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Doctrine & Covenants 20-22 Part 2 • Dr. Casey Griffiths • March 10-16 • Come Follow Me
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- [00:01]
Casey Griffiths
Keep listening for part two with Dr. Casey Griffiths. Doctrine and Covenants, sections 20 through 22.
- [00:08]
John
John, you and I have been doing this way too long together because I had my index open to merit because I wanted to back up what Casey is saying here, which is he said a lot of this comes from the Book of Mormon. And if anybody's wondering, wait, does the Book of Mormon teach what Cayce just taught? If you go to merit, you have two Nephi two Lehi. No flesh can dwell in God's presence, save through the merits of the Messiah. 2nd Nephi 31. Nephi. Rely wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save. Alma 22. This is Aaron. Since man had fallen, he could not merit anything of Himself. Alma 24. God has taken away guilt from hearts through the merits of his Son. There's nothing in here about me earning.
- [00:59]
Casey Griffiths
About me earning my merit badges, right? My salvation merit badge.
- [01:03]
John
This is Helaman 14. Have remission of sins through Christ's merits. And then Moroni 6. Rely alone upon the merits of Christ. He saves 100%. I had a great conversation with my friend Mr. Michelle Baer out here in Mapleton. We talked through this. How much is my part? How much is Jesus's part? And it's 100% Jesus. It is 100%. It's not 99.99% him. It's all him. And I live the gospel to firmly attach myself to him so he'll take me where he's going.
- [01:42]
Michelle Baer
Isn't it transformative to change to that perspective, to say, hey, I don't have to do everything right. I just have to sincerely strive?
- [01:51]
John
Yeah.
- [01:51]
Casey Griffiths
In fact, I have my own version of the song I'm Trying to be like Jesus. It's called I'm failing to be like Jesus. I'm messing up every day. It goes like that, kind of. Sometimes you'll hear people say, I accept Jesus as my Savior and I make him Lord of my life. And I like that idea. I'm going to try to follow him, because he asked me to. What manner of men and women ought you to be? Be like me. So I'm going to try, but that's not the formulas for salvation, because I'm going to mess up coming to him and repenting. That's what we're supposed to do. And Hank, you mentioned Alma 24. I think it's Alma 24 11. Stephen Robinson pointed out, for it was all that we could do to repent. I mean, listen to the phrase they used there. For it was all that we could do to repent. That's the only thing you can do. Everything else is just turning our hearts. And then the sanctification comes also through the grace of Christ. But we're going to strive. I like the idea of striving. It's not the measure of your striving that saves you. That part's done.
- [02:58]
Michelle Baer
We're making it sound like justification is the only thing involved in the grace of Christ, that it's just a gift that you receive salvation. But in verse 31 they say we know that sanctification comes through the grace of our Lord and Savior. So sanctification is linked to grace too. And we shouldn't think of grace as just this infusion of righteousness that comes near the end of our lives, but as something that as we're striving to be better, he helps us. He makes us better. D. Todd Christofferson this is what he said. To be sanctified through the blood of Christ is to become clean, pure and holy. If justification removes the punishment for past sins, like being pardoned, then sanctification removes the stain or the effects of sin. These two terms are interrelated. One explains why we don't have to spend every moment of every day worrying about our celestial scorecard. But sanctification also gives us a reason to strive to be better, to self improve, to work towards something. Even if we acknowledge and realize that any improvement we make is a gift from Christ and we need to keep him centered on the whole thing. So I wish I could go back and smack my 19 year old self in the head and say, do better. I was being sincere when I gave that answer. It just kind of illustrates to me that boy, I grew up in a great community with people that loved me, but for some reason I just missed that. And it seems like a big thing to miss. I wasn't very scripturally literate at the time, in my defense, and I spent the next two years reading the Book of Mormon and since then teaching this idea. Could we emphasize that maybe a little bit more? Can we help people understand the role of grace and how important it is? And hey, Amazing Grace is back in the hymn book now. So let's sing it as well. Any opportunity we get to one more.
- [04:49]
John
Shout out to Brother Robinson. If any of his family's listening, they're going to say, wow.
- [04:54]
Michelle Baer
Wow. They're just stealing from this guy, right? That's all we're doing. His stuff is so good.
