Follow Him Podcast: Episode 10, Part 1–D&C 20-22 with guest Dr. Jordan Watkins | Our Turtle House

welcome to follow him a weekly podcast dedicated to helping individuals and families with their come follow me study i'm hank smith and i'm john by the way we love to learn we love to laugh we want to learn and laugh with you as together we follow him my friends welcome to another episode of follow him my name is hank smith i'm here with my amazing and funny co-host john by the way hi john hi hank how are you i am well john i i feel like my come follow me studies have uh increased a thousand times from last year to this year just doing this podcast how are you feeling on your come follow me studies this year this is this has been such a blessing in fact i went to dollar tree and invested in a red pen because i don't have time during the podcast to sharpen my red pencil so now i did an uptick in the technology and i've got my red ballpoint pen so i can take notes yeah for those of you don't know dollar tree and john are very close it's a very close relationship i once asked the cashier do they pay you a dollar an hour how does that work you know yeah it's all dollar tree all right um i uh john i got to tell you this before we before we get into this interview i received a message from a listener in china a listener in china who said he told me he said i just want you to know that i love the podcast and it helps me feel you know not so isolated out here in china uh and so we want to give a shout out to him let him know he's not alone uh his name some people might even know it his name is jimmer fredette and jimmer we are uh thank you for being a fan of the show and know that the show is a big fan of you uh so keep doing that thing jimmer that's so fun i showed that to my my son because i have a picture of andrew with jimmer uh when we went down to that father and sons uh basketball thing they used to have or i guess they still have it maybe not this year because of the pandemic but i've got andrew and jim are together so that was a fun day he was he was super nice that's wonderful so yeah the follow him and jimmy ferdet we are mutual fans of each other mutual fans john who do we have with us today oh we are excited to have jordan watkins with us today and i am going to go right into it and read his bio if that's all right uh jordan watkins is from alpine that's that just sounds like a beautiful place to be from anything named alpine you know he received a phd in american history from the university of nevada las vegas he has a bachelor's in history from byu a masters in history from claremont graduate university and his book manuscript slavery and sacred texts the bible the constitution and historical consciousness in antebellum america examines the ways in which antebellum biblical and constitutional debates over slavery brought awareness to the historical distance separating americans from their hallowed biblical and revolutionary past so antebellum means before the civil war his interest in american history stems from a lifelong fascination with latter-day saint history and his work in that field has appeared in the journal of mormon history mormon historical studies and a number of edited volumes he is presented at conferences of the society for historians of the early american republic the society for u.s intellectual history the african-american intellectual histori history society and the western history association he was a volume editor of the documents series of the joseph smith papers before joining the faculty in religious education so wow we are thrilled to have you here uh jordan and thank you for taking some time with us today i'm very excited to be here yeah i i think it's fair to say he is a real historian from that bio i'm going okay okay yeah i've got it he is a real historian no what would uh not a lot else but i am historian okay that's fantastic what did garrett teach us about pseudo scholarship jordan i don't think we're gonna have any pseudo scholarship here uh today i'm ex i'm excited for this let's just jump right into the lesson material um doctrine covenants section 20 and april 1830 are big big days for us but they were probably even big bigger days for the prophet joseph smith um let's talk about the the time between um the sections 18 and 19 and section 20. uh we've got a couple of stories to share john and jordan um i want to ask you about that time period uh let's let's talk about this little group of followers and coming up on uh coming from the summer of 1829 into april of of 1830. where is joseph smith and who's doing the work whenever i think about section 20 i like to go back to 1829 to some of the revelations that start to talk about church um right so there's a the an early revelation to martin harris section five uh of the doctrine covenants where the lord says if this generation doesn't harden their hearts he'll establish his church among them which is kind of anticipating this ecclesiastical organization that's repeated in section 10 as well in that section the lord also says that he doesn't say this to destroy the church but to build it up which is kind of interesting right because then we're dealing with multiple concepts of church um and it's in that same section section 10 where he says whosoever repenteth and cometh unto me the same as my church so i think that's quite fascinating right in in in the period before the organization of the church the lord is working with multiple sort of definitions of what church is um one of the reasons i find that interesting is because i think in the church there's there's a tension between a sort of inclusivity and exclusivity um because of the church's claims and really early on the lord is saying hey this ver this understanding of church there's an inclusive understanding and please don't forget that it's almost as if he's preempting he knows the members of the church are going to be prone to really emphasize the exclusive part and he's saying well remember there there are other people out there who are seeking to build up my church who are in this broader definition part of my church um so don't forget that and if that's if that is an important message in the early church when they actually do need to set themselves apart in some ways right they have to establish their identity if that inclusive message is important then it's probably even more important now when we have a pretty firm foundation right we don't have to sort of stake out our unique identity that's that's a given at this point so i i guess part of the point here to highlight some of these early revelations mentioning church is to say that we need to be builders right not destroyers i really like that yeah yeah i really like that i that section 10 verse 67 that you quoted this is my doctrine whosoever repenteth and cometh unto me the same is my church we did talk about this with uh with dr haas but it's a it's something that is that is worth repeating uh that we are not um we are not a let's let's fight with other christian churches right that's that's not what the lord is asking of us is to to stake our claim against those churches yet we see that plenty of times we see that well i did that as a missionary i think well so do they right as early missionaries i mean think of that you'll get to this later on but think of partly p pratt going to the shakers uh and uh really kind of having it out there and and shaking his coattails uh and and leaving the meeting in anger and the lord in later revelations is saying you're not you're not supposed to preach the gospel with contention right and but i think part of it is related to this inclusi inclusivity and exclusivity right we ma there are some claims about uh exclusivity that are made in the church and that are part of the revelations but