. His first full-time appointment was a joint position in religion and history at BYU–Hawaii. He is the director of the BYU Egypt Excavation Project. He was selected by the Princeton Review in 2012 as one of the best 300 professors in the nation (the top .02% of those considered). He was also a visiting fellow at the University of Oxford for the 2016–17 academic year. He has published six books and over fifty-five peer-reviewed articles and has done over eighty academic presentations. He and his wife, Julianne, are the parents of six children, and together they have lived in Jerusalem while Kerry has taught there on multiple occasions. He has served as the chairman of a national committee for the American Research Center in Egypt and serves on their Research Supporting Member Council. He has also served on a committee for the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities and currently serves on their board of trustees and as a vice president of the organization. He is the co-chair for the Egyptian Archaeology Session of the American Schools of Oriental Research. He is also a senior fellow of the William F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research. He is involved with the International Association of Egyptologists, and has worked with Educational Testing Services on their AP world history exam.

Amber Rothamer currently operates as the Project Manager at FAIR, streamlining the volunteer application process and organizing the many operations of FAIR into easy to manage teams led by its volunteer base. Amber has over 5 years experience spearheading marketing campaigns for radio and social media as a social media marketing manager, and specializes in written and visual content creation. She has a Bachelor of Science degree from Brigham Young University Idaho where she majored in Broadcast Journalism with a minor in music and worked for both the school paper and the school radio station. Amber is driven by a passion to connect people through effective communication both professionally and personally. At home she focuses on building her young family of herself, her husband, and infant son, on open and honest communication. When Amber is blessed with free time, she enjoys traveling with her family, family history, and singing songs for her son.

The post Faithfully Informed Podcast #1 – Kerry Muhlestein on “Learning to Love Isaiah” appeared first on FAIR.

This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference. If you would like to watch all the presentations from that conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

Kirk Magleby, Unforgettable Hugh Nibley

Hugh Nibley Observed is available from the FAIR Bookstore.

Kirk Alder Magleby is the Executive Director of Book of Mormon Central. Kirk was born in Salzburg, Austria, and raised in Utah and Arizona. He served a mission for the Church in Peru. Kirk has a degree in economics from BYU and has spent his life in entrepreneurial as well as religious and humanitarian pursuits. Kirk is currently the Executive Director of Book of Mormon Central. He and his wife, Shannon, have 4 children and 10 grandchildren.

The post FAIR Conference Podcast #78 – Kirk Magleby, “Unforgettable Hugh Nibley” appeared first on FAIR.

Worldview Apologetics: Revealing the Waters in Which We Swim

by Jeffrey Thayne

(This is from a presentation given at the 2021 FAIR Conference)

Introduction

Let’s imagine two roommates, James and Greg, who both attend BYU. They live under the same roof, they are both practicing Latter-day Saints, and they both claim to believe in the doctrines taught by the Proclamation on the Family about sexuality and gender. However, despite these shared beliefs, the way they experience Church culture, policies, practices, and traditions couldn’t be more different.

For James, BYU’s honor code seems like a natural expression of those doctrines, an institutional scaffold that helps reinforce our moral intuitions. For him, discipleship involves participating in a community that encourages and reinforces our shared values and priorities, and helps us maintain our ideals and live out our convictions.

For Greg, the community norms those doctrines give rise to are disclosed to him, experienced by him as stifling and burdensome for LGBT students. He concludes that his faith requires him to engage in political and social advocacy on behalf of his LGBT friends, to make the university and the church more hospitable for those who live LGBT lifestyles.

How can two people who share the same doctrinal beliefs arrive at such wildly different conclusions? This question is relevant to those of us who want to help members maintain faith and conviction. The Gregs of this story do not always experience a crisis of faith and leave the Church, but Greg’s approach may prime him towards distrust of the Church’s policies and traditions, and sow the seeds of continued disappointment and future disaffection when the Church doesn’t change in the ways he prefers.

I believe the answer to this question is that doctrinal propositions are not always the primary source of our most central convictions. More often than not, our convictions form as a result of our worldviews. 

Worldviews

What is a worldview? A worldview is a set of values and assumptions about the world, through which we interpret our experiences. More specifically, worldviews shape our understanding of what human flourishing and the good life look like. Steve Wilkens and Mark Sanford explain that worldviews “tell us what we should love or despise, what is valuable or unimportant, and what is good or evil.”

Like a pair of colored lenses, our worldviews shape and inform where we look and what we see when we look there. This picture, as a metaphor for worldviews, is misleading because it implies that we could take our worldviews off and see the world as it really is. However, we can only ever trade one for another. There is no way to look at the world except through the lens of a worldview.

Wilkens and Sanford have written a fantastic book called Hidden Worldviews: Eight Cultural Stories that Shape Our Lives. Written from a broadly Christian perspective, they identify a series of non-Christian worldviews that sometimes shape Christian thinking, worldviews such as consumerism, nationalism, or naturalism. They argue that worldviews are more than lists of propositions. Worldviews, at their core, are rooted in stories.

Worldview stories

Stories give us characters, and in every story, the characters have goals, desires, or aspirations — the things that the characters are striving for. By setting forth the goals and aspirations of the characters, stories also describe the conflict that drives the story, or the problem that stands between the characters and their aspirations. Worldview stories also set forth the expected, anticipated, or hoped-for resolution to the conflict. In all of these, they shape our understanding of human flourishing and the good life. These stories also define the villains or antagonists of the story.

So what is the Gospel worldview, or the Gospel story? Well, as characters of this story, we are sons and daughters of God with a divine destiny. Our goal is salvation and exaltation — to return to live with God again to lay hold upon all the blessings of eternity. What stands between us and our desires? That is, what’s the conflict that drives this story? We (the protagonists) have been alienated from God through sin. What is the anticipated, expected, hoped for resolution? We find redemption through Christ by making and keeping covenants and participating in sacred ordinances, and by so doing lays hold upon the fruits of the Spirit in our day-to-day life. We become reconciled with God and commune with Him in holy temples.

When we embrace and internalize this worldview and its story, we see human flourishing and the good life as bound up in the fruits and gifts of the Spirit, and in temple worship — regardless of our life circumstances, or the trials we face. The villain of the story are sin, vice, and the Adversary who entices us towards sin and rebellion.

Confessional vs. convictional beliefs

It is in the translation of these stories into our lives that we form our convictions. To be clear, convictions here are more than mere stated beliefs. Wilkins and Sanford argue that our stated beliefs — that is, our confessional beliefs — can be at odds with our convictional beliefs. Confessional beliefs are those doctrinal commitments that we profess to hold to. Convictional beliefs are those values that are reflected in how we live.

In their book, Sanford and Wilkens explore consumerism as an example of a worldview that competes with the Gospel story. Consumerism is a worldview that depicts us as consumers, built to enjoy — and our aspirations are a life of material comfort. What stands in the way? Scarcity or lack of money. The hoped for resolution is improved employment and income, the accumulation of wealth, and increased material comforts and enjoyment. In this worldview, human flourishing is found in material consumption. The villain of this story is anything that gets in the way of material comfort and prosperity, be it income inequality, unemployment, underemployment, etc.

It is possible for a Christian to openly confess that their aspirations are discipleship, sacrifice, and service, and yet live as if their highest priority is material comfort instead. Their confessional beliefs (the doctrines they claim to believe in) may diverge from their convictional beliefs, which are handed to them by an undetected consumeristic worldview. In the same way, in the example above, both James and Greg share a confessional belief in the Church’s doctrines on the family, but Greg’s convictional beliefs may be informed by something else. We will get to what that “something else” is in a moment.

Hidden Worldviews

Sanford and Wilkens explain that our questions and discourse can often be informed by “hidden worldviews” that sneak into our thinking and shape our convictions:

It is not the worldviews that begin as theories or intellectual systems that mold the lives and beliefs of most people. Instead, the most powerful influences come from worldviews that emerge from culture. They are all around us, but are so deeply embedded in culture that we don’t see them. In other words, these worldviews are hidden in plain sight.

[W]e are more likely to absorb them from cultural contact than adopt them through a rational evaluation of competing theories. … Because of their stealthy nature, these worldviews find their way behind the church doors, mixed in with Christian ideas and sometimes identified as Christian positions.

In a similar way, I believe that many Latter-day Saints today struggle with their faith not because they’ve learned about something Brigham Young said or did, or because they’ve discovered some nasty facts surrounding polygamy, or some of the eccentricities of Book of Mormon translation. Many think that their trials of faith center on these questions, and some of them may be right.

But it seems to me that many of those who struggle with these historical questions do so because they’ve first embraced unquestioningly, and often wittingly, other worldviews with stories that tilt them towards doubt. Having done so, the historical questions provide a pretext for a faith crisis that has been in the works long before they ever realized it. And the true reasons for the crisis are often beyond their ability to articulate — they are merely living out the story handed to them by their worldview.

The Joshua Tree Principle

We often don’t always have a shared language for talking about these competing worldviews. Let me share a story that is told by a graphic designer named Robin Williams:

Many years ago I received a tree identification book for Christmas. I was at my parents’ home, and after all the gifts had been opened I decided to go out and identify the trees in the neighborhood. Before I went out, I read through part of the book. The first tree in the book was the Joshua tree because it took only two clues to identify it. Now, the Joshua tree is a really weird-looking tree and I looked at that picture and said to myself, ‘Oh, we don’t have that kind of tree in northern California. That is a weird looking tree. I would know if I saw that tree, and I’ve never seen one before.’ So I took my book and went outside. My parents lived in a cul-de-sac of six homes. Four of those homes had Joshua trees in the front yard. I had lived in that house for 13 years, and I had never seen a Joshua tree. … Once I was conscious of the tree, once I could name it, I saw it everywhere.

This is what I sometimes call the Joshua tree principle. If we cannot name something, it is often invisible to us. And our own worldviews are often invisible to us precisely because we don’t have names for them. And so by giving names to these worldviews, and showcasing them with examples, we’ve done perhaps a third of the necessary work. We will have revealed to many who are struggling something about their own thinking that they, before, did not fully notice or realize. For some, this unveiling and revealing might even be enough to show them the source of their difficulties and the path back into faith and conviction. For others, it might at least be a start on that journey.

Expressive individualism

Let’s look at a worldview in depth. Expressive individualism is a worldview that gives self-expression a privileged place among human goods, and treats the social freedom to engage in self-expression as a paramount virtue. Like all worldviews, it hands us a story. In this story, we aspire to become who we truly are. The conflict of this story is aptly illustrated in the writings of humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers, who argued that the threat of judgment from others creates a split between our private and public selves. Because of cultural norms, family expectations, or religious conventions, we hide our “true selves” from the world.

Therapeutic healing, in Rogers’ view, requires us to break free from the shackles of ‘oughts’ and ‘thou shalts,’ and embrace what we have hidden from others. The expected, hoped for resolution to this conflict is that we step into and assert our true selves. Carl Rogers explained: “Over against these pressures for conformity, we find that when clients are free to be any way they wish, they tend to resent and to question the tendency of the organization, the college or the culture to mould them to any given form.”

Human flourishing, then, is defined as living in a community that celebrates our uniquenesses and differences — a community that doesn’t evaluate our choices or have an agenda for our lives. The villain of the story is anyone who makes us feel self-conscious or evaluated for our self-expression. In this way, expressive individualism leads us to be suspicious of any religious mores, cultural norms, or societal institutions that discourage self-expression.

In its most extreme forms, expressive individualism presumes that there is no greater moral authority than the self, to decide what the “good life” or human flourishing looks like for us. Expressive individualism makes an idol of personal autonomy and free choice, unfettered by stifling religious conventions. From this view, community norms and religious precepts that lead people to evaluate our choices — especially choices that we see as the outgrowth of our natural selves, our true selves — hinder personal development.

Let’s put the expressive individualist story and the Gospel story side-by-side. The expressive individualist story takes place in three stages:

1. First, the protagonist finds herself in a community of oppressive norms and expectations. This could be a community culture that discourages rocket building in favor of coal mining. This could be a religious community that discourages embracing LGBT lifestyles. Whatever the case may be, the community does not celebrate their unique preferences, desires, or aspirations.
2. Next, the protagonist breaks free of the constraints of her family, community, or faith, embraces authenticity and self-expression, and becomes the person she wants to be, to be true to her heart. She embraces whatever parts of themselves they were formerly hiding from the world, be that rocketry or an LGBT lifestyle.
3. Finally, the protagonist returns, revisits, or reinvests in his community, for the purpose of remaking the community’s norms to accommodate the new version of themselves. They seek reconciliation by re-inventing the community in their image. For example, they might engage in social advocacy to dismantle norms that discourage LGBT lifestyles. Or they might start a rocket science club in their school.

