Follow Him Podcast: Episode 11, Part 1–D&C 23-26 with guest Dr. Lisa Tait

[Music] 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 a podcast designed to help individuals and families with their come follow me studies i'm here with my co-host john by the way we're back john yeah i'm so excited to be back again we would love it if you if you like our podcast to go and rate it review it uh if if you don't like it go ahead and send that to us and we'll go ahead and put that we'll put that on there for you eventually sometime we also have a facebook page now john we're getting we're just we're getting mainstream here and we have an instagram account so please go look up follow him on those social media platforms and you'll get extras and quotes and awesome things from the podcast uh john we have another expert here with us today tell us who is joining us oh we're so happy today to have uh dr lisa olsen tate and she has a phd from the university of houston and is a historian and writer and specialist in women's history at the church history department she is a volume editor and historical reviewer on saints that book you all have and is working on a team to write a history of the young women's organization which will be published in a couple of years she has contributed to the revelations in context series which is on your gospel library app you got to get that and other church history department projects before joining the department in 2013 she taught doctrine and covenants at classes at brigham and university she also leads the mormon women's history initiative team an independent group that sponsors scholarship and networking in the field she and her husband mike have three sons and a very special daughter kaylee and two dogs so we're really really happy to have you with us dr tate thank you i'm glad to be here yeah this is exciting dr tate uh comes highly recommended uh by one of our former guests uh brother steve harper dr steve harper who just couldn't tell me enough about lisa and how much fun she is too so you have a lot to live up to not only are you brilliant you're also fun so it was steve saying that so you'll have to gauge what level that you think that means that's funny this week we are uh looking at sections 23-26 so in section 23 it's still april of 1830 the church is not even a month old it's our little tiny baby church um joseph is receiving instruction here for five men um and we've we've heard of most of these names before we have oliver cowdery who we've talked about um hiram smith who we talked about with section what was that section 11 uh joseph smith senior the prophet's father we looked at him in section four joseph knight senior as a lot of our guests have said the knights are pretty much the second family in the church and uh but a new name comes up we've never seen before we've talked about him before and this is samuel smith um can you tell us uh dr tate can you tell us about samuel what we know about him how he what his relationship was like with joseph and um how did he felt about the work samuel smith is joseph's younger brother he's just younger than joseph uh i think the next son in line in the family he comes to visit joseph and oliver in may of 1829 shortly after their experience with john the baptist where they've received the priesthood and they've baptized each other joseph's history says that they had begun to reason i think what they mean is talk about the scriptures with a few people and and um kind of start paving the way for introducing this idea of the restoration to others joseph says that they informed samuel of what the lord was about to do for the children of men and reasoned with him out of the bible and showed him some of the work that they had translated and labored to persuade him concerning the gospel of jesus christ which was now about to be revealed in its fullness joseph says that samuel was not very easily persuaded of these things but after much inquiry and explanation retired to the woods in order that by secret and fervent prayer he might obtain of a merciful god wisdom to enable him to judge for himself so this younger brother then this this brother that's just younger than joseph he would be about 21 years old and he isn't going to just accept everything at face value and so he um seeks out this experience for himself and receives his own witness and as a result he becomes the third person to be baptized in this dispensation he he receives baptism shortly after that so that's kind of where things are at when the church is organized samuel of course being part of the smith family um you know they're going to have a really key role to play i think they all know that they've been aware of of joseph's experiences at least some of them and so samuel is poised to to play a role here um the lord tells him here in section 23 in this in this revelation though he says that his calling will be to exhortation to strengthen the church which the church is just barely coming into being at this point um but thou art not yet called to preach before the world and that will change and by early in 1831 samuel is going to travel to kirtland just shortly behind um oliver cowdery parley pratt you know the first missionaries that that stop and introduce the gospel in kirtland and samuel follows them shortly thereafter and for these especially this first few years of the church's history samuel is just