at the same time i think the lord is trying to remind us always but don't don't forget the bigger picture here uh they're they're all my children and i'm interested in all of them and their salvation right wow wow we mentioned this too um we we talked about this too briefly in section 18 verse 20. it's easy to remember 1820 is kind of important but uh we're content against no church save it be the church of the devil which oh so and this is as you said before this formal organization even happened and it's kind of the lord's drawing a different uh boundary about what a church is it's i'm glad you brought that up yeah me too me too um let's let's just mention a couple of things before we jump into the section um so after the the experience of the three and eight witnesses joseph smith moves back to harmony pennsylvania uh he goes back that's where his farm is that he bought from his father-in-law that's where his wife emma is um but he leaves hiram and oliver in palmyra to watch over watch over the printing and something interesting happens that i think this is such a good story john did you find that where did you where can our listeners find this next story they're going to want to find this i think they could find it here this is uh what we call a book if you go back in time yeah it's in the gospel library um the the saints book and i am on page if you use pages page 80 uh well i'll just read it i'll use my most interesting voice that fall while the printers made steady progress on the book of mormon a former judge named abner cole began publishing a newspaper on grandin's press so remember the book of mormon was being printed at the e.b grand and press building in palmyra working at night in the shop after grandin's staff went home abner had access to printed pages from the book of mormon which was not yet bound or ready for sale abner soon began poking fun at the gold bible in his newspaper and during the winter he printed excerpts from the book alongside sarcastic commentary when hiram and oliver learned what abner was doing they confronted him what right have you to print the book of mormon this way hiram demanded do you not know that we have received the copyright it's none of your business abner said i have hired the press and i will print what i please i forbid you to print any more of that book in your paper hiram said i don't care abner said unsure what to do hiram and oliver sent word to joseph in harmony who returned to palmyra at once he found abner at the printing office casually reading his own newspaper you you seem hard at work joseph said how do you do mr he was on his phone i mean today that's what would be going on right but now he was reading his own newspaper it says how do you do mr smith abner replied dryly mr cole joseph said the book of mormon and the right of publishing it belonged to me and i forbid you meddling with it abner threw off his coat and pushed up his sleeves do you want to fight sir he barked pounding his fist together if you want to fight just come on joseph smiled you had better keep your coat on he said it's cold and i'm not going to fight you he calmly continued but you but you have got to stop printing my book if you think you are the best man abner said just pull off your coat and try it there is a law man this guy he really wants to box he wants and bite and joseph could wrestle people so i i was when i first heard this i wondered what might happen there is a lot joseph responded and you will find that out if you did not know it before but i shall not fight you for that will do no good abner knew he was on the wrong side of the law he calmed down and stopped printing episode excerpts from the book of mormon in his newspaper that's the whole thing from saints that is just fantastic i love that story i think i'm gonna share that i have four boys and i like that statement i will not fight you it will do no good i think i am going to share that with my with my i have a couple of uh older boys who think that sometimes fighting does does a body good but we just we just talked about the lord telling them not to fight against other churches not to contend joseph's kind of going okay the other thing we need to talk about uh just a couple of items before we jump into the section uh jordan um i want to mention um one the printer's manuscript a lot of people don't know that there are two different basically original manuscripts one is the manuscript that oliver cowdery actually took down as joseph dictated but then following that it seems they'd learn their lesson from having just one original copy and so they make a second printer's uh or they make a second copy called the printer's manuscript and that's oliver calgary going back through and rewriting the entire thing to me that's you know we think about oh yeah he just had to make another copy but can you imagine sitting down and rewriting the entire thing there's also a man i'd like to mention by the name of john gilbert uh john is i think uh he is on staff right yes i think he's the the the chief compositor of the type yeah we often talk about gil grandin being kind of the printer but he's more of the businessman this guy john gilbert is the one who's actually setting the type for the book of mormon and i just i just wanted to mention him um is he uh he gave a lot of interviews important interviews it says um that he was he was actually quite proud of the fact that he set most of this type after the book becomes you know a little more famous uh robin scott jensen so he's good okay great um it says what i find interesting about john gilbert is of course we all know the story that the book of mormon manuscript was not punctuated it was one giant run-on sentence which isn't totally true there are a few scattered punky punctuation marks here and there sounds like my my middle school term papers which isn't totally true there are a few scattered punctuation marks here and there but essentially john gilbert had to punctuate the entire book of mormon manuscript he says and you know i'm not an english major i'm a history major but i know enough about english the english language to know that punctuation matters in engaging with a text it's subtle but it's important to know the phrasing or ending of a sentence gilbert introduces paragraphing so the format's formatting structure the way in which people pause at certain phrases is coming from a you know someone who's not a believer in joseph smith i find that uh absolutely fascinating that here's this you know here's this man um and i don't know if he's inspired or not but he is putting in the punctuation and then one last person i want to mention is thomas thomas marsh uh jordan do you want to tell us a little bit about thomas marsh i have his story here correct me if i'm wrong but as i recall he's from from new york um he actually i believe he works in a press for a time but i know he leaves his home very young um we don't know all the reasons why in the subsequent revelation given to him it kind of mentions his background briefly um but eventually he hears about this uh this this golden bible something something of that nature and finds his way to palmyra and shows up just as the first 16 pages are coming off the press and martin harris is there and martin is obviously excited he's put a lot of work and money into this endeavor and mar shows up and martin excitedly i would imagine shows him hey look at what uh the prophet has produced right uh and he joins the church and the book isn't even off the books even off the press and here he reads just 16 pages of it uh receives a a witness of its truthfulness and moves forward that to me is amazing and thomas b marsh is going to become a member of the quorum of the 12 right right right 1835 a member of the quorum of the 12. and he's he's one that