The Gospel narrative can also be expressed in three stages:

1. The protagonist comes to acknowledge the ways in which she has alienated herself from God through sin.
2. The protagonist seeks redemption and reconciliation with God through Christ, by making and keeping sacred covenants.
3. She ends up becoming a disciple, and serving Christ, and enjoying the fruits and gifts of the Spirit.

This isn’t to say that all examples of expressive individualism are bad. Individualism is a wonderful thing if you are a bookworm or theater nerd in a high school that prioritizes athleticism. Or an aspiring rocket scientist in a community that expects you to become a coal miner (if you have read that book or seen that movie). Sometimes we need to re-evaluate community norms that stifle legitimate self-expression, and be more deliberate in valuing and celebrating individual differences. However, as a worldview, these stories set forth different values and priorities for us. Where expressive individualism makes community norms the central hurdle of the story, the Gospel makes sin the central hurdle of the story.

Worldviews affect our vocabulary

Worldviews, and their stories, not only shape our values and assumptions, they can also shape our vocabulary and how we experience the world. And here’s where we circle back to James and Greg, from earlier. The reason why James and Greg have such different experiences in the Church — despite superficially similar doctrinal beliefs — is because Greg has embraced expressive individualism as his core worldview.

Expressive individualism can influence how we define and experience love. Expressive individualism defines love as the absence of judgment, and also as an affirmation and celebration of whatever ways you differ from the community. Carl Rogers argued that human flourishing requires spaces of unconditional positive regard, therapeutic contexts in which individuals feel no hint or threat of evaluation or judgment. Only in such no-judgment zones can individuals freely experiment with and step into their “truest” selves and become who they were built to be.

As useful as this might be in a therapeutic context, as these ideas found expression in popular culture, the term “unconditional positive regard” was unwieldy and a bit niche. So it was shortened to “unconditional love.” This term “unconditional love” was rarely used prior to the advent of humanistic psychology. It began to be used in the 1960s, and exploded in the 1990s and 1990s as humanistic psychology became popular. And because of this, the term has some undeclared baggage and smuggles into our discourse some unwitting assumptions about the nature of love.

Basically, many people, including many Latter-day Saints, have come to see love and discernment as opposites. Just as a therapist who evaluates his client’s decisions is not providing “unconditional positive regard” (according to Rogers), so it is that when parents, friends, teachers, or Church leaders evaluate someone’s choices in light of the Restored Gospel and the covenants they have made, they are not providing “unconditional love” (according to an expressive individualist worldview).

As a consequence, any attempt to reinforce a community’s distinctive norms is taken to be unloving. In this view, love means celebrating uniquenesses and differences, encouraging others to live out their differences, and facilitating that in whatever ways we can. The purest expression of love, in this view, looks a lot like social advocacy. And because worldviews shape how we experience the world, when expressive individualism is absorbed as our guiding worldview, anything short of affirmation doesn’t “feel” like love to us.

I want to be crystal clear here. We should be patient with others, refrain from needless criticism, and help those who wander feel wanted and valued within our congregations. God is patient with us, and so we should be patient with others. We should create a community where God’s abiding love is unmistakable — a bonfire of redeeming love that warms those who have felt alienated from God. Those who sin should feel welcomed, loved, and wanted in our congregations and communities. And any time we falter in this regard, we should take corrective action.

However, this open-hearted Christian humility, compassion, and charity is fundamentally different from the expressive individualist notion of affirmation and celebration. In a Christian worldview, love is all about genuine concern, with an aim towards the salvation and exaltation of souls, through repentance, forgiveness, and transformation through Christ. In a Christian worldview, love is not indifference, and indifference is not love. Self-righteous judgment, self-serving condemnation, prideful nitpicking, moral grandstanding, etc., are all lapses in love. But so is apathy towards, or even celebration of, choices that contradict divine teaching.

So it is that while James experiences a community of loving concern at Church, Greg experiences a community of unloving judgment. Their experiences are the same but are experienced differently by each because of the worldview lenses through which they are seeing the world. Similarly, when James and Greg hear President Nelson encouraging members to stay on the covenant path, James hears this as love, and Greg hears this as a lapse in love, as a threat of judgment should he or others deviate from the covenant path.

The “Rogerian” baggage of the term “unconditional love,” and the subsequent linguistic drift in our definition of love, can go a long way towards explaining why President Nelson, in 2003, and Elder Christofferson, in 2016, both warned against the term, with a preference towards divine love, abiding love, infinite love, or love unfeigned. Unlike a Rogerian therapist who imposes no expectations on the client, our God — a being of infinite, pure, abiding love — has tremendous expectations of us and an agenda for our lives and eternity.

Expressive individualism can influence how we define terms like Zion. Latter-day Saints who embrace expressive individualism often define Zion as a place where no one feels self-conscious for being who they are, where their differences are celebrated by everyone in the community. I would submit that, from a scriptural perspective, Zion is a place where God’s laws and teachings are no longer merely aspirational ideals, but have become shared commitments and community norms.

The consequences of these vocabulary shifts are tremendous — they effect how we perceive and experience efforts to reinforce the distinctive norms of the Latter-day Saint community, and to what extent we believe those norms should reflect our teachings about chastity, marriage, and gender. For example, while James sees robust norms that encourage chastity as part and parcel with the “Zion experience,” Greg begins to believe that we cannot achieve Zion until same-sex couples can freely express their sexual preferences — their true selves — in Church or at BYU without ever fearing judgment from those around them.

Understanding discipleship

Let’s flesh out the Gospel alternative to expressive individualism a little bit more. Whereas expressive individualism assumes that we flourish most in a context where no one else has an agenda for us, we belong to a religious community that does have an agenda for us. We call it the covenant path. And the guide-rails and signposts on that covenant path may not always dovetail our personal inclinations. I like to refer to the alternative to expressive individualism as Christian discipleship, which I see as a willingness to be disciplined by Christ — and also by institutions that bear His divine authority and name.

As Latter-day Saints, we strive embrace a Gospel worldview in which commitments to community can transcend personal aspirations, where higher duties such as parenthood, priesthood service, and personal covenants take precedence over personal preferences. From the view of expressive individualism, individuals are the sole experts on what the good life looks like for them. But from a Christian perspective, we are not always the expert on what human flourishing looks like for us. There is a higher power, a divine moral sovereign, who we trust more than the self to know what our eternal destiny looks like. C.S. Lewis expressed this well when he wrote,

The more we get what we now call ‘ourselves’ out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become. … Our real selves are all waiting for us in Him. The more I resist Him and try to live on my own, the more I become dominated by my own heredity and upbringing and natural desires. … It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His Personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.

Here, C.S. Lewis depicts us as subject to a divine sovereign who has an agenda for us — an agenda that we do not necessarily, right now, have for ourselves. Human flourishing is not centered primarily on self-expression, but just as much on submission, and sacrifice, and living beyond ourselves in pursuit of commitments, duties, and covenants. It can involve a very different future for ourselves than we currently imagine or wish for — and, in fact, when Christ is done with us, we might wish or want very different things for ourselves. As Alma the Younger put it immediately after his conversion:

Marvel not that all mankind, yea, men and women, all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, must be born again; yea, born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming his sons and daughters; And thus they become new creatures.

In short, Christ can change the desires of our hearts — the things we value, prize, prioritize, and most earnestly seek after (and at times wait for) in our various life circumstances. Genuine, lasting conversion involves something more than asserting our uniqueness in the world, which is the rubric of expressive individualism. It involves a change in our values and priorities, so that they more closely resemble God’s values and priorities.

To be crystal clear, I am not saying that discipleship means that community norms are exempt from scrutiny, or that discipleship involves blithely complying with all existing community norms. That’s traditionalism, not discipleship. Traditionalism can be a counterfeit of discipleship. The expressive individualist says, “Follow your heart.” Salvation is found in being true to ourselves. The traditionalist says, “Follow the rules.” Salvation is found in following the rules. In contrast to both, the Savior said, “Follow thou me.” Salvation is found in Him.

And as we follow Him, we allow him to change our hearts, and we also at times set forth to change our communities for the better. But what that looks like will be different, depending on the worldview we embrace.

How we absorb worldviews

Worldviews are a funny thing — we rarely step into them knowingly. We passively absorb them as part of the zeitgeist of our times. If you want to change a person’s worldviews, you don’t necessarily write books. Creating a “worldview identification book,” like the tree identification book earlier, can help us learn to see the invisible — and that’s great. But we absorb these invisible worldviews in the first place most often through our entertainment. It’s in the music we listen to, the movies we watch, the novels we read.

Like the air we breathe, if movie after movie, show after show, book after book, song after song, tells us stories that follow the expressive individualist template above, we can internalize that story as a default without ever realizing we are doing it. And the way our own faith traditions appear to us can be changed by that story, as well as our priorities and values. Most who embrace expressive individualism have never heard of Carl Rogers, and have merely imbibed on our cultural assumption — handed to us from Disney and other Hollywood studios — that human flourishing involves being true to ourselves, true to our hearts, or asserting our uniquenesses against a world that would suppress them.

A fun exercise is to ask: What sorts of plots and stories would populate our movies if self-discipline, moral-centeredness, and personal sacrifice were treated at least as important as self-expression? If, in addition to stories of protagonists learning to assert their own preferences and to be themselves, we also had more stories of protagonists who relinquish some of their personal, self-centered aspirations for the sake of their family and community, and find meaning and purpose in committing themselves to a cause that is greater than themselves? Stories where community norms are not the villain, but play an essential role? Today, I extend an invitation to fellow writers and artists throughout the Church to explore these questions.

Additional worldviews

Alright, so here, I’ve touched on expressive individualism, and contrasted it with Christian discipleship. Expressive individualism is one of many such worldviews that can be explored. Another related worldview is therapeutic deism, a worldview which presumes that purpose of religion is to help us be fulfilled, happy, and healthy. It offers us a central story where our lives were full of pain and hardship until we embraced religion. Because of our religious commitments, we are now content and happy. This can lead us to prioritize low-demand, high warmth religious traditions and to see trial and struggle as signs of divine disfavor, or as a sign that our religion traditions are yet imperfect.

We can contrast therapeutic deism with Christian theism, the belief that God is our divine moral sovereign, and that religion is more than about securing fulfillment and contentment in life — it is just as much about holiness, moral discipline, and becoming like God. In this view, we can recognize the necessity of pain and suffering as part of our sanctifying experiences, and see religion not as an escape from or cure for our trials but as a lens that provides meaning and purpose in our trials. Christian theism is, I believe, rightly consider a high warmth but also high demand faith tradition.

Someday, if I’m ever invited back here, I’ll explore therapeutic deism in much greater detail, and why apologists should be aware of it.

Another worldview is scientism, which gives us a central story where humankind progresses through history only by abandoning religious superstitions in light of scientific enlightenment. In this cultural story, societal progress is continually stymied throughout history by religious institutions and traditions. The dedicated efforts of scientists help move society forward in spite of these backwards influences. This worldview primes us to be suspicion of claims to revelation and to view empirical methods as the source of all reliable truth.

Ben Spackman has spoken in this forum about the dangers of fundamentalism. He uses the term in a very specific way, with a very specific meaning. I’ll use the term in a different sense here, to refer more broadly to a worldview that assumes that divine instruction can never change. It hands us a story where direct revelation established divine teaching, and where communities subsequently depart from that original teaching and thus fall into apostasy. This story has kernels of truth — profound truth. It is, after all, a worldview narrative at the heart of our history as members of the Restored Church of Jesus Christ. But as the only story, it can prime us to reject ongoing revelation if it appears even slightly different from our past interpretations of historical revelation. This is how you get Denver Snuffer, Alan Rock Waterman, and their followers.

We can also explore the ways in which nationalism and other political worldviews set forth stories that shape our convictions and priorities in ways that distort how we live out the Gospel of Jesus Christ — stories that center on the state as the primary authority in our lives, and the locus of our salvation from the ills that plague our society (or the world).

There are others I could include here, such as hedonism, which treats pleasure, satisfaction, and personal fulfillment are life’s highest goods, and that pain and suffering are inherent evils to be avoided. Or secular humanism, which centers our attentions on human efforts and activity, as opposed to God’s activity in the world, as the source of progress and salvation.