a prolific missionary he walks all over the eastern united states preaching the book of mormon sharing the gospel and becomes i believe it's he who's instrumental in introducing the book of mormon to brigham young's family and instrumental in the conversion of brigham and then heber c kimball and some of these important early converts to the church so i was going to major role to play i was going to say placing that bible with brigham's that book of mormon with brigham's family that had some impact on the church implications yeah yeah so um i think members of the church um are gonna be you know uh somewhat acquainted with joseph and hiram uh but i hope that one of our my one of my hopes in the podcast was that samuel will will you know become more important uh to people uh he's gonna die about the same time as as joseph and hyrum what six weeks after them or or maybe maybe a little bit longer or two months after them right yeah i know at least traditionally um his death was ascribed to possibly to injuries that he suffered in writing all night and the stress of of informing um the community about the death of of his brothers and so um you know whatever the case was he he doesn't outlive joseph and hiram and it so we don't know you know he his story doesn't continue in in the church history after that yeah and that's just yeah i just i hope uh i i i told um uh my daughter's best friend her name is holland and i as i told this story she said he deserves a statue at carthage jail i want him to have a statue there so i i told her that i would i'd put this on the podcast that those who are in charge of the statues there needs to be a statue of samuel there at carthage jail um uh i was wondering did he ever marry samuel he did he marries mary bailey they have four kids oh another thing uh i like in this one is that earlier in section 11 hiram is told seek not to declare my word but to obtain it and it sounds like they switch gears here in in verse three am i reading that right yeah thy tongue is loosed the lord says to hire him is that interesting where section 11 was so restraining you know hold on hold on and now he's saying your calling is to exhortation to strengthen the church continue i love that it's like green light hyrum's been waiting waiting now's time i also had another question about in verse six it speaks of joseph knight senior well it what's interesting here for me is that all all of these guys receive a message that they are under no condemnation except for joseph knight so it seems that maybe he's dragging his feet a little bit in in jumping jumping in yeah verse six has always been interesting to me where it says you must take up your cross in the which you must pray vocally before the world as well as in secret i don't know that we have any other sources that would explicitly help us know where this is coming from but i don't know if we need them i mean i think this is an example of how these revelations speak to people in their most intimate and personal thoughts and feelings of their heart the lord is showing that he knows their heart and this expression of take up your cross is interesting isn't it of do something that's hard for you do something that will be a sacrifice that will show your commitment and perhaps joseph knight was not particularly comfortable praying and speaking publicly at this point in his life and so the the revelation um challenges him to to do that and i mean i think it's interesting how how revelation often does that our patriarchal blessings do that sometimes or just the promptings of the spirit that we get that we have to take up our cross we have to do what's difficult we have to be willing to sacrifice our fears and our discomfort in order to follow the lord and to to to do what he would have us do and grow into what he can have us become now in joseph knight's recollection he mentions um and this would be a couple of months later after this revelation is received he um observes some baptisms and i think these are the ones we'll talk about here shortly with where emma is baptized and it's in a stream that's dammed up on his property in colesville he says that he he watched as these people went forth and were baptized it was the first time he had seen anyone be baptized in what he calls the new and everlasting covenant he said i had some thoughts to go forward but i had not read the book of mormon and i wanted to examine a little more i being a restorationer and had not examined as much as i wanted to so he wants to really investigate this but i should have felt better if i had gone forward but i went home and was baptized in june with my wife and family so gosh maybe i'm wrong about that maybe those baptisms were some of these even earlier ones but um but this shows joseph knight i mean he's a full-on supporter of joseph smith we'll talk about this as well how much material and temporal help he's given him but he is an independent yankee kind of man and he wants to be sure before he moves forward it's it's a it's just a lovely little um glimpse into his soul and his personality well and i also like how you're talking you said this about samuel as well that he's going to go find out for himself it seems that all of these we've talked about this with oliver we've talked about this with hiram that they weren't just all in at first it was i'm gonna have my own revelation i think joseph to his credit