eventually like a number of the early converts leaves the church for a time but finds his way back to utah and uh back into the church wow um and you mentioned martin harris and i think we just need to give one last shout out we have been talking about martin for many weeks right john i mean yeah yeah martin harris has been he's been a subject for us for a long time uh but we i just everyone just kind of remember this date that on august 25th 1829 martin harris mortgaged his farm uh to grandin for three thousand dollars to print five thousand copies of the book of mormon i just feel like you know let's just give a a moment of you know a fist pump to heaven for martin harris uh because to me that is i don't know to me that is just a a beautiful and amazing thing uh that he was asked to do and he came through all right let's uh should we jump into uh this is there anything else before we get into section 20 jordan before we get in um what uh what do we what else do we need to know what else do you have teach your students before they get into to this section well this is a section you've already talked about but section 18 is is is really crucial to understand uh in relationship to section 20. um so so section 18 uh of of course is directed to all well it's actually directed to sort of three audiences right oliver cowdery oliver country and david whitmer and then this future twelve disciples and and and just before that in joseph smith's history just before this revelation in section 18 joseph says that they are there at the whitmer home um in in fayette new york and they're working on the translation at this point so june of 1829 and they they are praying about a question and the question they have is um john came in in may he delivered the uh priesthood of aaron and he said that he acted under the authority of peter james and john and said that they had the keys to a higher priesthood and that that would be given to us at some future point so now here we are in june of 1829 and they're asking about that promise and there's a really interesting account that says that the word of the lord came to us in the chamber meaning the room uh in the whitmer home commanding us that i should ordain oliver cowdery to be an elder in the church of jesus christ that he also should ordain me to the same office and after having been thus ordained we should proceed to ordain others to the same office according as it should be made known unto us from time to time also commanding us and this is i think what is most relevant here also commanding us that as soon as practicable we should call together all those who had already been baptized by us to bless bread and break it with them to take wine bless it and drink it with them and doing all these things in the name of the lord but to defer our own ordination until we had called together our brother and had had their sanction so i think that's really notable because it it seems like the lord here is saying call all the believers together and organize yourselves and don't ordain each other to as elders until you have called them together by the way it's it's pretty interesting that this source so this is from joseph smith history 1839 and in the first draft of this history james mulholland who is described a scribe for joseph smith he's writing this down and he says that the lord said to defer our own ordination until we had called the church and it does it's not it doesn't quite finish and then that's crossed out well there's no church in june of 1829 um but that tells us something about being careful about reading these historical documents right sometimes they're projecting their views onto the past and and sometimes they catch it like they do here and say wait uh we didn't have a church cross out church just say call together our brethren um but what that does tell us is that by the summer of 1829 i think joseph is quite seriously thinking about uh the organization of a church i also mention this because in joseph smith's history that 1839 history section what is now section 18 of the doctrine covenants directly follows that account of the vote hearing the voice of the lord in the uh room in the whitmer home and in section 18 of the doctrine and covenants the lord describes um oliver cowdery as being an apostle or he's called with the same calling as the apostle paul which and maybe it's important here to note too that in the late 1820s and early 1830s the term apostle was used synonymously with with elder and with disciple um so for example actually in in june of 1830 after the church is organized john whitmer gets his elder's license and in that elder's license he's referred to as an apostle of jesus christ now somebody comes along later i think in 1835 and crosses that out and you can see it crossed out but those terms take new meaning over time and i think that's an important lesson about the restoration in general that all of these terms and ideas are developing over time but but section 18 the real reason i wanted to mention it um is because in that section the lord told oliver cowdery to rely on the things he had written meaning the book of mormon and noted that it contained all things concerning the foundation of his church and he promised that hey oliver if you build up this church according to my gospel according to the book of mormon the gates of hell will not prevail against you and so then in the summer of 1829 oliver calgary starts using the book of mormon to create a document called the articles of the church of christ and this is actually notable in part because this is the first document that contains the church's first name the church of christ and and notice this this is how it opens a commandment from god unto oliver how he should build up his church it's written in the voice of the lord which i think is pretty interesting and that's of course similar to many of joseph's revelations i think oliver's wanting it to be received in that way and then it goes on to repeat some of the language and the revelations given to oliver cowdery um so section 18 you can find some of the language there in his articles of the church of christ it contains much of the content from the book of mormon on these particular issues about baptism about ordination of priesthood and teachers about the administration of sacrament about church meetings so i think that's important to know that the question becomes right okay well what is the relationship between oliver cowdery's articles of the church of christ and the articles and covenants which we now know as section 20. um and it's hard to know that for sure we actually also don't know for sure when section 20 is produced it may be parts of it may be produced as early as the summer of 1829 because in joseph smith's history it's also included after the experience in the the uh room in father whitmer's home um but we also think that he probably doesn't finish this document until after the church is organized because of the way that it talks about uh that day on april 6th as something that has happened so this is a curious revelation and it is received as a revelation uh it's even though it's quite different from joseph's classic revelations in joseph's classic revelations we have the voice of the lord speaking directly to his audience right including joseph smith and that's not the case in section 20. so um what what that suggests i think is that there's a very active process by which this revelation is produced i think that's true of every revelation but it's not a passive process right uh god is working through his prophet he's not you know grand underwood i remember this from uh class at byu and as i was an undergrad joseph smith is not a fax machine he's not a human facts machine right god works through the mind of of that prophet and i think in this instance