Conclusions

I want to emphasize that even though these are all narratives that can compete with the Gospel narrative or the Gospel worldview, one can be a practicing, believing Latter-day Saint while embracing these various alternatives as their central worldview. And this is precisely, I believe, why many are having a faith crisis today — they have already been proselyted into competing worldviews, and just do not yet know it. As unwitting adherents to a foreign faith, but active participants of this one, they may start to find many of the things we do and teach to be strange and problematic.

When a person embraces expressive individualism as their central story, they might find it unjust that the temple garment interferes with preferred styles of dress. An uncritical adoption of therapeutic deism might leave someone wary of temple worthiness requirements and the attendant social risks of failing to meet them. An uncritical embrace of hedonism might lead someone to feel like their religion is failing them when they experience episodes of depression. An uncritical embrace of scientism might lead someone to implicitly elevate social scientists over prophets and apostles as the primary authorities on the good life and human flourishing. And so on.

Although ostensibly “inside” our faith, they view our practices and teachings through worldview lenses that predispose them to view our teachings and practices with some measure of suspicion. I’m not trying to universalize this interpretation to everyone. My case is simply that many are having a crisis of faith precisely because they are straddling two worlds and do not even realize they are doing so. Uncomfortable maintaining that posture, but not equipped with the language to articulate their predicament, they fixate on historical stuff that — for many of the rest of us — might pose few problems at all, but for someone who is already feeling out of place, might give them precisely the pretexts they need to leave.

Our critics sometimes accuse us of being unwilling to question. I believe we should ask far more questions than we often do, and that real critical thinking involves asking questions about our questions. What cultural and worldview assumptions are baked in the questions themselves? How are the terms defined? Why these questions, and not others? How do our worldviews inform what we accept as admissible answers to our questions? I believe that when we learn to think critically about our questions, we can become more discerning and thoughtful Latter-day Saints.

Today I extend an invitation: we need more people working on articulating these competing worldviews, providing labels for them, critically examining them by comparing and contrasting them with Gospel perspectives. We desperately need an improved vernacular and vocabulary on these matters, a “worldview identification book” — or many such books — to help make what is invisible to us visible. In other words, we need more people thoughtfully challenging the cultural presumptions of our day. And more especially, we need thoughtful writers and creators to explore how these worldviews find expression in our entertainment and media, and what it would look like if alternatives found similar expression along the way.

I want to end today with a witness of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the powerful story it tells about who we are and where we are going. We lived with God before, we stepped into mortality for glorious purposes, and each and every one of us has been alienated from God to some degree through sin. Through Christ, we can find redemption and reconciliation. We travel that journey by making and keeping sacred covenants. And the end, the goal, the telos of all of this — at least in the here and now — is to enjoy the fruits and gifts of the Spirit in our day to day lives. I want to share my witness of the Savior and His role in this story. We like to think of ourselves as the protagonists of the Gospel story, but the hero of this story is and always will be Him. And I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

More Come, Follow Me resources here.

Dr. Jeffrey Thayne graduated from BYU with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in psychology. He completed his doctorate in Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences at Utah State University. He runs the popular Latter-day Saint Philosopher blog, and spends time engaging in worldview apologetics (articulating and exploring the worldview assumptions that inform our faith). He currently resides in Washington state with his wife and two children.

The post Come, Follow Me Week 9 – Genesis 24–27 appeared first on FAIR.

Polygamy as an Abrahamic Sacrifice

by V.H. Cassler

(From a presentation originally titled “A Reconciliation of Polygamy,” given at the 2011 FAIR Conference; edited here for clarity and length)

Today we are going to talk about polygamy but probably in a different way than you have heard about it before. That is, we are going to talk about the doctrinal ins-and-outs of it rather than historical practices.

During the period of time when the restored Church was commanded by the Lord to practice polygamy, some practiced it without any discernible hardship and still others with great pain. Contemporary Church members may look back upon that period with acceptance, or indifference, or discomfort, and I would like to say at the outset that I don’t see that diversity of feelings is harmful that people differ in their reactions to polygamy I don’t think is the issue. Rather, since the new and everlasting covenant of marriage is at the heart of the work of eternal life and godhood; confusion about the nature and form of lawful marriage ordained by God is harmful.

Women and men may think that gender equality is compromised by the doctrine of polygamy. We need to know more, in other words. The overarching question we pose, therefore, is whether God has revealed his mind about these matters, and we believe that he has, specifically in Jacob 2 and in Doctrine & Covenants 132.

Why should we rely on these particular scriptures in order to tease out Mormon doctrine about polygamy? Well, I would like to make reference to an extraordinary statement that the Church issued on the 4^th of May 2007. The statement is actually rather long, but here is an excerpt from it. “Not every statement made by a church leader – past or present – necessarily constitutes doctrine. A single statement made by a single leader on a single occasion often represents a personal though well-considered opinion but is not meant to be officially binding for the whole church. With divine inspiration, the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles counsel together to establish doctrine that is consistently proclaimed in official Church publication.

This doctrine resides in the four “standard works” of scripture official declarations and proclamations, and the Articles of Faith.

So I think if we want to address polygamy as a doctrine of the Church we must sort out what is Church doctrine, what we can enter in to the dialogue about polygamy and what we really can’t invite in as part of the dialogue about polygamy. So what is Church doctrine? It is what is currently taught; it is what is consistently taught; and it is to be found in a official church publication, specifically as we have just seen: the scriptures, the declarations and proclamations, and the Articles of Faith.

Now I point this out because what I have found is that among our faith community there are still a number of teachings that some subscribe to and believe are Mormon doctrine that in fact are not. Let me give you just three examples: the teaching of blood atonement for murder (the Church has come out with an official statement that this is not a doctrine of the LDS church; the teaching that Christ was married (the Church says we don’t know if Christ was married –we are not saying he is not, but we are not saying he was — that is not a doctrine of the Church; and third, the teaching that Heavenly Father had sexual relations with Mary (again, the Church has announced that this is not Church doctrine. What is binding upon the Church membership is Church doctrine. Various church teachings the Church does not accept as being Church doctrine.

Let’s get back to the question in hand. Many, including, reportedly Emma Smith, have had difficulty reconciling Jacob 2 and D&C 132. In fact, I just saw in the Provo Daily Herald yesterday, a letter to the editor in which it was raised, “Aren’t these two scriptures in contradiction?” which I thought was interesting.

We choose to operate from a different assumption. These scriptures, found in the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants, come to us without taint of mistranslation or interpretation over millennia, in contrast to the Bible. Therefore, we do not believe that Jacob 2 and D&C 132 could have been mistranslated. In that case, we must either conclude that God revealed something to Jacob contradictory to that which he revealed to Joseph Smith, or we must assume that these two scriptures do not contradict one another. I am going to assume the latter. I am going to assume that these two scriptures are not only not in contradiction but in fact reinforce, affirm, and parallel one another.

To see how this is so, let us first ask about the principle and purpose of marriage in God’s work.

We know quite a bit about marriages as an eternal principle. God commands his children to marry (D&C 49). God married our first parents, Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden before the Fall (Moses 3). Scripture asserts that persons must be married to inherit the fullness of the Father in the celestial kingdom and that those who are not worthy of the celestial kingdom live as unmarried persons (D&C 132).

Furthermore, not only are persons to be married, but they are to be married in the New and Everlasting Covenant. The Lord states that this type of marriage is “by my word, which is my law.” In LDS culture we colloquially refer to marriage in the New and Everlasting Covenant as “temple marriage.” From all of this we understand that marriage in the New and Everlasting Covenant, or temple marriage, is an eternal principle of the highest importance, and this is so because of the purpose of such marriage.

The purpose of marriage in mortality and the purpose of marriage in the hereafter is to further the work of divine love. This work has a two-fold nature. The purpose of marriage in mortality is to raise up righteous seed to God, which accomplishment merits for the marriage partners a right to the “continuation of the seeds forever and ever.” This spiritual rationale which underpins the eternal principle of marriage in the new and everlasting covenant is God’s overarching work of love for his children to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly.

Given this eternal principle of marriage in the new and everlasting covenant, what is the law, the general rule or unrestricted form of marriage? Is there a lawful exception? What is the nature and status of that lawful exception?

Let us first turn to Jacob’s sermon on this topic.

What is the form of Jacob’s discussion of marriage? First, Jacob notes a social problem of great severity at his time. The men at his time are taking many wives and concubines and “seek to excuse themselves in committing these whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon, his son” (Jacob 2). The situation is that these great men of the scripture were doing one thing, but God is now saying that those who follow David and Solomon’s example are committing “iniquity.” How are we to understand this apparent contradiction? This is the question that prompts Jacob’s short but profound sermon on the law of marriage.

In answer to that question, the Lord notes that these men “understand not the scriptures” and err when they “seek to excuse themselves” in emulating David and Solomon. The Lord continues, “David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me.” Immediately following this frank judgment, the Lord states, “Wherefore I have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem,” — notice the term “wherefore,” meaning ‘because of this’ — “I have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem by the power of mine arm that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph. Wherefore, I the Lord will not suffer that this people should do like unto them of old.”The use of the word “wherefore” in these two scriptures reveals that part of the purpose in separating the Nephites from the civilization of their origin and bringing them across the ocean to the Promised Land was to “raise up a righteous” people who would not succumb to the errors of David and Solomon.

How would the children of Lehi act if this purpose had been fulfilled? In the very next verse we are given the answer to that question. In verse 27, Jacob expounds the law of marriage — the rule or unrestricted form of marriage, if you will: “Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none”.

The general law or rule or unrestricted form of the eternal principle of marriage is monogamy. That monogamy is the law or rule of the principle of marriage is found several places throughout the scriptures. Here’s an example, Doctrine and Covenants 49 “Wherefore, it is lawful that he [man] should have one wife, and they twain shall be one flesh, and all this that the earth might answer the end of its creation.”

In the beginning, when the earth was empty and sorely needed replenishing, God gave Adam but one wife, Eve, that the pattern of his law of marriage might be set from the dawn of time in the very first human marriage on earth. Joseph Smith said, “I have constantly said no man shall have but one wife at a time, unless the Lord directs otherwise.” Bruce R. McConkie concurs: “According to the Lord’s law of marriage, it is lawful that a man have only one wife at a time, unless by revelation the Lord commands plurality of wives in the New and everlasting covenant.” Of course, taking a plurality of wives outside of the New and everlasting covenant, outside of being commanded to do so by the Lord, is always a grievous sin.

Jacob teaches us that monogamy is the general law of marriage and polygamy is an exception to the general law, which exception must be commanded by the Lord before it can be practiced. Furthermore, Jacob reveals the reason the Lord will command the exception: “For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people to practice polygamy; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.” –that is to take but one wife and have no concubines.

With this understanding of the purpose of marriage and the law and the lawful exception of marriage in mind, Jacob’s sermon is profound, despite its brevity. Rooted in divine love for his children, God commands men and women to marry. In general, he commands them to marry monogamously. Sometimes, he will command them to marry polygamously. Both the giving of the general law and the commandment to depart from the general law are motivated by God’s love for us. But one thing is also clear from Jacob’s sermon: God is not indifferent concerning how his children marry. He actively and severely restricts the practice of polygamy, while leaving monogamy unrestricted.

One can be “destroyed” for practicing polygamy without God’s sanction, becoming “angels to the devil” and “bringing your children unto destruction, and their sins heaped upon your head at the last day,” but no such punishment attends the practice of monogamy.

Our next question for whose answer we must turn to D&C 132 is simple. Why is God not indifferent concerning the practices of monogamy and polygamy, severely restricting as he does the second while leaving the first virtually unrestricted?

For that we must turn to D&C 132. D&C 132, I think, is one of the deepest and most thought-provoking scriptures in our canon. And it is also one I think that many LDS wrestle with. So let’s wrestle with it. Shall we? D&C 132 concerns the New and everlasting covenant of marriage and its place at the heart of the plan of salvation and exaltation. Without its restoration, the fullness of eternal life would be unobtainable. Thankfully, as noted in D&C 132:40, the Lord gave Joseph Smith an “appointment” to “restore all things,” and therefore Joseph Smith restored the New and everlasting covenant of marriage. This much is indisputable. What is often in dispute in our culture is what exactly that means.

Given the over 150 years that have passed since the receipt of the revelation known as D&C 132, we are in a better position to settle that dispute. Joseph Smith restored marriage for “time and all eternity,” which we now colloquially call “temple marriage.” In restoring the principle of temple marriage, Joseph Smith restored both the general law of marriage and the lawful exception as elucidated by Jacob centuries before. Put more precisely, Joseph Smith restored the general law of monogamous temple marriage and he restored the lawful exception of polygamous temple marriage.