was yes you can go talk to god yourself you don't have to talk to god through me all the time go talk to him yourself you i really appreciate that about joseph smith is that he's saying i've had my own first vision experience but you need to have your own visionary experience right the the the focus was not on what he had seen but what on others could see if they went to god themselves and i i think that's extraordinary i think too i was reading a commentary the robinson and garrett commentary and they mentioned that joseph knight was before this universalist and may not have sensed the importance of baptism or something and maybe that's why in verse 7 as lisa just talked about it says it is your duty to unite with the true church so this was in uh april of 1830 and as lisa said june of 1830 he went ahead and submitted to baptism yeah yeah that's that's fantastic i just think i i felt a little bit of of envy as i'm reading this going oliver again boy how many do you get how many sections of the doctrine and covenants would we each love to have you know uh unless they're too condemnatory or whatever but right here these some of these same characters are being talked to again and it sounds like kind of a yep you're doing fine yep you're doing fine a message at some of those maybe i'm oversimplifying but i kind of like that oliver you're doing great uh hiram you're doing great and a little bit of encouragement perhaps yep well and this verse 2 and 23 make known thy calling unto the church i mean this is building off of the revelation we have a section 21 where um the lord tells oliver that he's an elder to the church he's the first preacher of this church so again the lord the lord is saying you know take this calling and and run with it all over you you're you're good to go yeah i that i i really just appreciate this here's our little tiny church i call it little baby church here in its first month and you got the lord going all right here we go like let's get let's get underway let's get started i think i remember me with my little with my little children it was a lot of encouragement right a lot of let's get let's try new things let's let's get going here um and i really like what you said with joseph knight lisa do what is difficult i i well i shouldn't say i like it i feel it i feel it because there's a lot of times and i i like to stay in my comfort zone i don't know about you two but i like to stay where i feel very safe you know let me let me teach a gospel doctrine class and i'm good to go but ask me to administer a program john i know you served as bishop ask me to do something like that and i think the lord is going to have to say uh you're gonna have to do some difficult things here right like yeah yeah and unite yourself with the true church and i think sometimes maybe uh you know i'm definitely a member of the church but i don't know if i've fully united unless i'm willing to do those difficult things that come with you know new callings and and new experiences um i remember john when you were called as bishop you were pretty terrified right but that was part of uniting with the church i think is accepting that calling yeah that that's a good word for it i i was i feel like i i had it in me and all that sort of thing and so i i appreciate reading about these and the lord's not telling him i'm gonna remove your trials and make this easy as as lisa said it's more like take up your cross here we go wow here we go uh in july of 1830 joseph and emma back in heart in harmony pennsylvania after a really rough experience towards the end of june they were in colesville and on the 26th of june they had damned a stream i think it's on joseph knight's property where they were going to perform some baptisms and the opposition in the area had become so intense that some people came and broke up that damn and and you know we're not they were not able to do the baptisms that day so they had to damn it again and then emma and a few others are baptized on the 28th of june which i believe was a monday and as they were preparing to have a meeting where emma would be confirmed along with the others who were baptized at that time constable comes and arrests joseph for being a disorderly person by preaching the book of mormon so it's interesting that you know these this small little flock of of the church is just minding their own business doing you know doing what they think they they need to do and somehow other people come in and disrupt it and yet it's joseph smith who's the district you're the disorderly person yeah but so he's hauled off he's taken to court it's a all day and all night ordeal he's acquitted and then as soon as he's let go another constable from another county comes and arrests him and he's all hauled off to court again and meanwhile emma has taken refuge at the home of her sister which is not too far off and is leading some of the members of the church there in prayer in supplication on behalf of joseph and the upshot of all of this is that they're not able to hold that that confirmation meeting at the time and so joseph and emma return back to harmony pennsylvania where their farm is and then these revelations 24 section 24 25 26 are going to come in you know shortly after after they get back to harmony so it's been a rough go let's put it that way the the very beginnings are not it's not smooth sailing here uh for these these little