we have a really interesting case of that joseph i think is perhaps reflecting on the book of mormon in producing this text perhaps he even is reflecting on oliver cowdery's uh document um but but unlike caldery's document it doesn't present itself explicitly as a revelation in the same way that calgary's does which is again i think also interesting well jordan i was just gonna say that i love you're you're giving our listeners and john and i a skill here which is don't assume that the terms and the development of the church happens the way you think it would with your 2021 knowledge right i i a lot of people think well didn't you know they were using terms aaronic priesthood melchizedek priesthood right there when they got them right no no this was a developing this was a developing thing uh and uh they they it wasn't a okay the lord's gonna lay out the plan here and we got to get bar codes on the temple recommends it was more you know they they're they're kind of i don't know if i want to say winging it but they're figuring it out as they go i think that's an essential lesson here um and yeah when it comes to things of god for some reason we we think to ourselves god works in um sort of an instant rather than through a process but that kind of neglects the human element here um we we know the phrase uh elder holland has said it right that we're we're imperfect people as all god has ever had to work with it and he deals with it and so should we and and that's an excellent point but we can also add to that um not only is it all he has but we're actually people are actually part of his work and his glory right so if the restoration itself is not part of this process that allows us to make mistakes and repent and grow and develop then what's the point right if the purpose is for us to become like jesus christ why would he not also use the process of the restoration as a means to that greater end that is a beautiful that is a beautiful connection and it because if we don't come at it with that lens we might end up really confused going wait their name wasn't the church of jesus christ the latter day saints from the very beginning was the lord not did he not know the name of his church no he is he is letting human beings figure this out as they go and that's my experience in life john i don't know about you you're you're very spiritual uh you two both are very spiritual but for me it's i'm figuring this out as i go in parenting in marriage in in my own spirituality it's a i'm it's a day by day thing where i'm figuring things out well one of the things that i i just love about the doctrine of covenants as a whole is um the majority of the sections are answers to a question and because they're figuring it out they're well how do we do this well how do we do this or we just read this in the book of mormon do we need to do this and then of course going through the jst and all these questions came up and the lord knows the answer but some maybe sometimes he waits until we ask and then sometimes they're sorry they asked i think puts a further burdens and obligations on him and everything maybe i shouldn't have said that but you know what i mean yeah well i i'm with you i think so jordan what i'm hearing is section 29 was not or section 20 i should say was not a sit down write it out in one sitting it sounds like years maybe yeah it doesn't it doesn't appear to be like and and many of his other revelations are like that right where somebody shows up and says i'm interested what the lord wants from me and joseph's like take out a pen right um in the case of orson pratt he's too shy to actually write his own revelation but um that this this appears to be more of a process now again we can't say for certain because the dating of these documents is is is complicated but it does seem like he begins before the church is organized perhaps as early as summer of 1829 and doesn't end until soon after the church is organized the articles and covenants was the first revelation published in the church's newspaper the evening of morningstar it's actually the only revelation that appeared there twice um it became the second section of the first edition of the doctrine covenants right after as you might guess the preface um its importance is also suggested by the fact that there are various extent copies remaining and what that suggests is that they made multiple copies of this document right because it was so important even a a a newspaper not affiliated with the church the paynesville telegraph published what actually might be our earliest version of this revelation and that's actually published in the joseph smith papers and in doing so the editor described the articles and covenants as the mormon creed and and in part i think in part of the reason for that is because it contains similar kinds of information to other creedal documents um an account of of the organization's history a description of beliefs instructions about things like baptism or administration of the lord's supper uh church duties and offices um but it's it really orients the early members lives in a pretty profound way you could think of it as the constitution of the church um perhaps comparable to something like section 42 and the way that that the law of consecration sort of orients uh early members of the church this is almost it could be considered a manual you know like we have a handbook of instructions this feels like a handbook of instructions in part yeah i think that's fair to say i i think it's worth repeating what you mentioned a little bit earlier this handbook will take on new meaning over time as they gain new insight and understanding about things like priesthood right but yeah i think it does function in that way in fact we know that it functions in that way because a couple of months later in that june 9 conference they are reading this document and then they are using it to you know perform the sacrament uh to give out licenses right so they do use it as a manual i i think what you said jordan about take making copies of this and taking out i mean if you were a missionary and when taught people about the gospel well then what do we do yeah that's what i would say yeah it was like okay so believe this i'll see you later should i organize a branch what does a branch do what happens there what do we and so yeah this becomes like a an early handbook of instructions and that is i think i read that's one of the reasons it was copied is to go so the missionaries could go out and how do i organize a branch what does that look like exactly yeah when i was a kid this was one of those sections where we hit it as a family and i started looking ahead going oh wow like 84 versus long yeah it was a jacob chapter five moment right yeah oh we're gonna be here all day where do you take your where do you take your students as you jump into this jordan there are maybe three or four different sections here we could say that kind of the first section maybe even the first just four verses i read it almost as we're a church too uh we're official too um there's even some evidence perhaps that what goes on on april 6th occurs in relationship to a law in new york that has been passed that you have to organize in a particular kind of way so in some ways it presents itself as a church among churches um but pretty quickly it also presents itself as a sort of the church among churches following that section you have the second section uh i don't know verses 5 through 12 or so which i think is indicating joseph has received authority from god and this is kind of what's cool about this i think it's it's kind of the early history of the church summarized in these passages this might be our first earliest account of the first vision right now notice that uh passage after it was truly manifested