At the time of the revelation most scholars say prior to the date given for D&C 132, God commanded Joseph Smith to command the Church membership to practice polygamy. By so doing, God activated the lawful exception to the general law of marriage. Thus, polygamous marriages entered into in the temple after that commandment was given by the Lord were “without condemnation on earth and in heaven.” Putting Jacob’s teachings together with Joseph’s teachings, the commandment to practice polygamy was given by God at that time for the purpose of “raising up seed unto me God”.

However, in 1890 God rescinded the commandment sanctioning the lawful exception to the general law of marriage. Polygamous marriages would no longer be recognized by the Lord and indeed would be grounds for excommunication from the Church. This rescinding did not unrestore the New and everlasting covenant of marriage, or temple marriage. Temple marriage is a mainstay of our religion and will never cease to be our ideal. The New and everlasting covenant of marriage is still among us, but the commandment to live the lawful exception to the general law of marriage in the New and everlasting covenant is no longer among us.

Thus the restoration of all things does not demand that polygamy be actively practiced among the Saints; it merely demands that the possibility of God commanding polygamy, which possibility demands the restoration of temple marriage and sealing keys exists, and so it does to this day. As long as there are temples and sealing keys among our people, God can, whenever he chooses to do so, command his people to practice polygamy. But the presence of temples and sealing keys does not conversely demand or necessitate that God actually issue the command to practice polygamy. Our contemporary situation is perfectly described in this manner and explains how Bruce R. McConkie could conclude that polygamy cannot be a requirement for exaltation and why the Church does not preach that it is.

So we conclude that in restoring all things, Joseph Smith restored temple marriage, complete with its general law, monogamous temple marriage and the possibility of God-commanded lawful exception, polygamous temple marriage. Thus we see that God’s lack of indifference concerning the manner of marriage among his children which we noted in Jacob 2 persists in D&C 132. Even with the restoration of temple marriage, God is still not indifferent between monogamy and polygamy.

If he were indifferent, his words to us might be, “As long as you marry in the temple, I am indifferent as to whether you marry monogamously or polygamously.” But such a conclusion cannot be reached, for he persists in actively and severely restricting polygamy despite the presence of temples in our midst. Absent a commandment from the Lord to practice polygamy given through his mouthpiece the prophet, a member of the Church would be excommunicated for attempting to practice it.

Now some have suggested that it’s simply the illegality of polygamy in the U.S. that is the issue. Well, that actually is not the issue. I think you already know that. Such an excommunication would take place even if the Church member were living in a land where polygamy was legal. Even if polygamy were to be legalized in the United States itself, the Church would still excommunicate members in the U.S. who attempted to practice it, unless the Lord issued the required commandment through the prophet to practice it.

Our missionaries are not allowed to baptize polygamists, even if they live in countries where polygamy is completely legal. There is no greater spiritual punishment the Church can mete out against an offender than excommunication. God persists in making a strong discrimination between monogamy and polygamy, even in the context of the restoration of all things.

We now turn once again, I think to the crux of the matter. Why is God not indifferent between monogamy and polygamy? When we believe that in Doctrine and Covenants we will find the light that we need. We go so far as to say that in this scripture the Lord freely reveals his mind to his children concerning the reasons for his lack of indifference.

I think one of the most one of the marvelous elements of the Lord’s discourse in Doctrine and Covenants 132 and in the Doctrine and Covenants more broadly, is the insight it gives us into how the Lord reasons. The argument the Lord puts forward is meant to be understood by his people. I must tell you as a convert to the Church and as a member of the Roman Catholic Church growing up, I will never forget in catechism school when something that didn’t quite add up would be raised by the nuns, I would raise my hand and I would say, “Sr. McElroy, I don’t understand.” and she would say to me, “That’s the beauty of it! That’s the mystery of the divinity of God!” and I would be like… And so I must admit being a rather concrete type of person it was such a relief, such a wonder, to hear by reading Doctrine and Covenants that God actually wants us to understand why he is thinking about things the way he is thinking about them. Now whether we mere mortals can fully understand is another question, but the desire on his part that we understand I think is really unique in the LDS Church.

Alright, so back to this. Let’s make the reasonable assumption that God means what he says, and God wants us to understand what he means. So in Doctrine and Covenants 132, the Lord attempts to reason with Joseph Smith in order to help him understand the principles involved in marriage. In Doctrine and Covenants Section 50 we see here, “And now come…by the Spirit, unto the elders of [my] church, and let us reason together, that you may understand; Let us reason even as a man reasoneth one with another face to face. Now, when a man reasoneth he is understood of man, because he reasoneth as a man; even so will I, the Lord, reason with you that you may understand. Wherefore, I the Lord, will ask you this question…”

So in D&C 132, we can assume the Lord will reason with us and present arguments that we may understand on the issue of polygamy, and the Lord will begin his chain of reasoning as he mentioned in D&C 50 with a question, which he will then proceed to answer. So the Lord states at the beginning of the revelation:

“You [Joseph Smith] have inquired of my hand to know and understand wherein I, the Lord, justified my servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as also Moses, David, and Solomon, my servants, as touching the principle and doctrine of their having many wives and concubines — Behold and lo, I am the Lord thy God, and will answer thee as touching this matter.”

What is the form of the argument concerning the law of marriage in this scripture? The form is virtually identical to Jacob 2, which demonstrates the consistency and unchanging nature of the Lord’s reasoning on this matter. D&C 132 parallels Jacob 2 and serves as a more detailed exposition and affirmation of Jacob 2.

Let us see how this is so. The same historical question serves as the catalyst for [Section] 132 as it did for Jacob 2. What are we to make of the practice of David, Solomon, and other great patriarchs of old having many wives and concubines? This time the inquirer is Joseph Smith — he who had previously translated the Book of Mormon, including Jacob 2.

This inquiry is again met by a setting forth of the general principles of marriage in the New and everlasting covenant, then followed by a more specific explanation of the lawful exception of polygamy. Hyrum M. Smith’s early commentary on the Doctrine and Covenants states, “The Revelation is divided into two parts. The first part, comprising verses 3 to 33, deals mainly with the principle of celestial marriage, or marriage for time and all eternity, and the second, comprising the remaining verses, deals with plural marriage.”

Now, as to the first part of D&C 132, verses 3 to 33, we have a reiteration that you must marry, and you must marry in the temple in order for your marriage to be effective in the hereafter and in order for you to be exalted,.

And we learned that those who reject temple marriage  cannot have eternal increase; they cannot be gods but are appointed angels in heaven, which angels are ministering servants. Now in the setting fourth in 3 to 33 of the general principle of eternal marriage, temple marriage, marriage in the New and everlasting covenant, there is no mention of polygamy; indeed, the whole issue of David and Solomon is not raised once in the verses where the Lord discusses in general what eternal marriage is, why he commands it, and why those who reject it are condemned. Additionally, this marriage covenant is described in terms that do not necessarily imply polygamy at all. I mean, it’s not there in verses 3 to 33.

It is not until the second half of the revelation, starting with verse 34 forward, that polygamy is addressed. Before the Lord begins his discussion of polygamy, he introduces the case of Abraham. The Lord begins by explaining that because of Abraham’s righteousness in receiving “all things” by “revelation and commandment,” Abraham “hath entered into his exaltation and sitteth upon his throne. As a result, Abraham’s seed will ‘continue’ and will be “as innumerable as the stars”.

A key element of Abraham’s righteousness was to enter into the law, which provides for “the continuation of the works of my Father, wherein he glorifieth himself”. The law referred to here is the law, or general principle, that the Lord has been expounding up to that point: marriage in the New and everlasting covenant, Abraham accepted marriage in the New and everlasting covenant. Again the Lord warns, as he does in verses 3, etcetera “[Except ye enter] into my law and be saved, ye cannot receive the promise of my Father…”

Finally, starting with verse 34, the Lord turns to the topic of polygamy. He begins the discussion with a statement of fact: “God commanded Abraham, and Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham to wife.” In the verses that follow, the Lord will answer the question he then poses: “And why did she do it?”

The Lord has apparently chosen to explain his reasoning and reveal his mind on polygamy in terms of a specific analogy between two situations that occurred to one man, Abraham. The Lord’s subsequent explanation of polygamy centers around an analogy the Lord himself posits between his commandment to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac and his commandment to Abraham to marry Hagar polygamously. In verse 36 the Lord explains: “Abraham was commanded to offer his son Isaac; nevertheless it was written: Thou shalt not kill. Abraham, however, did not refuse, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness”.

Now, given the importance of his children having a correct understanding of their Father’s mind on this topic, we cannot believe that this analogy was chosen capriciously. This is not an arbitrary analogy being made,. and since it is the only analogy being made, we must pay attention to it and try to understand why that analogy was chosen.

God wants us to see how and why he views those two situations as analogous: sacrifice Isaac; take Hagar to wife. By choosing the story of Isaac to be the analog of the story of polygamy the Lord reveals his mind to us and constrains forever and irrevocably any discussion we, his children, might choose to have on the subject of polygamy.

We must understand correctly why the Lord elects to use this particular analogy, or we are likely to seriously err in our understanding of the role and place of polygamy in God’s plan for his children.

The first and most telling point to note about the analogy is that the story of Isaac is a story of sacrifice. The Lord is telling us that the term “Abrahamic sacrifice” refers not only to the story of Isaac but applies to the story of Hagar as well.

Before the Lord even delves into the analogy, his very positing of an analogy between the Isaac situation and the Hagar situation is revealing. Of all the possible analogies of sacrifice that God has commanded in the history of the world (sacrifice of animals under the Mosaic law; sacrifice of possessions under the law of consecration; sacrifice of home and country as the early saints did in crossing the plains; sacrifice of your own life as Joseph Smith and others have done), God chooses the most wrenching sacrifice he has ever commanded to serve as the analogy wherewith to instruct us concerning polygamy — the sacrifice of one’s own innocent child by one’s own hand. This choice of analogy by the Lord is meant to reveal to us that in the Lord’s eyes the Hagar situation is no light matter or run-of-the-mill sacrifice but rather is like unto the heaviest and most heart-wrenching of all sacrifices God has ever required of man.

In positing this analogy then we get a parallel, and that parallel is being commanded to kill your innocent son is analogist to being commanded to marry polygamously. Why, because murder is as grievous as sin as adultery and vice versa.

Now, what is an Abrahamic Sacrifice? Let’s make sure that we understand that. Sacrifice is one of the first principles of a gospel — we know that, and we know that there are various forms of sacrifice. For example, we might say that we are sacrificing to send a child on a mission. That sacrifice is by our own choice, and we know that the goal is one that we desire.

Another type of sacrifice might be to accept the consequences of doing the right thing. We might be ostracized or oppressed because our belief and behavior by those who believe otherwise towards us is unpleasant. I think we saw this in the Proposition 8 campaign, didn’t we? However, it’s our choice and we are very much desirous of that goal.

A third type of sacrifice appears from our mortal perspective maybe not to involve agency, though I believe some agency was involved. These are sacrifices of adversity, for example, where an innocent child is born with an imperfect body, or accidents or illness take the health or life of persons. We don’t think of those as conscious mortal choices, but some of us believe that they were pre-mortal conscious choices about some of these things.

But the heaviest sacrifice a person can ever be called upon to make — the Abrahamic sacrifice is slightly different from these other three. In the Abrahamic sacrifice, we are asked by God to make a conscious choice in a situation where what he requires of us cannot be regarded as a desired goal from all that we know about God’s laws.

We can all understand how obedience to God’s laws, for example to the Ten Commandments, brings a happier, richer, and more peaceful life. But what if God were to command us to break the Ten Commandments? Reason alone would tell us we would lose the happiness and peace that would come from obedience to the law. But the test of the Abrahamic sacrifice is not a test of reason. It is a test of faith. It is the ultimate test of faith.

Remember for a moment what an Abrahamic sacrifice represents. An Abrahamic sacrifice involves at least three elements that are to be found in the story of Abraham being commanded to sacrifice Isaac: 1. God makes plain to Abraham a law, “thou shalt not kill;” 2. God then requires Abraham, an innocent and righteous man, to depart from that law, sacrifice Isaac, an innocent child, and the choice to depart therefrom would seem to erase any joy in Abraham’s life, because the true happiness is to be found under the law — don’t kill Isaac; and 3. God provides a means of escape from the departure from the law — an angel is sent to stay the hand of Abraham, and the ram in the thicket is provided by the Lord, which allows renewed joy from being able to live under the law — don’t kill Isaac — once more.