branches the lord does say in verse three you've got basically three little branches of the church right you've got coalsville which is down by harmony you've got fayette which is where the whitmers are mercy and manchester where the smith farm is right right so you've got your three tiny little branches of the church and they're already um receiving some pretty intense persecution which doesn't make a lot of sense for a tiny little church right to all of a sudden people up in arms against it which to me tells us about the the work of the adversary he's going to crush this thing going to attempt to crush it before it's before it even can grow some legs nip it in the bed yeah yeah i think when when we have that same feeling like this doesn't make sense it's like yeah then there must this must really be something right uh i mean that i feel like you do uh here's a testimony of it why would it be opposed if if somebody uh on their own property makes a little dam of a river to have a baptism why would that bother you apparently the adversary knew this is the beginning of something big it's kind of the same question that joseph will later write in his history right when he recounts the story of his first vision and you know it's caused me a lot of reflection why this little obscure boy that i was would call for such opposition from these important people and why did they even take notice of me it's that's going to be the story all the way along um there's one point in his history and we didn't cover this in the history but i'm glad you brought this up lisa he says it seems as though this is jill smith history verse 20. it seems as though the adversary was aware at a very early period of my life that i was destined to prove a disturber and an annoyer of his kingdom why would the powers of darkness combine against me why the opposition and persecution that arose against me almost in my infancy that's that could be said about the church as well right that even in its infancy it is receiving severe opposition and persecution and what'd you say john just a bunch of just a couple of believers getting together you know to have a little baptism yeah on our own property i love i've always loved that line i i think sherry dew even gave a talk about being annoyers and disturbers right of that kind of thing really got the attention of the adversary apparently even though it's it to us it doesn't make sense you're looking out like why would you care yeah um some of the teenagers listening would would probably agree that they have little brothers and sisters that are disturbers what are some of the things that we some of the things that are remarkable some of the things that you you put red pencil under or whatever in 24 and 26. i mean for me one of them is is verse two and joseph's willingness to have this out there yeah it's fascinating isn't it how the lord starts out by saying i've lifted the up out of thine afflictions which is probably at least a direct reference to this recent experience but then in the very next verse nevertheless thou art not excusable in thy transgressions go thy way and sin no more again i mean this is the lord speaking to joseph in a very personal way presumably joseph knew what those were at the time and that's the i mean i think that's the lord's way of of dealing with us he'll lift us up out of our afflictions and he'll reprove us the times with sharpness when that's what we need to hear this also shows joseph's sincerity like well the lord said it it's going in the book if it was me i'd say let's start it verse three can we edit that part that was meant just for me not for everybody else everybody to read about my transgression but he's sincere this this was the lord speaking it goes in the revelation yeah it's one of the interesting things about the revelations isn't it there's um like the voice of these revelations joseph presumably is literally physically speaking these words and someone is writing them down but joseph himself is not present in the revelations as a narrator and so as richard bushman has said you know when rebukes are handed out he's just as likely as anyone to receive one along with everybody else it is really interesting yeah and it's i i look at verse eight how would you like to have verse eight said to you uh be patient in afflictions for thou shalt have many yeah it's probably feeling like i've already had many thank you very much can we could we change that to thou shalt have a few yeah or you have had el you have had many already so again it's july joseph smith is a farmer it's a farming economy and in in verse 3 the lord tells him after thou hast sowed thy fields now i'm not an expert on 19th century farming practices but july seems a little late to be so in your fields and it's because he's been building up the church it's because he's been fulfilling his calling and and doing the the work of the church and the work of the lord that he's literally not been able to come to get back to his farm and so his fields and in verse 3 the lord tells him to go to these churches these as we would say now branches of the church and they shall support thee um and tells him to continue in his calling continuing calling upon god in my name and writing the things which shall be given thee by the comforter and expounding all scriptures unto the church one thing we ought to make notice of is that in june of 1830 amidst