under the first elder that he received remission of his sins he was entangled again in the vanities of the world now we don't think that's all that detailed of a an account but that might be our first account right because joseph doesn't write his first uh account until 1832. um but that's that's big news i think i think that's that could be considered a very short account of the first vision given here you know that's this is years before the first account that we have and it accords well with that 1832 account where joseph is emphasizing i went in and prayed and got a remission of my sins right i was forgiven of my sins um it also aligns in suggesting that he he then got entangled again in the vanities of the world that's like right uh 1832 account that he repents that god sends an angel right so um this is cool it's an early text about our history um in this in this revelation it mentions the book of mormon of course it mentions the three witnesses um it's it's got this i like to highlight this part when i teach my students so it's got this phrase here the holy s all of this demonstrates that the holy scriptures are true and that god does inspire men and call them to his holy work in this age and generation as well as in generations of old now we can talk a little bit um as we get to the next section about the theology in this document but um what really is sort of radical about belief among these people at this time is belief in a new prophet right um most of joseph's american contemporaries believed that the bible was the ultimate and final word of god right sola scriptura and they rejected the the idea that you could have new revelations that would somehow be as binding as the bible that kind of uh comes up skip ahead a little bit to section 21 where okay this is his word you shall receive as if for my known mouth and all patience and faith this idea of a living prophet and as you were saying that jordan i'm thinking about jesus coming along with the sermon on the mount and saying these completely audacious things like you've heard it said of old time but i say and uh for them it was the old prophets that's what you rely on and would you say these folks hey this is all about the bible and now whoa this whole idea of no we've got a living prophet as well yeah to drive home that point you're making that there are a few people in this period who are start starting to challenge the idea that it's the bible alone so i study the transcendentalists a little bit so ralph waldo emerson theodore parker others ralph walder emerson gives an address in 1838 to the graduating class of harvard divinity school and he says a lot of things in that address one of the things he says is men have come to speak of revelation as somewhat long ago given and done and part of what emerson wants to say is why why can't god speak to me today uh theodore parker will say similar kinds of things he'll say he'll say god made the bible for the soul not the soul for the bible in other words why would it be the bible alone why can't god speak to me today now that's that's pretty radical stuff right emerson doesn't get invited back to harvard for 30 years so that's that's not seen as is as being okay and and i guess i would also note that transcendentalists are not saying they're not saying what joseph's saying what what makes joseph's position right more radical is he saying no it's not just that me through my conscience can reach the divine it's that we have prophets like we had prophets and old and those prophets can produce written revelations that are as binding as the biblical text that's what makes this i use the term radical it's radical virginia yes contemporary yes i don't think joseph would have been invited back to harvard divinity school either he never would have been invited in the first place right i like how you're breaking this up for us so we've got our first section here we're a church among churches but we're also the church which is fascinating to me because we have that same same concept today yes we're a church among churches by the way we're the church among churches we have that same kind of tension um today then the history i like that you've done this five through twelve i've i've never really noticed that before look at this just brief concise history uh what do we do after that what where do you go from thirteen that third section i think is outlining beliefs um and and i just talked about how radical you know the the idea of having a new prophet was many of these beliefs and these verses are not all that unique uh what do we get we get creation we get fall we get the need for an atonement um those those aren't beliefs that would have set the church apart from their christian contemporaries now we should know yeah of course joseph's understanding of these concepts in their particulars will evolve and develop over the years and it they will become distinctive right but right here in 1830 in this section it you know a christian maybe could have happened upon this section and and gone if they didn't know that uh somebody was claiming to be a prophet producing it gone yeah yeah i believe that stuff and what did you call it uh they uh it was sometimes called uh the mormons creed uh somebody wrote that because that's what i see here this is like basic uh christianity um about jesus coming and all the things that that he did in fact one of the things i love to show my students with paper scriptures is when you find a page that has that many footnotes on it then you know it's doctrinally rich you know and this is this is page 35 that we're looking at right now it kind of highlights what are the basics these are the basics and again it's no surprise that that this document has a relationship to the book of mormon right if you're a member of this church you believe in these basic teachings right we sometimes forget that every early member of the church was a convert right from another christian denomination and they would have seen this and gone okay good yeah i i've believed in these things i now believe in some other things too but but these things are central these first principles and that's boy to me uh i think i've talked about this before sorry um but i had somebody ask me once hey how many years you taught the book of mormon what's the one thing that you've noticed and i said you know it's it's first principles how often faith in christ and repentance are mentioned together and how sometimes followed by baptism holy ghost i'm looking at verse 29 and we know that all men must repent and believe on the name of jesus christ and worship the father in his name and endure in faith on his name to the end i mean it's this basic restatement and so i like the way you said that that people would read and go yeah okay yeah this is what i've always known and there's more yeah and you've got the what elder mcconkey would call the pillars of eternity here right you've got creation fall fall resurrection yeah yeah i think that's right um there are a few things that maybe would stand out a little bit so verse what is it 27 uh those who would come after who should believe in the gifts uh spiritual gifts gifts of the spirit now there were people in this period who did believe in the gifts of the spirit charismatics as they were called many evangelical groups but there were also others who were saying were what are called cessationists right they believe that the gifts ceased with the apostles um so this does distinguish them in some ways in suggesting these are people who believe in a return of the spiritual gifts what would you say jordan about verse 32 that a man may fall from grace and wasn't that a contrast with uh calvinism of the of the time yeah yeah so that's a clear rejection of calvinist belief right this communist belief one of the tenets