Let’s go ahead and talk about The Abrahamic Sacrifice Concerning Hagar. With that understanding in mind, let’s go back to D&C 132. Remember in verse 34 we finally begin a discussion of polygamy; we discover that God commanded Abraham to have children, in this case, one child, Ishmael, with Hagar, who was not his wife at the time of the commandment and who was handmaiden to his wife, Sarah. Abraham took Hagar to wife, thus entering into a God-commanded polygamous union.

Fortunately, rather than just leaving us with this fact, the Lord helps us to greater understanding through his discussion of “Why?”, because this was the law, and from Hagar sprang many people. This, therefore was fulfilling, among other things, the promises. Does this mean that, in God’s eyes polygamy is the general law and that he is indifferent between monogamy and polygamy after all? We will see this isn’t what the Lord is saying, because the Lord’s exposition does not end with verse 34.

To make sense of verse 34 we must look at it in conjunction with the rest of the verses that then follow. Immediately after verse 34 the Lord asks, “Was Abraham, therefore, under condemnation?” If we accept the position that the Lord is indifferent between monogamy and polygamy, this question is a non sequitur, it makes no sense. The very question itself would not be understandable. How can someone practicing a form of marriage about which the Lord is indifferent be perceived to be “under condemnation?”

God cannot be referring to some type of cultural condemnation by Abraham’s peers. We are not talking about Joseph Smith’s time, when polygamy was culturally unacceptable; we are discussing Abraham, in whose culture polygamy was commonplace and accepted. No one in Abraham’s cultural setting would be condemning him for practicing polygamy, so why does the Lord ask about this?

The Lord’s question raises a puzzle for us, and to understand it we must look to the scriptures that immediately follow. Verse 36 is the great key to this puzzle.

In this verse, as noted, the Lord posits the direct analogy between his commandment to sacrifice Isaac and the commandment to marry Hagar. In that verse, the Lord said: “Abraham was commanded to offer his son Isaac; nevertheless, it was written: Thou shalt not kill. Abraham, however, did not refuse, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness.”

Let us be clear on what is happening here. The general law that God commands all to obey is “Thou shalt not kill.” Then, to one innocent and righteous man at one time, he gives a commandment to kill his own son — not a stranger, not a criminal, not an enemy soldier. There is no justification possible for killing one’s innocent young son. In fact, we know that God destroyed those at Jerusalem for the child sacrifices that they were making there.

God has commanded something exceptional of this man — something that goes against all he knows of God’s law and for which he can find no possible justification. God is asking Abraham to depart from the law he himself gave Abraham. He requires of Abraham a sacrifice not demanded by justice and the law. In this sense, God asks Abraham to perform a Christ-like sacrifice in similitude of the sacrifice of God and his own perfectly innocent son in the atonement.

Because Christ was perfectly innocent the law could not demand that he suffer and die for others. But Christ chose to suffer and die to fulfil the demands of justice and mercy for others. Abraham and Christ, both consciously chose to sacrifice the happiness that they were due under the law to bring about a greater good for others.

We know from the account in Genesis that Abraham’s choice was felt by him as a sacrifice of happiness; Abraham was not happy to hear the commandment to sacrifice Isaac. Indeed, we believe he felt great sorrow, maybe even some confusion, but Abraham was determined to obey God, even if great sorrow and grief befell him as a result.

Because Abraham obeyed an exceptional commandment of God and departed from the law, it was counted unto him for righteousness. But his obedience did not turn the departure from the law into the law. God has never since commanded any person to sacrifice their child.

In fact, God provided Abraham an escape from killing his son, despite the original exceptional commandment to kill Isaac that God himself gave. In returning to the law “thou shalt not kill” after having to depart from it “sacrifice Isaac,” Abraham felt renewed joy and relief in regaining Isaac. Though he undoubtedly felt some paradoxical joy in submitting to God’s will in all things, Abraham’s joy was not full until the test was over and the escape made.

So why is the Lord making the sacrifice of Isaac a direct analogy to his commanding Abraham to take Hagar to wife? We conclude in this situation, as in the situation concerning Isaac, God is commanding a departure from the law — something that is, as a general rule, a thing to be condemned by God. That is why the Lord asks, “Was Abraham, therefore, under condemnation?”

According to the general law, or rule, of monogamous marriage in the New and everlasting covenant of marriage set forth by God himself and given that God is not indifferent between the two forms of marriage, Abraham is under condemnation — otherwise, the Lord’s question makes no sense.

But the Lord answers his own question: “Nay, he was not under condemnation for I, the Lord, commanded it” verse 35, thus creating the supercessionary but still exceptional “law” of verse 34. There would be no puzzle and nothing to ask or answer if God was indifferent between monogamy and polygamy.

But if God is not indifferent between monogamy and polygamy, then a puzzle does arise — a puzzle that is answered by the Lord with reference to an obvious case of a commandment by God to depart from the general law and follow a lawful exception.

This to me is the strongest possible scriptural evidence that D&C 132 is in complete harmony with Jacob 2, and that, therefore, the general law or rule of marriage is monogamy and the lawful exception is polygamy and God maintains as strong a discrimination between the two forms of marriage in this dispensation as he did in Jacob’s time.

We can now say why it is that God is not indifferent between monogamy and polygamy. In the Lord’s eyes, monogamy is not a sacrifice, it’s a blessing, but polygamy is a sacrifice and not just any sacrifice. The Lord tells us it is an Abrahamic sacrifice.

No matter what our human inventory of emotions toward polygamy — joy, sorrow, or some combination of the two — the most mature, the most knowledgeable perspective is that of the Lord, who is stating his mind that he views it as an Abrahamic sacrifice.

The Lord himself reveals his mind on the matter through his analogy between Isaac and Hagar. All other things being equal, God is not indifferent towards the type of sacrifice Abraham was required to make, because it involves Christ-like suffering.

However, as with Abraham’s sacrifice, which points to the sacrifice of the innocent son of God in the atonement, sometimes Christ-like suffering is the greater good and the most loving course of action. Thus, in a sense, despite the suffering involved in a Christ-like sacrifice or Abrahamic sacrifice there is a joy which comes from knowing that sacrifice is, in God’s eyes, the right and loving thing to do.

There is a joy which comes from suffering in God’s cause, it deepens our hope and trust and faith in his goodness, but notice my dear, brothers and sisters, that the presence of joy in a sacrificial act does not remove that act from the category of “sacrifice” and put it in a new  category called “non-sacrifice”. We will explore this in just a moment.

The Abrahamic sacrifice would mean very little to us if we did not discriminate between our desire for the happiness that God’s law gives us and our antipathy towards abandoning that happiness even if God commands it. If Abraham were indifferent as to whether Isaac lived or died, God’s commandment to sacrifice Isaac couldn’t have been a test of Abraham’s faith.

Likewise, if God were indifferent as to whether Isaac lived or died, there would have been no angel and no ram in the thicket. But an Abrahamic sacrifice is no cold and passionless event; quite the contrary, it is the greatest passion that the human heart can feel.

This is an innocent person consciously choosing to release what he knows to be true happiness under God’s loving laws, because he loves God more dearly than he loved his own true happiness. This is a sacrifice not justified under the law of God. Abraham and Isaac were innocent, and the joy is not complete until the escape is made.

Once his test was passed, Abraham’s reward, among other things, was to not have to sacrifice Isaac. Indeed, in a sense Abraham’s reward for offering to sacrifice Isaac was to regain him forever. Though the test was given to Abraham because he was so righteous, his reward for passing the test could not have been perpetuation of the sacrifice.

I am sorry to belabor this point, but I think it’s something that we get muddied when we think about polygamy. Abraham did not then have to wake up every morning and go to Mount Moriah. Passing the test meant that the sacrifice was not perpetuated. There was an escape.

This combination of suffering and joy applies equally well to the Hagar situation. We know that Abraham was not happy at the prospect of killing Isaac, but he obeyed, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Since the Lord tells us the Hagar situation is analogous, none of the parties — Abraham, Hagar or Sarah or for that matter, Ishmael or Isaac — should have been exempt from suffering in this situation, even though they would have felt that paradoxical joy that comes from sacrificing to do the Lord’s will. Why? Because in the Lord’s eyes, all five persons were sacrificing. And what were they sacrificing? The natural joy that comes from the law of marriage — monogamy in the New and everlasting covenant.

Genesis makes plain that that was in fact the case: no one was happy, and Hagar and Ishmael were forced to leave. In fact, God sanctioned their dismissal from the camp, miraculously saving Hagar in the desert. God didn’t seem to expect or require that they all be happy — he only expected that they trust and obey him. Furthermore, since Abraham offering to sacrifice Isaac was counted unto him for righteousness, the sacrifice of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar to depart from the law of marriage was also counted unto them for righteousness.

Being happy about the commandment to practice an Abrahamic sacrifice does not seem to factor into the counting of one’s obedience as righteousness. After all, a sacrifice remains a sacrifice despite the paradoxical joy experienced. We know this principle from many situations. “Murmuring” against the law is not acceptable, but crying out to the Lord in innocent anguish — anguish felt as a result of obeying God’s commands — is not condemned.

We know this because Christ himself cried out in pain and anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane. And he cried out in pain and anguish on the cross at Calvary. He initially felt to shrink from drinking the bitter cup. He even asked Heavenly Father why he had forsaken him.

Christ was making a sacrifice not justified under the law. His death was a departure from the divine law. If Christ himself was not thought less of by God for expressing suffering caused by a departure from divine law, why would God require mere mortals to be stoic when suffering pain caused by righteous obedience to a commandment to depart from the law? The answer is that he does not.

When Abraham was asked to make a sacrifice not justified under the law, his heart mourned and we do not think less of him for it. We know God loved Abraham with great intensity. In truth, if God wept with Christ in Gethsemane in Calvary, if he wept with Abraham on the road to Mount Moriah, did he not also weep when Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, and other righteous polygamous wives and husbands wept? The Lord’s own analogy leads us to believe that he did. Christ, Abraham, and many righteous polygamous wives and husbands felt both suffering and paradoxical joy in their chosen sacrifices.

I think it’s important to remember here that Sarah and Hagar were not changed into some sort of new being when God issued the exceptional commandment to depart from the law. They were normal women with normal passion and felt the loss of departing from the law of marriage.

Likewise, the women of the early Church were not changed when God commanded polygamy to be practiced. Because they were not changed they made a righteous and exceptional sacrifice. Those who claim women will be changed in the hereafter to accept polygamy seem not to see the significance of this. The natural joy that would be brought by adherence to the law of God is lost even when it is God commanding the departure from the law.

The final aspect of the Lord’s analogy between the Isaac situation and the Hagar situation must not be overlooked. Since, in a sense, the Lord is inviting us to reason about two Abrahamic sacrifices, we cannot fail to recognize the theme of eventual relief that pervades both. Remember that when Abraham raises his hand to slay his son Isaac, the Lord sends an angel to stop him and provides a ram in the thicket.

The first Abrahamic sacrifice is brought to an end by the Lord, who relieves Abraham from the exceptional commandment which has caused him suffering. The paradoxical joy of submission to God in departing from the law is replaced by the fuller natural joy that comes from living under God’s law, “Thou shalt not kill.”

By offering to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham regains Isaac forever. This is a very important element of any Abrahamic sacrifice: it is always eventually brought to an end by God. The lifting of the exceptional commandment comes as a tangible relief to Abraham.

Why does the Lord bring this relief? We can only reiterate that it is because God is not indifferent between a state of sacrifice and a state of relief, and that all other things being equal, he actively prefers eventual relief to perpetual sacrifice for his innocent children.

Lest we mistake this natural Fatherly preference, Christ asks rhetorically, “What man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” The great sacrifice to which Abraham’s sacrifice points, the atonement, was also brought to an end by God.

His sacrifice ended. We sing of Christ: “Once rejected by his own now their King, he shall be known. Once forsaken, left alone, now exalted to a throne. Once he groaned in blood and tears, now in glory he appears. Once he suffered grief and pain, now he comes on earth to reign. Once upon the cross he bowed, now his chariot is the cloud. Once all things he meekly bore, but he now will bear no more.”

This sacrificial assignment came to Christ because of his perfect righteousness, but we must understand that though Christ’s sacrifice merited him a reward, His sacrifice did not constitute His reward.