everything else that's going on joseph receives the revelation that we have as chapter one of the book of moses so he's actually launching into this joseph smith translation process at the same time that all this other stuff is going on and so the lord's telling him keep going writing the things which shall be given me by the comforter expounding all scriptures under the church one thing to know about especially these early revelations in the doctrine of covenants is what that when they say scriptures they mean the bible for the most part in in this culture script the scriptures were the bible um and so i don't know we don't know like we have no records about the book of moses and its reception we don't know anything about how joseph came up with the idea or the commission to to study the bible and do the translation of it that becomes the jst but this verse may may be a reference to that in some way but he tells him you shall devote all thy service in zion and in this thou shalt have strength amen verse 9 in temporal layer laborers thou shalt not have strength for this is not thy calling so the lord is setting out here the circumstances and expectations that joseph can have in terms of his life he isn't going to get rich the church is to support him um you know the smith family was a hard-working independent family they they weren't the type of people to go asking for handouts and asking for other people to support them and so that's going to be maybe something that's that's going to be difficult for joseph and certainly emma as we'll talk about here in a minute um and to say in temporal labors thou shalt not have strength i mean i've heard some people kind of joke about this it's like you know joseph's no good at business or whatever i don't think that's what it's saying here it's just saying your calling is to the church your calling is to do the work of god and that is not where you're going to have your time and your energy and your greatest ability to to put your efforts into not in in the temporal labors i remember i remember john used to say this as bishop he would say my time is not my own and i think i think joseph could probably say that from from april of 1830 and even before that onward my time is not my own i cannot go sow my fields i cannot go and and and make an income because do you remember president hinckley said this the life of the president of the church belongs to the church i remember him saying that it belongs to the church and it's almost as if you're getting that from the lord that um you're not going to be a farmer really a lot anymore brother you you're you're all thy service all seems like a pretty high percentage word right all thy service goes to zion and that's where you're going to have your strength your energy i like that you said that that's where you're going to be effective temporal labors you're going to have to rely on others and i i'm really glad that we have lisa here today because i'm trying to think what does your what does your spouse think when you are told that by the lord uh what you're you're we're gonna have to rely on others all of our lives and how does that to that make emma feel i i love that she gets uh some instruction from the lord coming up here because i just wondered how that would make her feel no you're not gonna be any good at that well i'm overstating it but that's not you that's not where your focus is well this is this is where i i've always felt that section 24 and 25 go together because section 24 sets up the circumstances that the revelation that emma is going to address and so you know we can talk about that more in a minute but if you think about this already i mean again going back to joseph knight and his recollections he he talks about how several times when joseph was translating the book of mormon joseph knight came to visit him or or smith went to visit him but anyway joseph knight came to see that joseph was in need or in want as he would say and he provides um shoes three dollars paper a barrel of mackerel some taters as he says potatoes you know i mean like he's joseph literally has gotten already through the translation of the book of mormon um because of the support of joseph knight and and that has been a demonstration of this dynamic that this revelation is talking about the church is going to support thee he's he's going to have to to learn to accept that and and the church themselves as it says if they receive thee not i will send upon them a cursing instead of a blessing so the church is going to have to understand that this is one of their responsibilities if they want what the prophet can give them they're going to have to make sure he can eat and that he can be supported in in being able to fulfill his calling as i read section 24 it reminded me a lot of matthew chapter 10 when the savior calls his apostles he's saying the workmen in that in that chapter he says the workman is worthy of his meat and what you get from matthew 10 that i still get the feeling from section 24 is you can have the expectation that i and the church will care for you when you give your entire all your service to this to to zion you can have the expectation that you will be taken care of not just by miracles but by members of the church right and by me uh and i think i you know we're learning uh this is the very beginnings of the restoration but we're learning about a little