of calvinism um unfortunately whenever we talk about calvinism we only talk about like this one thing right when it's really rich theologically in so many ways but but um the the idea of predestination right you are elected for salvation or damnation and you can't do anything about it and along with that idea is this concept of the perseverance of the saints if you are elect you you will remain elect you cannot uh fall from that elect position and so this passage it seems like a direct response to that right there is a possibility that man may fall from grace now it bears noting i think that during the revivals of the 18th and then early 19th centuries there is somewhat of a theological shift from calvinism to what is called arminianism not armenianism but arminianism it's tied to a dutch theologian jacobus arminius and he emphasized that the individual had a role in accepting or receiving the grace of christ so that is a rejection of calvinism and during the revivals many of the evangelical groups methodists baptists others started to embrace that concept a bit more i mean that's why you would go to a revival so that you could perhaps be moved to embrace uh the grace of christ right so i suppose what i'm suggesting is it's kind of this verse wouldn't have stood out as strange to those from evangelical backgrounds who have already started to accept this armenian emphasis on on receiving you have the ability to receive the grace of christ as an individual that's interesting i the um a lot of the early converts and maybe i i actually haven't done the my historical research on this but it seems that brigham young comes from methodism a little bit uh john taylor wilford woodruff maybe it was easier for someone to bridge into this new religion from methodism than it was from maybe presbyterianism yeah i i think that's probably true uh i mean we we could also talk and maybe we will talk a little bit about um restorationists right yeah like the campbell lights now they they also have some serious problems with joseph smith but it's no wonder that a lot of the converts come from in and around the area of kirtland where there are these restorationist groups people who are talking about the restoration of certain things right um but but yes so but i think evangelical groups were more prone uh to accept uh this message yeah i just i love what comes after that verse about that there's a possibility that man may fall from grace therefore let the church and notice who is being addressed take heed and pray always lest they fall into temptation so there's some counsel that comes after that idea that yeah it is possible to fall from grace the perseverance of the saints is not what we're talking about here and therefore and then again in verse 37 and again by way of commandment to the church and we see why they would read this at a conference because this is this is a commandments for all of us and it seems now they shift into okay now that we know what we believe how is this like how we're going to put this into practice is that what comes next yeah i think that's yeah that's the fourth section that's the really long section that's the section where your kids might uh tune out a bit right um but yeah uh it turns to instructions regarding ordinances offices duties now again it bears emphasizing we've said it before these offices are not clearly associated with ironic and melchizedek priesthoods at this point now they will become associated with those priesthoods later especially after 1835 but nonetheless it is clear that certain offices have certain rights and that's one of the other things that is starting to set this church apart right i wanted to ask one thing or maybe just say one thing and you could you could comment on this and that is when i think when i read this with my family and i read deacon teacher priest in my kids minds are automatically going to come 12 14 14 16. and that's not the case here no no that's not the case here um it probably bears emphasizing that not all men are uh have the priesthood conferred upon them or are ordained to an office during the 19th century in fact i've seen some recent research by paul reeve that suggests i've got one example here 1842 salem massachusetts 66 members of the church one priest one elder now it wasn't always that way but but i think maybe around 40 of the adult male membership it it depends on the where you're at so that's a 20 20th century development um that that you know we are preparing every male to receive the priesthood um that is not the case in in the 19th century and certainly not the case at the churches in the church's beginning so it doesn't sound like it would be odd at all to be a member of the church be a man and not hold any office of any priesthood which probably bears emphasizing we we have come to and hopefully i think we're moving away from this we have come to conflate priesthood and men more than they did in the early church probably because of that right this idea that you every uh adult male can get the priesthood we've probably come to make that conflation in ways that they perhaps would not have because they were not uh conferring the priesthood upon all uh male members of the church right so they wouldn't say we'd like to thank the priesthood for stacking the chairs right they yeah i'm glad you bring this up i think that the come follow me manual suggests a great uh talk to go read from um president oaks in april of 2014 and in fact i have my students write a paper on this tell me what the difference is between the keys of the priesthood the authority the priesthood the power of the priesthood and and who holds it and who uses it and things like that and i think in that talk that the come follow me manual recommends that we read he even says we shouldn't refer to the men as the priesthood they may they may be holders of the priesthood and some of them may be and not all of them may be but yeah i'm glad you brought that up yeah um maybe something to note there too and maybe i already mentioned this but but they do immediately start using this document uh in in relationship to the offices for example so at the june conference that follows joseph and oliver cowdery ordain some of the members to these offices samuel smith one of the original members of the church is ordained as an elder joseph smith senior and um hiram smith are ordained as priests at that june conference so so they are taking this instruction and applying it uh pretty immediately i have always loved in section 20. that the lord has a bigger church in mind than this small little group of six people right because he's got we've got to visit the house of each member and they're probably looking at each other going we all live in the same house yeah we have yeah it's that we've got the colesville branch the harmony branch they're just basically three families right so yeah in fact craig osler said something really funny about this because if you've ever been to the to the fayette you know the whitmer home he said there's 60 people in there he says that could be the first miracle of the church if you've got 60 people in there because it's you walk in there you think you had 60 people in here were they smaller back then and he says if you go from one place to another you can take a recommend with you basically right that you're licensed worthy yeah and um they've got to be thinking we all know each other right like this is how so it's almost almost i like to sometimes call it kind of a patriarchal blessing for the church that hey you're going to get bigger hey you're going to succeed hey this is going to be this is going to be great so get ready and it's got to be kind of an exciting document in that in that way yeah that's kind of an implied message this this church is going to stay and it's going