- [04:59]
John
Yeah, he just tells the story. I've told it before when he was teaching his daughter to swim. She was so terrified that she couldn't learn. My dad's going to drown me. I'm going to die. She's like. The water was only three and a half feet deep, but Becky was only three feet deep. She was so petrified, she began to scream and cry and kick and scratch and was unteachable. Finally, I had to grab her. I threw my arms around her and I held her and I said, becky, I'm your dad. I love you. I'm not going to let you drown. Now relax. Bless her heart, she trusted me. She relaxed. I put my arms under and I said, okay, now kick your legs. And we began to learn how to swim. Then he said this. There are some of us who are similarly petrified by the questions, am I celestial? Am I going to make it? Was I good enough? Today? We're so terrified or whether we're going to live or die or whether we've made it into the kingdom or not, that we're not making any progress. It's at those times when the Savior grabs us, throws his arms around us and says, I've got you. I love you. I'm not going to let you die. Now relax and trust me. If we can relax and trust him and believe him as well as believe in him, then together we can learn to live the gospel. He just had a great way, Casey. Right. Of making these analogies. Oh, yeah, I can do that.
- [06:22]
Michelle Baer
He did such a good job. He's not the only one, I'm going to say. Brad Wilcox. The most downloaded BYU devotional in history is on grace. President Uchtdorf, Elder Christofferson A number of leaders of the church have helped us make this shift away from, hey, we do good works to no, Grace and works come together. You know, C.S. lewis once answered the question of what's more important, faith or works. Grace could be substituted easily. There. He said, that's like asking me which blade and a pair of scissors is more important.
- [06:57]
Casey Griffiths
So brilliant. What a great answer.
- [07:00]
Michelle Baer
Both are important, but mentally, as Latter Day Saints, we need to recognize a lot more the power of grace in our lives and stop putting this kind of toxic perfectionism, the scrupulosity that just really, really harms people. In some ways, the gospel is the good news. It's meant to relieve us of our burdens. At the same time, we want to strive to do better. We just don't need to be so hard on ourselves Sometimes.
- [07:30]
John
Sometimes maybe. Casey, we reverse it. The first John, it says we love him because he first loved us. And we sometimes reverse that. He'll love us when we love him.
- [07:42]
Michelle Baer
Yeah.
- [07:43]
John
That's not his way.
- [07:45]
Casey Griffiths
Yeah.
- [07:46]
John
And you don't need to be afraid as a parent or grandparent to teach this. We almost think, well, then they're going to go sin and they're going to go have all these major problems. And I. I don't want that to happen. So I'm really going to lay on the pressure of being obedient yet. I don't know if that's going to be as effective as we think.
- [08:06]
Michelle Baer
There's obedience that comes with fear and obedience that comes with love. Obedience that's linked to love is much more fulfilling, it's much more healing, and it's much more gratifying. In the end. I don't want my kids to do what I tell them to do because they're scared of me or they're afraid of some eternal damnation or punishment. I want them to do it because they know I care about them and because I love them. These two verses, I think they're the most important verses in section 20. I'm going to go out on a limb and say, because they prompt so much discussion about what does the Savior actually do for us, and if he does justify us, then why keep the Commandments? There's a good reason why we emphasize both, and it's just a question of keeping that idea in balance. I think for a little while there, we may have emphasized our acts a little bit too much. Section 20 is pulling us back and saying, all right, let's understand who's actually the instrument of your salvation. And why you're righteous is not to earn your way there. It's to learn what you're supposed to be like.
- [09:10]
John
Another part of the true and living church. As a church, we learn and grow. So, Casey, you've showed us these three sections. History, beliefs. Are we ready to move to the third section, Practices?
- [09:24]
Michelle Baer
Yeah, this is the biggest section. It's basically verses 37 to 84. It breaks down into priesthood offices. That's about verses 38 to 67. What happens after a person gets baptized. Verses 68 to 69. Then it talks about ordinances. So offices and ordinances. Starting around verse 70, they start to mention ordinances, starting with, interestingly, blessing children. Verse 70 talks about that. Then instructions for baptism about verse 71 to 74. The sacrament prayers are 75 to 79. And then record keeping. So I'd like to point out a couple of things here. First, it is interesting that in introducing the duties of the priesthood Holders in the church, the priesthood of the church. There's instructions specifically for elders, for priests. And I want to point out in the early church, most of these offices were held by adult men. It's kind of a development in the 20th century that 16 year olds, now it's down to 11 year olds, hold these priests at offices, but each one has instructions given to them. I'll just pull one out here. The priest's duty, this is verse 46, is to preach and teach and expound and exhort and baptize and administer the sacrament, visit the house of each member and exhort them to pray vocally and in secret and attend to all family duties. Again, this is going to be an active church with people assisting each other, people helping each other, people visiting. It's sometimes seen as a negative thing, but it's actually helpful to have people that are all up in your business all the time.