bit about our future general authorities that they're this is the same idea that you give full-time service all your time is devoted here and you can have the expectation that the church and the lord will take care of you and that's that's the way it's going to work yeah and hank you were uh you know remarking about my time as a bishop and i was just thinking well compared to what some people do you when when do you get released if you're in the quorum of the 12 right and uh i can tell you in my job i have opportunity to work with some of our our leading brethren and they truly do consecrate their lives it's been amazing to me um as i've interacted with with some of them to see the way that their lives do totally belong to the lord and to the church i had a private conversation with one of them once and he said he said you know the other day i looked around the table this was years ago he said i looked around the table and there were a couple of wheelchairs couple oxygen tanks and he thought well at least i know my future because i will end up right there right just handing my entire life over to the church and you know in my watching president hinckley going from remember mr vitality and then by the end he was just in the same thing with president monson he had he was wiggling his ears right and then by the end you remember he couldn't he couldn't stand up for the whole talk and you just watch them what joseph smith said waste and wear out their lives in in this service so section 24 has become just over this you know just in the cup this discussion has really really become special to me because we've watched this play out in the lives of our leaders yeah i'm glad you said that we kind of see a pattern of uh of service for those who are called with those kinds of of callings that it's inspiring because you think of what would motivate somebody to do that unless they had a deep uh abiding real testimony yeah you know to give your whole life to that until the day you die it's amazing yeah well in joseph's case you know not only are you you know you're never going to get rich you're you're going to have to rely on others to support you and by the way people are going to throw you in jail and you're going to have all these afflictions and it's going to be really hard so i mean you can only guess you know in july of 1830 joseph's what 24 years old like i don't know how someone in their mid-20s reads this but he certainly lives it out for the next 14 years yeah i do want to mention one thing from dnc 24 really quick and that is there's a reference i think to jacob 5 in verse 19. for thou art called to prune my vineyard with a mighty pruning yay even this last time um and do as you have ordained uh and if you go to jacob 5 there's a great moment where in jacob 5 where it looks like the vineyard is done they're going to burn the whole thing all the fruit is bad and the lord says let's try one more thing right it's it's it's one it's like steve harper said john this is a great movie right where we got to make a the hero's got to make a choice let's try one more thing and so he says call the servants in jacob chapter 5 verse 61 call the servants and it says in verse 70 that the lord called his servants and they were few right i wanted to be like they were amazing they were awesome they were few but they go and work and he calls it in jacob chapter 5 verse 71 this last time that i will nourish my vineyard and then you see that in doctrine covenants 24 19 a mighty pruning yay even for the last time and we see in jacob 5 how the rest works out that these few servants of the lord and especially in july of 1830 right these few servants of the lord turn the entire vineyard around and it starts to produce precious fruit and i i like that little connection there because i can see that the lord is saying this is the beginning of this last time but it really is going to work this tiny little church they've got to be thinking us what are we gonna do right uh these three little towns in of the church right now what are we gonna do and the lords kind of can see this is gonna change the world that that's a good that footnote is right there it's footnote 1980 19a to jacob five so i hope people will will mark that and go there one of the things when i teach jacob five i love to have my students count how many times uh the lord says things like what more could i have done for my vineyard or it grieveth me that i should lose this tree and just to get the sense trees here are people they are sons and daughters of god and it changes the pain that you feel that the master of the vineyard has when these are people and those that phrase in verse 19 i'm going to prune my vineyard pruning is not the same as i'm going to trim it make it look a little nicer pruning is i'm going to take off the bad vines and keep the good ones it's pruning can be a painful painful process i'm glad you brought the that was very agrarian hank those yeah well you just brought up there we're learning these bigger words that our experts use we had to warn we had to warn dr tate try not to use multi-syllable words on jonathan especially hd language right yeah well even kevin calls it a mighty pruning and i would just point out and you guys would be better prepared to speak to this than i am but i think we should remember too i don't know how familiar these very earliest saints are with the book of mormon