to grow and you're going to need some order here and how you do things and when did we decide uh you become a deacon at 12 and a teacher at 14 and now it's the 12th year it's not 12th birthday anymore yeah i'm going to pretend to be smart here i actually read a book called mormonism in transition yeah by thomas thomas alexander and that's really that shift from 1880 to 1930 is this the church changes dramatically uh and then john that's where a lot of that comes from is this the idea of curriculum and and young men's young women's programs all of that primary all comes into its own there in that 50-year period i think maybe it's a good time just to bring up i love this phrase that i believe is president nelson's uh phrase is uh i may be wrong but the idea of a continuous restoration and yeah like i like to tell my students hey these documents are new relatively we've had the bible for thousands of years but we've only had the book more for a couple of hundred we're learning things and we're still they the restoration continues i like that idea um jordan i want to ask you a question we with the with the understanding of these priesthood offices changing so much is it still appropriate for me to use to use section 20 to talk to deacons today teachers today priests and elders today would you feel like we this is still a usable document when it comes to those priesthood offices certainly uh i would add the maybe the caveat that it's a it's a usable living document in the sense that i i think it is important as a historian to try and understand the original meaning of these texts right but after i've done that work why should i not then work to apply these revelations to my own life and i think god wants us to do that and we just know that the early church was doing that right so so in in june of 1829 when they get section 18 of the doctrine covenants and the lord explains what the 12 disciples will be doing they maybe read that in one way in 1829 well in 1835 when the corpsman 12 was actually called and the church has been through so much since then they may read it in a bit of a different way at that point and that that's perfectly fine now now again i do think we have to be careful and and and recognize that we are making applications that they may not have made but that that's an okay thing can't that be part of as john suggested sort of the process the continuing restoration that we go back to these texts and treat them like living documents and allow them to continue to teach us and in that sense hank i think your comment about a patriarchal blessing is is spot on i read my patriarchal blessing one way when i received it and then i lived my life and realized that oh um not quite how i thought it would go but i went back or i'd go back and read it again and draw new meanings in light of my new contexts and i think the lord wants us to be doing that oh that's that's excellent because i'm seeing things here that priests and teachers still do right visit the house of each member that's taken on different titles different names over the years home teaching now ministering uh but uh it's still there teachers duty is to uh my son is i have a son who is in the teacher's quorum i would love to tell him you're watching over the church right uh make sure there's no lying and backbiting and evil speaking in that that's hey everyone should be doing that just the other night in young men's all right we're all going bring your snow shovel we're gonna shovel some driveways they were it was a watching over the church physical kind of thing that they could do and my boys took off and did it it was it was great um let's keep going here because i want to talk about the actual day of organization so is there how far does this fourth section go is that really the rest of um yeah i think it's kind of the rest of it maybe some some kind of standout things to mention might be um so there's there's a mention about candidates for baptism right and and and that candidacy candidacy follows the book of mormon except this one phrase um that that they will truly manifest by their works that they have received the gift of christ under the remission of their sins right so in verse 37 uh it includes uh requirements for baptism and it follows the book of mormon um the one addition it adds is this phrase that the candidates will truly manifest by their works that they have received the gift of christ under the remission of their sins now oliver cowdery's articles of the church of christ included a similar but different phrase his phrase was that each member shall speak and tell the church of their progress in the way of eternal life now that idea of sharing your conversion story accepting christ's grace that was not uncommon among many denominations in this period and i think that's probably what oliver cowdery is tapping into but you notice the difference there cowdery is placing an emphasis on words the articles and covenants is placing an emphasis on works and i think countries feeling like this is undermining the doctrine of grace and he commands joseph smith in the name of god to change this passage wow okay i'm excited to hear about it and joseph's response uh who are you what was that they fought about no no they didn't find it yeah yeah he abner cole he's like take your code off let's let's go um no he said by what authority he took upon him to command me to add or diminish to or from a revelation or commandment from almighty god by the way that language is in section 20 which kind of echoes passage in revelation but that highlights an important point these these early members are figuring out what it is to have a prophet joseph is figuring out what it means to be a prophet and this isn't of course the end of this right uh there there will be future settings in which oliver cowdery is chastised for maybe paying attention to hiram page or um placing sort of faith in somebody else who has not been designated as god's prophet right and and joseph incidentally right joseph doesn't in those situations just say hey don't you remember section 20 and we'll talk about section 21 don't you remember those sections he's he's like well okay i guess i need some more insight here right which tells you something perhaps about his kind of growing into the role of profit as well i i love that that is so important they are figuring it out let's let's have patience with them and not hold them to a standard that uh that they should have it all figured out and they should be doing everything perfectly well do we hold ourselves to that same standard we're still trying to figure out how to receive revelation we're still trying to figure out our own patriarchal blessings and our duties and our callings we're still trying to figure it out so it's funny that i gasped hearing that someone's going to command the prophet oh i know but in that day oliver probably would have said what what what's the problem i'm one of the elders of the church well also note that oliver had written a document that he thought would be used and and it doesn't get used it gets sort of pushed aside by the way in in the revelation book one revelation book one is a book of revel of the earliest revelation so they would they there would be copies and then they decided well we probably should have a book of all these revelations right in revelation book one this revelation says uh given to joseph smith the seer and then um there's an addition by oliver cowdery and and to oliver an apostle um oliver you know he he had done a lot he was very invested and he wanted to make it make sure that people knew uh his his place even though sometimes he didn't know his place right um but but yeah so and joseph joseph to some extent is is kind of willing to say get some pushback right now right clearly collect corrected him