If the Lord has chosen the Isaac-Hagar analogy with care, then we would expect to see an end to the exceptional commandment in this case as well, which end would bring relief. Obedience to God’s exceptional commandment to practice polygamy merited a reward for Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, but it did not constitute their reward. Implicit in God’s sanctioning of Sarah’s demand that Hagar and Ishmael be banished is God’s recognition of the sacrifice and suffering from the point of view of the two mothers involved and his desire to provide relief to them.

Interestingly, God does not condemn either woman for feeling the way she does; he accepts the negative emotional situation as a natural consequence of the departure from the law he has commanded and agrees to a change in the situation to relieve the sorrow and the tension. The appearance of God’s angel to Hagar in two situations and God’s miraculous rescue of Hagar and Ishmael are very important components of this relief.

Before turning to that, I would like to make mention of D&C 132, verse 50. In verse 50, I believe God is extending this analogy of sacrifice and sorrow and eventual relief in relation to polygamy to Joseph Smith’s own personal situation in polygamy. Speaking to Joseph Smith, the Lord says, in that verse “I have seen your sacrifices in obedience to that which I have told you. Go, therefore, and I make a way for your escape, as I accepted the offering of Abraham of his son Isaac.”

Now, Joseph Smith made many sacrifices in his lifetime. But these other sacrifices by Joseph Smith — deprivation of property, of liberty, and so forth are not in the same class as an Abrahamic sacrifice, because God did not command of Joseph a departure from the law. In our opinion, the only sacrifices required of Joseph that meet the characteristics present in the case of Abrahamic sacrifice were Joseph’s sacrifices in connection with polygamy.

Furthermore, all of the surrounding verses to verse 50 are speaking of polygamy, and the only other mention of Isaac in the revelation is with reference to polygamy. The escape is not in reference to escape from enemies or poverty or other travails, because the last phrase about Isaac reiterates that it is an escape from the command of the Lord to depart from God’s law. The whole of which verse 50 is a part begins with verse 36, because they are like bookends: Isaac in verse 36, Isaac again in verse 50.

It seems reasonable to conclude then, that God is speaking of polygamy in verse 50. God is expressing sympathy for the hardships and sorrow imposed on Joseph by the exceptional commandment to depart from the law of marriage. He is promising to count Joseph’s obedience for righteousness, as Abraham’s sacrifice was counted. And, very significantly, he is promising that at some future point Joseph will have an escape from the exceptional commandment to depart from the law of marriage and that his sacrifice and suffering that attended his obedience would come to an end.

This exceptional commandment was given to Joseph because of his great righteousness.

But we must not fail to remember that Joseph’s practice of the exceptional commandment of polygamy merited him a reward, but it could not conceivably constitute his reward under the conceptual framework that the Lord’s argument lays out for us.

Christ chose to sacrifice his life, but regained it and felt the relief and joy that came from living once more. Abraham chose to sacrifice Isaac, but regained Isaac and felt the relief and natural joy that comes from obeying commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” If the Lord chose this Isaac-Hagar analogy with care, and we have every reason to believe that he did, then verse 50 is telling us that one day there would be a “ram in the thicket” for Joseph Smith concerning his Abrahamic sacrifices in polygamy, and that he would feel the relief and natural joy that attends such an escape.

Let’s look at implications for Sundry LDS cultural assumptions about polygamy. If this interpretation of D&C 132 is correct, then some interesting things begin to happen to our casual acceptance of certain “folkways” accepted uncritically in LDS culture. A whole new vision begins to appear when we understand from God’s own reasoning that monogamy is the rule and a blessing and polygamy is the exception and an Abrahamic sacrifice, and that God is not indifferent between the two because God cares about the pain and suffering involved in an Abrahamic sacrifice.

The first interesting thing that happens is that doubt is now cast on the uncritical assumption that polygamous marriage is ubiquitous or even a requirement in the celestial kingdom and that even if we are not commanded to practice polygamy here we may be required to practice it there. As God’s commandments are not temporal but spiritual in nature, God will continue to view polygamy as an Abrahamic sacrifice even in the context of the hereafter. A general law of God continues, but a departure from the law, involving as it does Christ-like sacrifice about which God is not indifferent, by its very nature is temporally bounded because of God’s love for his children and his desire to see such Christ-like sacrifices come to an eventual end, even if they have wrought great good in their time and place. It is unclear how God could be constrained for all eternity to command a departure from the law of marriage, which departure he himself would desire to bring to an end. To disallow individuals a choice in this important matter, given that God himself is not indifferent about the subject, would imply that heaven is not the best of all possible worlds from God’s own perspective and does not represent perfection.

Some in LDS culture assume that polygamy is not merely a doctrinal necessity but a circumstantial and demographic necessity in the hereafter. Generally, this assumption takes one of two forms. In the first form of the assumption, some assert that there will be more women, many more women who inherit the celestial fullness than men, and since everyone in the highest level of the celestial kingdom is married, polygamy must then follow. There is simply no basis for assuming a celestial sex ratio highly skewed in favor of women.

How could God be no respecter of persons and create a system where one spirit, because it is male has a much worst chance, a much poorer chance of reaching the celestial kingdom than the other sex? If God is the author of all fairness he could not have authored such a system. Even if this system were somehow fair, for such an outcome to ensue would mean that the male gender was disproportionately an attribute of the weakest spirits. My husband is sitting out there in the audience. I can you tell that that’s wrong. There is just no doctrinal basis for such a belief.

Others who feel that polygamy is ubiquitous may not understand, in fact, there are some demographics working against that hypothesis. Some of you may know that I have authored books on the abnormal sex ratios of Asia – that they are branch hypotheses. There are some figures that you may want to know. Even in a normal population, 107 boy babies are born for every 100 girl babies, naturally. The sex ratio evens out at age five, because male babies suffer from disproportionately higher infant mortality than female babies, and we assume that all of those are saved in the celestial kingdom.

Do you want to go back even further? Do you know what the conception sex ratio is? 160 male fetuses are conceived for every 100 female fetuses, naturally. So to somehow think there is a demographic necessity for women to greatly outnumber men in the kingdom — I just really don’t think that we can go with that, at least not with any sort of confidence as well.

We also get some other ones. I will just mention this one. Some believe it’s circumstantial necessity, because one Heavenly Mother is incapable of producing and nurturing the vast numbers of spirit children that Heavenly Father appears to have fathered. I will just give you the Readers Digest version, which is, “Why don’t we ask that about a father?” How do we believe one heavenly father could do it? Alright, we will just leave it there, but it goes to the paper. Then there are still others, who say, look, human male sexual anatomy obviously holds that men are designed to be polygamous. And since male sexual anatomy is an image of our Heavenly Father then, yeah, bingo. Of course, what immediately comes to mind is that wonderful verse about how “the lion shall eat straw like the ox,” which is we know that the lion’s anatomy is perfected for being carnivorous, yet we do not doubt that in heaven the lion will not be acting upon its anatomy. It will be acting upon the piece of the Kingdom of God. So we do not believe that lions are going to be extremely unhappy in the kingdom of heaven because they have to eat straw like the ox. I will just leave that one there.

We see other things as well. In mortality, when God does command polygamy, he understands it as an exceptional sacrifice by the innocent of the joy that would be theirs if they could obey the law instead. This departure from the law can cause pain and sorrow, though it may bring about a greater good. Nevertheless, if his righteous daughters and sons weep because of polygamy, even in the times when the Lord commands it, he is not upset with them. He weeps when they weep because, like Abraham, they are willing to sacrifice and suffer for a time that God’s work of love be accomplished.

Since God is not indifferent between monogamy and polygamy, then his love also dictates that at the earliest possible moment when the exceptional commandment to depart from the law can be lifted, he will do so. If no greater good can come from a Christ-like sacrifice it becomes meaningless and gratuitous suffering. Our understanding of God’s love for his children would appear to preclude that kind of cruelty on the part of our Father in Heaven. Indeed, the sacrifices of the Mosaic law had meaning up until the moment that Christ was resurrected and God’s scrupulously required adherence to know Mosaic law until that time.

But after Christ’s victory, the sacrifices of the Mosaic law became meaningless, and God no longer required them to be performed. This not only applied to the sacrifice of innocent animals, but also to a human sacrifice, circumcision. The commandment to practice circumcision was lifted at the time of Christ’s resurrection (Moroni 8:8). Indeed, continuing Mosaic sacrifice was kind of tantamount to a rejection of Christ or at least a profound misunderstanding of the Atonement, (1:10:00.6)about which God was surely not indifferent.

Indeed, those who desire to practice polygamy in times when God has not commanded it are in spiritual chaos. That desire would be analogous to Abraham, after hearing the voice of the angel and seeing the ram in the thicket, proceeding to kill Isaac anyway as a testimony of his faithfulness to God. We can only surmise that from God’s point of view, such an act would constitute anything but a testimony of faithfulness.

Thus God, although initially commanding Abrahamic sacrifices, also strongly desires to provide the “ram in the thicket.” He is not indifferent about whether that ram is there or not. He isn’t sort of laying back watching heavenly TV or something. Looking at it and watching, going, “Was it time for that ram to appear? I will wait till this next commercial is over.” That’s not our God. He wants that ram to appear and he wants it to appear at the earliest moment that it can — it can be there.

To think otherwise is incompatible with the idea of a loving God, who sees a distinction between pleasure and pain, happiness and sorrow. There will always be a “ram in the thicket” for those who are faithful in an Abrahamic sacrifice.

What will the “ram” be? In the eternities if the Isaac-Hagar analogy is what we are to be governed by in our understanding, then in the eternities those who sacrificed and suffered like Abraham will have the opportunity to live under the law, not under the departure from the law. Without this affecting either their exaltation or their right to associate with the persons they love. We are not saying that no will live polygamously in heaven. I am not a prophet, seer and revelator. We do claim, given the Lord’s analogy as discussed above, it is plain that no one can be commanded to do so in heaven, and that the choice to opt out of polygamy cannot and will not affect an individual’s exaltation or right to associate with those whom they love.

Whatever escape the Lord has provided for those faithful souls, it will be consistent with the law of sealing and sealing transferability. Some may be unaware that there is an ordinance called the “sealing transfer.” And that in fact over 13,000 sealing transfers took place in the Church in late 1800s. Some people often point to D&C 139 verses 39, 44 and 55, but I think we can also reconcile those scriptures as well.

But I would like to say this because I wish to be perfectly clear on this matter and that is may we pause to say that Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff led the Church with courage, inspiration and nobility at the time when the Saints were commanded to make great sacrifices including the Abrahamic sacrifice of polygamy. They, and all who willingly made the sacrifices required of them by the Lord, are due all our honor. They placed devotion to God above all else, and placed on the altar their reputations and even their very lives and certainly their hearts. In addition, Wilford Woodruff led the Church with inspiration and skill during the period when the Lord rescinded the commandment to practice polygamy, which rescindment must have seemed to many at the time as a great sacrifice, as well. Our understanding of the commandment to practice polygamy as an Abrahamic sacrifice should cause us to deeply revere those early saints of whom that sacrifice was required. I want to be absolutely plain on that.

This new vision of the compatibility of Jacob 2 and 132 is important for many reasons; however, the most comforting aspect is that those women and men who felt pain at the thought of polygamy are alright in God’s eyes. God would not think it odd if they did feel pain. God is not indifferent between monogamy and polygamy in the new and everlasting covenant because he, too, views polygamy as an Abrahamic sacrifice which will cause suffering, but also for the righteous, paradoxical joy and a closer relationship with him.

We envision God weeping when righteous polygamous husbands and wives wept. Just think of what that means. For those who weep at the mistaken thought they may be commanded to practice polygamy in Heaven, God does not condemn your feelings. On the contrary, God will not command you to practice polygamy in the next life, and if he commands you to practice it in this life, you can rest assured of two things: number one, he will make it up to you – there will be a “ram in the thicket” for you, even if it be in the next life; and two, you can also count on the fact that God will lift the exceptional commandment of polygamy just as soon as his loving purposes in commanding it have been fulfilled. Why? Because he feels compassion for those who make an Abrahamic sacrifice in polygamy in similitude to the Atonement of his son.

Though an exceptional commandment may come to one because of special righteousness, and though obedience to an exceptional commandment to practice polygamy may merit one a great reward, the sacrifice itself cannot constitute that reward, in light of what the Lord has revealed in Doctrine and Covenants 132 about his mind concerning these matters. The Lord desires that all his children have the natural joy that comes from the law of marriage, which law is monogamy in the new and everlasting covenant of marriage. God is not indifferent between monogamy and polygamy, and God views polygamy as an Abrahamic sacrifice, which is why he actively and severely restricts its practice even in this dispensation of the restoration of all things by Joseph Smith.