at this period yeah but the language of vineyard and pruning that's biblical language and and it's so important to understand and recognize how much joseph and the early saints understand that what they are doing in terms of the bible they understand that they are they're living the bible they're they're they're living out what's in the bible and there's another example of that here in section 24 um in verse 14 i mean that the lord has talked about requiring not miracles you know casting out devils healing the sick and so forth and then he says that the scriptures might be fulfilled and he goes on to talk about leaving a cursing instead of a blessing and so forth if we look at those verses carefully this is new testament language this is the same kind of instructions that jesus gave to his disciples and so again we have this sense that that they're understanding this restoration they're understanding what they're doing through the lens of the bible the scriptures that they're fulfilling that and so and and i think you know in jacob and and you know we could talk about this for a long time but in jacob he's also drawing on imagery and ideas about the world as the lord's vineyard that comes from the prophets of the old testament so we're really putting all the dispensations together here in this kind of language you could go to like isaiah 5 or 25 15. it's like isaiah's only parable i had a vineyard in a very fruitful hill and i did everything and it brought forth uh what does terry ball call it he uses the hebrew like beoshem and it it doesn't mean wild grapes it means worthless stinking things it's it's funny uh i i did everything i could what more could i have done and boy that ties beautifully to that i'm glad you said that lisa because maybe they're going hey this sounds like isaiah we got to go yeah prove the vineyard yeah yeah and matthew chapter 10. i mean there's take no script neither stage who codes this is all matthew chapter 10 like right it made me think are there a lot of poisonous snakes in the frontier or something or is he saying that because that's very much biblical language and you'll notice that string of footnotes there from the new test the gospels about instructions given to the 12. if you read uh wilford woodruff's missionary journal about wading through the swampy uh streams in the southern united states i think they're probably worse they're probably involved there as well but yeah it's a real key to engaging with the doctrine and covenants to recognize how much these revelations are drawing on share language with the bible and how powerful that would have been for joseph and the early saints for them it's the lens that they're that they're looking at this through and and that they're interpreting their their experiences through i think it's really important to understand that it's kind of easy for us to miss it today because our culture is not as biblically literate as theirs was and in the church we know the book of mormon really well now probably more than we know the bible but it's really important i think it's a key for understanding the doctrine and covenants if you're using old-fashioned paper scriptures just look at the columns of footnotes and how many of our biblical on page you know 43 there about these instructions thank you for saying that lisa yeah and when we'll get to this later but when they leave for ohio they're going to relate it to the exodus of the children of israel right right believing and and the miracle where the ice parts right we'll talk about this later but the endowment of power these are biblical people yep yeah let's go to section 26 and then we'll come back and we'll spend the rest of our time uh talking about emma in section 26 um the lord's speaking to oliver and john and we're tying it into section 24 just because the heading does as well and the lord says this i say unto you that that you shall let your time be devoted to the studying of the scriptures and to preaching and to confirming the church at colesville that's down in pennsylvania by harmony and performing your labors on the land such as required until after you shall go west to hold the next conference and then it shall be made known what ye shall do and all these things shall be done by common consent in the church by much prayer and faith for all things you shall receive by faith amen so we have a tiny little section here in section 26 it doesn't tell them to do much more than you would expect but then he adds this all things shall be done by common consent in the church do either of you have any thoughts on what what that what that means uh for the church moving forward yeah this principle of common consent in the church is is very interesting that it's here from the very beginning um there's actually a whole context for this in american christianity at the time where in some churches they've established this principle that this is one of the uh this is one of the ways of governing a church or of of legitimating the decisions and the actions of a church is by what's called common consent and it goes along with um you know the early american experience right the uh i'm going to use a phd word here the democratization of religion in the united states where common people are becoming more involved are having more opportunity to lead to preach to to influence the direction of of religion at the time and so joseph would