there um but so so yeah it's a different setting in part because of the context in part because of joseph's own personality oh man i can't tell you how much i like this and i will add that the the tension between grace and work is still going on today i mean if we still have that in the church today like where where do we fall on that it kind of depends on which church leader you're listening to right along that spectrum so i i love that that was happening on the first first month of the church is this this tension between grace and works i think another phrase that they added isn't it true in verse 37 um that we were just on is the broken heart contrite spirit uh phrases uh which i just i love those and i i made a note because i wanted to comment that i heard sherry do talking about the process of making a wild horse to a tame horse and what is the phrase that we use at least to break them and and she said you know a broken heart is one that's submissive to its master and i so i like that idea which is is also a book of mormon and it's in the bible too of a broken heart and a contrite spirit as part of that requirements for baptism i just wanted to isn't that true jordan that was also added i think you're right i don't know when it's added but i think that is one of the phrases that is added and that bears mentioning too right that this this is a text that is revised not heavily but it is revised as are a number of the revelations that tells us something about the process of revelation right um i i think that point two is interesting joseph is not saying throughout his life he emphasizes the need for christ right um and the revelations do as well and the grace of christ i think one of the things that this is anticipating is members of the church are going to have to do a lot of work they are going to be called to do hard things so um it's sort of anticipating all of that work that they will have to do as members of the church in emphasizing works i think it maybe it bears mentioning and then we maybe we can move to actually i guess we haven't actually talked about the organization of the church yet but but yeah but there's a there are these phrases in here right the the prayers for the sacrament and those come out of the book of mormon right but i i love this thought that b.h robert so bh roberts all right convert to the church amazing thinker of the church early historian of the church he said this about those prayers he said these prayers of consecration are the most perfect forms of sacred literature to be found and as when i when i read that i'm like really are they i think we read them so much we hear them so much that we just take them for granted but that they're profound they they embody truman matson uh who wrote a biography of roberts said that roberts found these prayers to embody in masterful rich heavily freighted phrases the whole of the gospel that's that's that's pretty cool stuff right that again i think we just take it for granted like okay there's the sacrament prayer but for roberts this was actually sort of proof of the divine authenticity of the book of mormon and so it's of course i think important that we find these prayers in the church's organizing document oh thank you for saying that and i think that uh in the come follow me manual it actually says um as you read about the sacrament in the doctrine in section 20 try to read these sacred prayers from the perspective of someone hearing them for the first time what insights do you receive about the sacrament about yourself how might these insights affect you the way you prepare to take the sacrament this week and i have a friend we you guys might have heard of brother gary pohl and he just i i love the way he said it once he said if heavenly father had a favorite scripture and he said i don't know if he does but if he did he might arrange it so that his people would hear it often and he might even arrange it so the person saying it would be kneeling and all of us would be listening and i think i'm really intrigued with the things the lord has us repeat and this one is a weekly thing and it is slow down and see how beautiful and and rich this prayer is and what it's saying um and i thought i might i was going to ask you because i was intrigued by this um that it says uh before the prayer here that the priest would kneel with the elder or priest will kneel with the church and i wonder did they used to all kneel down for that time yeah i think that is the case now the difficulty here is right the records yeah even even if they are kneeling every time they're not going to tell us that because it's just something they do but i do think that's the case and i think one of the reasons we don't is just kind of logistics right we're sitting in those pews and that that's not going to work but i think it it would have been the case and somebody probably could tell us that yes they would have all knelt uh for these prayers wow i am i i get a chance to do this in my new testament classes i've i feel kind of left out sometimes in these church history discussions going i don't know what i'm doing but we do study the sacrament in uh in the new testament classes and um i love to ask my students questions they probably haven't thought of why are there two prayers why don't we do this in one why are there two symbols instead of one and uh why do we sing before right all of these things that we kind of well we just do if you go through it and you think well there's probably meaning behind everything that we do you can really it's like taking uh i i've often told my students take a dollar bill something you handle every day and find something new on it and if they actually stop and look at it they go oh i've never noticed that oh i've never noticed that i've never even looked at that before what does that mean and we can do that with the sacrament we can stop for a second something we something we deal with often and say let me look in closely at this and it's actually there's it's rich there's so much there i've had students draw out the most interesting ideas they've said the atonement overcomes two deaths spiritual death and physical death and maybe there's two prayers they said that the savior had two experiences the garden of gethsemane and the cross and perhaps each prayer you know they just draw out things that they never would have seen before haven't we just slowed down a little bit and really taken a look at the sacrament and and uh all the little things that we do around it it's been a it's been a fun experience to to to hear my students draw out things i never would have seen stephen covey in spiritual roots of human relations a book for that my dad had from like the 70s or something he uh equated moses 139 with the sacrament immortality that's the bread that's jesus's body that's accomplished he was resurrected the first fruits in eternal life that's because of his blood that's the the wine the water the atonement and i i can't think of the sacrament now and the bread the water without equating immortality eternal life and another just fun insight and i love uh jordan as you mentioned that this is from the book mormon this is from moroni going back and getting and i've had students ask why are they in both places and like well i think this answers the question this is what oliver was told to do in section 18 right i wonder if moroni elbows mormon i put that in there this is good stuff that's good stuff please join us for part two of this podcast you

Channel: Our Turtle House

Views: 30,666

Rating: 4.8301158 out of 5

Keywords: Come Follow Me, John Bytheway, Hank Smith, follow Him, D&C, Doctrine and Covenants, D&C 20-22, Jordan Watkins, Dr. Jordan Watkins

Id: FDajbsVp15c

Length: 71min 42sec (4302 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 27 2021