If we as a culture have lost the capacity to see God-commanded polygamy as the Abrahamic sacrifice God tells us it is, if we have lost the capacity to see that God actively desires there be an escape for the righteous who have obeyed this exceptional commandment, then we have lost something profoundly precious. We have lost the vision of the greatness of God’s love for his children. To lose that vision brings “the gall of bitterness,” as Mormon remarked about others who placed similar constraints on God’s love of the innocent, for we “deny” the “mercies” of God.

If cultural misinterpretations cause the women and men of the Church to mourn over polygamy, either because they mistakenly believe God is indifferent between sacrifice and non-sacrifice and so no escape from this sacrifice will be provided by God, or because they are led to feel that they are selfish and not righteous if they feel pain at the thought of polygamy, then these cultural misinterpretations are actively harming our people. We then have a duty to root out these cultural misinterpretations from our midst, lest they cause great spiritual mischief.

I am reminded of a quote by C.S. Lewis: “Not that I am I think in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about him. The conclusion I dread is not, ‘So there’s no God after all,’ but ‘So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.’” There is something very profound about that.

More Come, Follow Me resources here.

Valerie M. Hudson is a University Distinguished Professor and holds the George H.W. Bush Chair in the Department of International Affairs at The Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, where she directs the Program on Women, Peace, and Security. Hudson was named to the list of Foreign Policy magazine’s Top 100 Global Thinkers for 2009, and in 2015 was recognized as Distinguished Scholar of Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA/ISA) and awarded an inaugural Andrew Carnegie Fellowship as well as an inaugural Fulbright Distinguished Chair in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Australian National University (2017). Her scholarly books include Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia’s Surplus Male Population, Sex and World Peace, The Hillary Doctrine, and The first Political Order: How Sex Shapes Governance and National Security Worldwide, as well as a book on religious doctrine entitled Women in Eternity, Women of Zion. Hudson is a co-founder and editorial board member of the online journal of commentary from the Church of Jesus Christ faith community called SquareTwo, the president of the Utah Valley Institute of Cystic Fibrosis, served in the 11th Special Forces US Army Reserve as a wheeled vehicle and power generator mechanic, is a cofounder of the Latter-day Saint National Security Society, and has been a La Leche League Leader for over 30 years. She is married to David Cassler and is the mother of eight children.

The post Come, Follow Me Week 8 – Genesis 18–23 appeared first on FAIR.

The Abrahamic Covenant, Its Influence on Scriptures, and What that Has to Do with Us

by Kerry Muhlestein, author of God Will Prevail: Ancient Covenants, Modern Blessings, and the Gathering of Israel

The Abrahamic covenant is a central theme of the Old Testament, and really of all scripture. Every prophetic writer, whether in the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Pearl of Great Price, the Book of Mormon, or the Doctrine and Covenants, assumes that you know and understand the Abrahamic covenant, and writes based on that assumption. As a result, when we are not familiar with this covenant, there are a number of things in every book of scripture that we miss. We lose some of the message and the rich power in the scriptures without even realizing it. Studying the Old Testament is an excellent time to rectify this situation. This year we are afforded the opportunity to read about the establishment of the covenant and to study some of the places where it is most fully explained. This will allow us to start to understand the covenant the way President Nelson has been asking us to. President Nelson certainly realizes the significance of the covenant, and has been energetically teaching about it throughout his apostolic career, and has even asked us to study the blessings promised to Israel in the covenant.[1] There is no better time than this Come Follow Me year to come to more fully share President Nelson’s desires for us to better recognize, understand, and appreciate what it means to be heirs to the Abrahamic covenant.

The Abrahamic covenant is also known as the New and Everlasting Covenant. Joseph Smith teaches that it was first established between the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost before the world was created. It was then re-established with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It has been re-established in every dispensation, which is at least one reason it is called “new” in addition to being everlasting. Yet we often refer to it as the Abrahamic covenant because when it was re-established with Abraham he was promised that anyone who made the covenant would become part of his seed. Further, the scriptures are written by Abraham’s descendants, who refer to it frequently in connection with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In fact, mentioning those three great patriarchs together is a common way scriptural authors try to get us to think about the covenant.

We enter into the covenant at baptism. We enter into it more fully in the temple, and even more fully when we are sealed to spouse and family in the temple. We renew it weekly when we partake of the sacrament. Hopefully we experience its blessings continually throughout life. Of course this is only true if we keep our covenantal obligations. But what are those obligations, and what blessings do they lead to?

We can best answer those questions when we first understand something else. The central tenet of the covenant is our relationship with God. Everything else stems from God’s desire to have a closer relationship with us. Thus, all of the blessings that flow from keeping the covenant are connected to that core idea. A brief summary of the covenant with that core concept in mind would run something like this:

God wants to have a closer relationship with his children, which would increase both his and our joy. The only way to have a closer relationship was for us to become more like him, for our ability to be close, or one, with someone is limited when we are not capable of understanding them because we are not like them or at their level. As a result, God created a plan where we could become like him and thus be capable of experiencing greater joy. The Savior and the Holy Ghost covenanted with God to do their part in making it possible for God to complete his plan, or fulfill the promises he was making to us.

As part of that plan, we had to leave God’s presence and experience conditions that both allow us to grow and help us to learn to rely on him so that he and his son could help us grow in ways we were not capable of growing on our own. The only way for us to come to rely on them in such a manner was for us to redevelop the kind of relationship that would allow us to be close enough with them to experience their protective and developmental power. In order to create that kind of relationship, God invited us to enter into a formal and intimate relationship with him.

Anytime we enter into an agreement with someone to work together towards a common goal, it creates a kind of bond and intimacy that is not possible outside of such a pact. We call that agreement a covenant. Entering into an agreement to work with God naturally creates a closer relationship with him. Scripturally this close bond is described in a number of ways, but the most common are that God will be Abraham’s (or Israel’s or our) God, and that we will be his people. As a people we are a peculiar treasure and a holy nation to God. The intimate connection with God is also described by God having an everlasting mercy or lovingkindness for us.

This close bond between a covenant holder and God naturally yields a number of things. It allows us to have better and more frequent communication with God, so that he can direct us as is needed. A scriptural phrase describing this is when God tells Abraham “I will lead thee by my hand,” and “my power shall be over thee” (Abraham 1:18). This intimate bond allows us to experience God’s presence more fully, both in terms of having the Holy Ghost with us to both direct, comfort, and change us, and in terms of having ordinances which bring God into our lives, as well as into our chapels and temples which are dedicated to him which allows us to more fully experience communion and oneness with him. All of these things allow us to be spiritually begotten of God, which is part of the change we are hoping for. That spiritual begetting involves priesthood ordinances, taking his name upon us, being born again by the sanctifying power of the Spirit, and so much more.

Of course, when two beings have a close relationship with greater union, communion, and ability to share power and direction, some other things will naturally flow. Just as spouses feel protective towards their covenant partner, and as parents feel protective towards their children, and just as being together so much allows them to better protect each other, so God can better protect his children who have entered into a covenant relationship with him. Some of that protection comes in the form of the higher communion covenant partners have with each other, for it is the communication and willingness to act on that communication that is often the form protection takes. But there are other ways that covenant children are protected by God as well. Scriptural phrases about this protective element are both plenteous and beautiful. Some examples are that God will be our shield (Genesis 15:1), or that no sword will go through our land (Leviticus 26:6), or that we will dwell safely (Leviticus 25:18). This promise of protection does not mean that no harm will ever come to those who are safely ensconced in the covenant, for that would contravene the conditions necessary for us to have a successful mortal probation. Some bad things will certainly happen to everyone, but it is so much less than it would be without the covenant, and all bad things will eventually end for covenant holders. They can be sure that ultimately everything that besets them, every kind of bedevilment, ailment and scourge, including death and hell itself, will be overcome as we find ourselves behind the protective shield of our mighty God.

Covenant keepers will need this protection, for other blessings that flow from the covenant will make both men and Satan want to beset us. This is because another natural outgrowth of union and communion with God is prosperity. When we hear God more, when we are experiencing his power and trying to live as he asks and are being changed by him, prosperity naturally follows. It follows abundantly because of God’s powerful involvement in every aspect of our lives and his ability to magnify every good thing. This prosperity is scripturally often described in terms of abundant yields coming from our labors (see for example Leviticus 26:4-5 and Deuteronomy 28:3-6, 8, 11-12). Yet it also comes in terms of spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical prosperity. It is an oft repeated promise in both the Old Testament and the Book of Mormon. Again, this does not mean that covenant holders will never experience any forms of not prospering. Physical, financial, emotional and spiritual trials are bound to come, they are necessary parts of our mortal probation. Yet the promise of overall prosperity is sure, and full faith in that promise should help us get through the times when we are not experiencing it.

The ultimate form of prosperity is to have bountiful and beautiful posterity. This can take many forms, and is fulfilled over a long time. One obvious form is to have children with whom we can develop close relationships. For some that will happen in this life, for all covenant keepers it will happen most fully in the next life. Abinadi tells us that one of the most important ways this is fulfilled is that all those whom we help come to Christ to receive the kind of covenantal life he can give them become our seed. Undoubtedly there are many ways this promise is fulfilled that we cannot foresee. The promise of numerous posterity is one of the most joyous and important aspects of the covenant.

Of course prosperity and abundant posterity cannot happen if there is no place for covenant families to thrive. Therefore having a place, or a promised land, is an essential part of the covenant. There are several forms having a promised place can take. Often it means having a literal land on which covenant holders can live together, have place for their plenteous children to grow and then live, and land which can yield the food that is necessary for such abundant life. When anyone lives in a place that is yielding abundantly, then others will want to take that land and prosperity from them, so the promise of protection becomes even more important.

We can see the need for a literal promised land in the history of ancient Israel, and also in the history of modern Israel in the early generations of the Restoration of the covenant. A literal promised land has often proved to be crucial for the spread of the covenant and for the prosperity of the posterity of Israel. Yet today we gather to different kinds of places. We gather to our temples and our church buildings and to our homes. These are also fulfillments of the promise. In many ways the promise of land is really a promise of having a place to belong. We are so blessed that we can travel anywhere in the world and find a group of Saints with whom we can immediately feel a bond, and thus we can have a “place” to belong. The covenant brings a promised place in many ways. The more of us who are trying to keep our covenants – or live celestially – the more ways we will find the promise of a “place” being fulfilled. The ultimate fulfillment of this is the true promised land, or the celestial kingdom.

This highlights the greatest promise that flows from our covenantal relationship with God. Our union with him, our communion with him which yields knowledge of how to approach him, his power being manifested in our lives and our beings so that we prosper in becoming spiritually more like him, his protection from all that besets us including death and hell, all of this eventually brings us to the true promised land and state. It brings us to exaltation. If we are trying to keep our covenant, we are promised by God that we will be exalted. This can only happen because Christ kept his covenant, and went through his atoning sacrifice for us.

Elsewhere I have written that “each covenantal promise is rich and overpowering. Taken together, they are staggering. This last promise, that of exaltation, is beyond our ability to comprehend. Truly we suffer from an embarrassment of promised riches.”[2]

Of course, our reception of these covenant blessings is contingent upon our keeping our covenant obligations. These obligations also center around our relationship with God. The covenantal phrase about God being our God doesn’t just mean that He will take care of us in a bonded relationship, it also means that we love and worship him. In fact, our primary duty as covenant holders is to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our might (Deuteronomy 6:5). It is this love – the love God has for us and the love we have for God – that  makes every other element of the covenant possible. When we do not love God first and foremost, nothing else in the covenant can happen the way it should. As I have said elsewhere, “above all, both in terms of duty and how it defines them, covenant holders are to love God. This love is to be the primary feeling of their heart, the central emotion of their consciousness, the consuming core of who they are.”[3]

It is only when we love God this much that he will prevail in our lives more than anything else, as President Nelson has taught us must happen.[4] “This kind of prevailing happens because we love, adore, and worship God. When this is the case, then God has truly become our God. Ultimately, loving God is the fullest realization of what it means for Abraham, Sarah, and their seed to have God as their God (Genesis 17:7).”[5]

When we love God, we will naturally want to follow all the instructions he has given us (Abraham 1:2). We call this keeping the commandments, which Christ has said we will do if we love him (John 14:5).