have understood this concept of common consent in that larger context of religion of the day and i'll just add here if you're interested in in knowing more about this the joseph smith papers podcast that has just been released on the restoration of the priesthood has an excellent discussion about this idea of common consent and where it came from in in early america and the whole podcast is excellent so i'm gonna just put in a pitch for that there i mean basically the idea is that the members of the church can vote can signify their support of what's done in the church that's the idea of common consent and this is totally different from their uh their european heritage right where they were yeah especially from the older what we would call high church tradition that's very much dependent on ordained ministers and you know educated clergy and so forth as i say there is a context for it in early in the early united states where this this idea of common consent wasn't original to joseph smith and to the church but it definitely aligns them with that um more democratic streak of christianity that's taking hold in the united states at the time now i can tell you that over time there have been various claims made about this common consent that it for example um one of the the women that i do a lot of study on likes and she's writing in the early 20th century and she likes to claim that this means that women could vote in the church from the very beginning and that that the joseph smith was the first to give women the right to vote in that sense and it's actually a little bit more complicated than that it seems at first that at most of the conferences and places where common consent would have been employed it applied to official members of the church which at first were men who held the priesthood but by the time you get to nauvoo women are voting offering a sustaining vote in in conferences and and so forth and so certainly by the the nauvoo period into the the middle of the 19th century this does give women at least a a vote or a it does give women the opportunity to make their support known and to to vote on church matters in some capacity wow wow that's that's absolutely fascinating and we can see that this is still important to us uh you know at general conference we're still saying all in favor right in our wards we're still doing the all in favor and sometimes those of us who are sitting there going what do you think i'm going to say of course i'm going to support the stake basketball coach right like i'm good i'm happy to you know but we still it seems like we still this is still important to us this common consent that everybody gets gets to say and i think that's evolved over time it's it's been understood and taken different forms over the time if you if you go back into the 19th century records you will find examples of people voting against of of their being of it being more of a a vote uh than than the way that we think about it now i think we've come to think about it now more in a personal sense of of of our covenants to support you know the lord and support the church and its leaders and so the question as we raise our hands and common consent now is you know will i support this it's more of a personal commitment right than being an absolute vote but it is still uh should we call it a pressure relief mechanism within the church where there is the opportunity to to let it be known if if you know something that maybe the bishop doesn't know or you or you have concerns there is this mechanism for for making that known i really like this i i like to compare it to when paul says that the church is a body and that we the body needs every peace and the head doesn't say to the hand we don't need you and the hand doesn't say to the feet we don't need you and i often like to say in that paradigm in that way the head can receive information from the rest of the body right if the hand is hurting it sends that information up to the head and says hey i'm really hurting here so one of the ways that i think the head of the church according to this way of thinking can receive revelation is from the body of the church can receive that information up from the body of the church and that you matter right you matter in this organization we need you um i i just i really like that idea i was kind of i going back to the sustaining i i was a little bit of a stickler when i was bishop for the for the wording that doing this isn't sustaining doing this is signifying that you will sustain future tense throughout their calling uh type of a thing and i wanted to make sure people knew that that's not sustaining somebody that's just saying that you're making this covenant of common consent that you will sustain them even if you know other people who could be better at that calling you don't know what the lord had in mind but you will signify it by the rays of the head i i liked the language and i liked that it was a future commitment please join us for part two of this podcast

Channel: Our Turtle House

Views: 28,419

Rating: 4.9386191 out of 5

Keywords: Come Follow Me, John Bytheway, Hank Smith, follow Him, D&C, Doctrine and Covenants, Dr Lisa Olsen Tait, Dr Lisa Tait, Lisa Tait, Lisa Olsen Tait, D&C 21-26, Doctrine and Covenants 21-26, CFM, Come follow me

Id: GJMAc3T1heg

Length: 49min 56sec (2996 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 06 2021