There is something else that is a natural result of loving God. When we love him, we will love that which what he most loves, which is his children. Thus, our close and loving relationship with God, which causes us to become more like him, leads us to love each other. That is why the second great commandment is to love our neighbor.

Loving each other takes many forms. Caring for each other’s needs is one important form. Sharing the covenant, with its attendant news about Christ and the ordinances that link us to him and the father, is another.

Really those are all our covenant obligations. It is a much shorter list than the blessings. In sum, our obligation is to increase our relationship with God by loving and remembering him, which will lead to our increasing our relationship with others by loving and helping them and bringing them to Christ so that they can create the same kind of relationship with God that we are experiencing.

Now that we understand the covenant, and how we enter into it, we can ask how it should affect us. Clearly the largest affect should be that knowing this should help us focus on our relationship with God. It should also naturally help us be mindful of all that God has done for us and continues to do for us. Remembering that should increase our gratitude which in turn increases our love for God, which in turn should increase our love for each other. Being conscious of this will help us magnify this cycle and get more out of it.

There is something else that comes when we better understand the covenant. It allows us to better understand the scriptures. We should recognize that any time scriptural authors mention any aspect of the covenant they are usually invoking the covenant as a whole. Thus, if we read something about loving God, about God being our God, about us being God’s people, or about God protecting us, or us having numerous posterity or experiencing prosperity, or having a promised land, then we should understand that we are reading about the covenant.

As a result, when we read that if we honor our fathers and mothers we will live long in the land which God gives us, then we recognize that we are being taught that if we honor our parents we will receive covenantal blessings. When Isaiah tells us that Israel will have so many children that they will need to enlarge their tents, which will cause them to need to lengthen the tent cords and strengthen the tent stakes, he is telling us that covenant blessings are really starting to flow. Similarly, when he tells us that houses that were once occupied have become desolate, he is telling us that there is a lack of covenant blessings at that point. There are very few chapters in Isaiah that do not invoke some kind of covenant phrase. Coming to recognize them will really help us understand Isaiah.

Recognizing when the scriptures are talking about the covenant, and remembering that we are members of that same covenant, allows us to realize another level of how the scriptures apply to us. When that happens, because covenant phrases are so prevalent in the scriptures, we start to gain added layers of meaning and applicability almost any time we read the scriptures. We start to identify with the covenant holders of the scriptures more personally, and thus we draw more power from them. Above all, we start to see how mercifully God continually works with his covenant people – how he always and unendingly gives them another chance after they have broken the covenant – and we recognize both that he is willing to do that for us, and that we have a role to play in his doing it with scattered Israel. In other words, becoming familiar with the covenant makes the scriptures come alive for us in a whole new way.

Above all, it allows us to experience our relationship with God more deeply, which is what God desires most and is the purpose of the covenant. He sent his son to make that covenant promise possible. He asked his prophets to teach and write about it, from the days of Adam until the days of President Nelson, so that we can experience that bond. He promises that such a relationship is available, and God will always keep his promise.

More Come, Follow Me resources here.

[1] Russell M. Nelson, “Let God Prevail,” General Conference, October 2020.

[2] Kerry Muhlestein, God Will Prevail: Ancient Covenants, Modern Blessings, and the Gathering of Israel (American Fork: Covenant Communications, 2021), 59-60.

[3] Kerry Muhlestein, God Will Prevail, 62.

[4] Russell M. Nelson, “Let God Prevail,” October 2020 General Conference.

[5] Kerry Muhlestein, God Will Prevail, 62.

The post Come, Follow Me Thoughts to Keep in Mind – The Covenant appeared first on FAIR.

This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference. If you would like to watch all the presentations from that conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

Jennifer Ann Mackley, Discovering Church History: The Wilford Woodruff Papers Project

Jennifer’s book is available from the FAIR Bookstore.

Jennifer Ann Mackley, JD, is the Executive Director of the Wilford Woodruff Papers Foundation, which she co-founded with Donald W. Parry in 2020. In addition to her legal practice as a partner in Mackley & Mackley, PLLC, Jennifer has authored or edited 21 books including Wilford Woodruff’s Witness: The Development of Temple Doctrine. She has been serving as a historian for the Wilford Woodruff Family Association since 2014 and has made numerous presentations and podcasts based on her research of Wilford Woodruff’s life and, through his records, the development of temple doctrine in the 19th century. Jennifer served in the Minnesota Minneapolis Mission and has been a temple worker in the Provo, Washington, D.C, Chicago, Salt Lake, and Seattle temples. She and her husband Carter are the parents of three adored children.

The post FAIR Conference Podcast #77 – Jennifer Ann Mackley, “Discovering Church History: The Wilford Woodruff Papers Project” appeared first on FAIR.

This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference held in August. If you would like to watch all the presentations from the conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

Jeff Bradshaw, Since Hugh Nibley: Remarkable New Findings on Enoch and the Gathering of Zion

Jeff’s books are for sale in the FAIR bookstore.

Jeffrey M. Bradshaw (PhD, Cognitive Science, University of Washington) is a Senior Research Scientist at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) in Pensacola, Florida (www.ihmc.us/groups/jbradshaw; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_M._Bradshaw). His professional writings have explored a wide range of topics in human and machine intelligence (www.jeffreymbradshaw.net). Jeff has been the recipient of several awards and patents and has been an adviser for initiatives in science, defense, space, industry, and academia worldwide. Jeff has written detailed commentaries on the Book of Moses and Genesis 1–11 and on temple themes in the scriptures. For Church-related publications, see www.TempleThemes.net. Jeff was a missionary in France and Belgium from 1975–1977, and his family has returned twice to live in France. He and his wife, Kathleen, are the parents of four children and fourteen grandchildren. From July 2016-September 2019, Jeff and Kathleen served missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo Kinshasa Mission office and the DR Congo Kinshasa Temple. They currently live in Nampa, Idaho.

The post FAIR Conference Podcast #76 – Jeff Bradshaw, “Since Hugh Nibley: Remarkable New Findings on Enoch and the Gathering of Zion” appeared first on FAIR.

This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference held in August. If you would like to watch all the presentations from the conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

John Gee, Lessons on Doing Apologetics

John Gee’s books are for sale in the FAIR bookstore.

John Gee is the William (Bill) Gay Research Professor in the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages at Brigham Young University. He has authored more than 150 publications on topics such as ancient scripture, Aramaic, archaeology, Coptic, Egyptian, history, linguistics, Luwian, rhetoric, Sumerian, textual criticism, and published in journals such as British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan, Bulletin of the Egyptological Seminar, Enchoria, Ensign, FARMS Review, Göttinger Miszellen, Issues in Religion and Psychotherapy, Journal of Academic Perspecitves, Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, Journal of Egyptian History, Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities, Lingua Aegyptia, Review of Books on the Book of Mormon, Studien zur altägyptischen Kultur, and Interpreter, and by such presses as American University of Cairo Press, Archaeopress, Association Égyptologique Reine Élisabeth, E. J. Brill, Carsten Niebuhr Institute of Near Eastern Studies, Czech Institute of Egyptology, Deseret Book, de Gruyter, Harrassowitz, Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, Macmillan, Oxford University Press, Peeters, Praeger, Religious Studies Center, and Society of Biblical Literature. He has published three books and has edited eight books and an international multilingual peer-reviewed professional journal. He served twice as a section chair for the Society of Biblical Literature.

The post FAIR Conference Podcast #75 – John Gee, “Lessons on Doing Apologetics” appeared first on FAIR.

This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference held in August. If you would like to watch all the presentations from the conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

Jenny Reeder, First: The Life and Faith of Emma Smith

Jenny Reader’s books are for sale in the FAIR bookstore.

Jenny Reeder is the nineteenth-century women’s history specialist at the Church History Department for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She has a PhD in American history from George Mason University, and an MA from New York University in history, archival management, and documentary editing. Jenny is on the Church Historian’s Press Editorial Board, the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts Advisory Board, the Mormon History Association’s book awards committee, and the editorial board of Mormon Historical Studies. She has taught at BYU Education Week and has been a featured speaker at BYU Women’s Conference, the BYU Easter Conference, and Time Out for Women. She recently published First: The Life and Faith of Emma Smith with Deseret Book, and past publications include At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses by Latter-day Saint Women and Witness of Women: Firsthand Experiences and Testimonies of the Restoration. She leads the “Discourses of Eliza R. Snow” project, collecting and publishing all of Snow’s sermons on the Church Historian’s Press website and a selection of discourses in an upcoming print volume.

The post FAIR Conference Podcast #74 – Jenny Reeder, “First: The Life and Faith of Emma Smith” appeared first on FAIR.

This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference held in August. If you would like to watch all the presentations from the conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

Ben Spackman, Through a Glass, Less Darkly: The 20th Century History of Genesis and Evolution

Ben Spackman is a PhD candidate in American Religious History at Claremont. His dissertation examines the intellectual roots of LDS creationism and evolution in the 20th century. Prior to his work at Claremont, he received a master’s degree and did PhD work in Old Testament languages and literature at the University of Chicago. He is a guest editor of a special edition of BYU Studies dedicated to biological evolution and LDS faith, and writes at BenSpackman.com.

The post FAIR Conference Podcast #73 – Ben Spackman, “Through a Glass, Less Darkly: The 20th Century History of Genesis and Evolution” appeared first on FAIR.

This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference held in August. If you would like to watch all the presentations from the conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

Dan Peterson, The Book of Mormon Witnesses: Sincerity and Reality

The Witnesses film and books by Dan Peterson are available from the FAIR Bookstore.

Daniel C. Peterson (PhD, UCLA) is a professor of Islamic studies and Arabic at Brigham Young University and founder of the university’s Middle Eastern Texts Initiative. He has published and spoken extensively on both Islamic and Mormon subjects. Formerly chairman of the board of the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) and an officer, editor, and author for its successor organization, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, his professional work as an Arabist focuses on the Qur’an and on Islamic philosophical theology. He is the author, among other things, of a biography entitled Muhammad: Prophet of God (Eerdmans, 2007). Dan currently serves as the president of the Interpreter Foundation.

The post FAIR Conference Podcast #72 – Dan Peterson, “The Book of Mormon Witnesses: Sincerity and Reality” appeared first on FAIR.

This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference held in August. If you would like to watch all the presentations from the conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

Rebekah Clark, “The Gospel of Equal Rights”: Latter-day Saint Suffragists, 1870-1920

Rebekah Clark is co-author of the book Thinking Women: A Timeline of Suffrage in Utah and works as a historian for Better Days, a nonprofit public history organization dedicated to expanding education about Utah women’s history. She holds a law degree from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University, studied as a visiting student at Harvard Law School, and practiced law in Boston for four years. She graduated with a degree in American History and Literature from Harvard University, where her honors thesis focused on Utah women’s activism in the national suffrage movement. She has worked at the LDS Church History Department and taught as an online adjunct faculty member at BYU-Idaho. Her work has appeared in journals such as the Utah State Historical Quarterly, the Journal of Mormon History, BYU Studies, Pioneer Magazine, and BYU Law Review and in podcasts by the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Church News, What’s Her Name, Zion Art Society, and the Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. In addition to her work with Better Days, she currently serves on the board of the Mormon Women’s History Initiative Team. Rebekah lives in Highland with her husband Andrew and their five children.

The post FAIR Conference Podcast #71 – Rebekah Clark, “The Gospel of Equal Rights”: Latter-day Saint Suffragists, 1870-1920 appeared first on FAIR.

This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference held in August. If you would like to watch all the presentations from the conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

Stephen Smoot, Abraham and the Stranger at Sodom and Gomorrah: Reading the Bible and Navigating LGBT Identity

Stephen O. Smoot is a doctoral student in the department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literature at the Catholic University of America. He previously earned a master’s degree from the University of Toronto in Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, with a concentration in Egyptology, and Bachelor’s degrees from Brigham Young University in Ancient Near Eastern Studies, with a concentration in Hebrew Bible, and German Studies. His areas of academic study and research include the Hebrew Bible, ancient Egypt, and Latter-day Saint scripture and history. From 2015 to 2020 Stephen was a research associate with Book of Mormon Central and is currently a research associate with the B. H. Roberts Foundation. Stephen served as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in northern New England (the New Hampshire Manchester Mission), which included six months at the Joseph Smith Birthplace Memorial in Sharon, Vermont.

The post FAIR Conference Podcast #70 – Stephen Smoot, “Abraham and the Stranger at Sodom and Gomorrah: Reading the Bible and Navigating LGBT Identity” appeared first on FAIR.