- [11:10]
John
Right.
- [11:13]
Michelle Baer
I think in my own word about the ministering sisters and brothers and all the good that they do. We had a lady in our ward who fell while she was getting in the shower and laid on the ground for five or six hours because she couldn't get up. And her ministering sister, who lived next door had a prompting that something was wrong, went over, had the audacity to just go in the house too, and found her and got her to the hospital. This active, engaged church is going to be part of it as well. And one of the things that's emphasized throughout all these is everybody is going to be doing this. Like, I want to share a story. This is from a guy named William F. Cahoon.
- [11:53]
Casey Griffiths
Oh, I love this story.
- [11:55]
Michelle Baer
Yeah, he's a teacher in Kirtland, Ohio, and his job was to home teach the Smiths, to teach Joseph and emma. So he's 17 years old and you can imagine it would be intimidating. But this is the way he relates it. He said, I knocked, the prophet came to the door, he invited me in and. And then William said the following. They soon came and took their seats. He, Joseph Smith said, brother William, I submit myself and my family into your hands. And took his seat. Now Brother William said, he, ask all the questions you feel like. By this time all my fears and trembling had ceased. And I said, brother Joseph, are you trying to live your religion? He answered, yes. I then said, do you pray in your family? He said, yes. Do you teach your family the principles of the gospel? He replied, yes, I am trying to do it. Do you ask a blessing on your food? He answered, yes. Are you trying to Live in peace and harmony with your family. He said that he was. And then I turned to Joseph and said, I am through with my questions as a teacher. And now if you have any instructions, I shall be happy to receive them. So imagine going into the prophet's house and being like, hey, how you doing, buddy? You blessing your food and you're 17. Are you teaching your kids the gospel? But that's the structure set up in section 20 is that everybody's kind of looking out for everybody. And as time goes on, we'll expand this to include ministering sisters and others to make sure everybody's okay. It even says, this one always struck me, if you go down to teachers in verse 54, part of a teacher's job is to see that there's no iniquity in the church. Neither hardness with each other, neither lying, backbiting or evil speaking. So the teachers are supposed to be walking around saying, hey, I saw what you posted on social media. That's not cool. You can't get mad at your neighbor because they were doing renovations at 4am in the morning. That's not okay. That is kind of the essence. It's going off what Moroni describes, which is that the church is supposed to be this rollicking family that's all up in each other's business all the time in a positive way, in a way of, hey, how you doing? You doing okay? Are you doing all right with the Commandments? And if not, what do we do to help you out? I guess we're saved as a community. That's always been a big part of the church that appeals to me is it's not you go to the most popular preacher on Sunday. You're organized geographically, so you're stuck with these people. Whether you like it or not. You've got to make them work. I used to tell people, if you've got a ward, you've got a family, that that's what comes across when people join the church. Is that okay? Now you've got all these people that are going to take care of you and that you're going to help take care of. The officers of the church are specifically instructed to do this. And as we expand the church with different organizations like Relief Society, like Young Women's, like Primary, this central idea of we're all watching out for each other grows out of this little tiny church organization that exists in section 20 of the doctrine Covenants.
- [15:07]
John
I love it, John. I remember with Dr. Melissa, in a way. Do you remember last year she said, jesus says, love Your enemies. So he put a bunch in your ward to let you practice, and you said, so many enemies. One convenient location.
- [15:25]
Michelle Baer
Yes.
- [15:26]
Casey Griffiths
So funny. Elder Christofferson gave a talk called why the church? Back in 2015. One of the things he said was to experience the application of divine doctrine. Then he said, we experience each other's idiosyncrasies. And then I think it was off the cuff in conference. He said President Packer used to call them our idiot syncrasies. Yeah, here's the divine doctrine. Now here's a place you can experience it in your own war.
- [15:59]
Michelle Baer
I was going to mention one of my favorite essays is by Eugene England. It's called the Church Is As True as the Gospel. Because we've gotten so used to saying, well, you know, the gospel's true, but the church. And we tend to denigrate the church. And the point of his essay, and I'm just going to paraphrase him here, is that the church is like a laboratory. We get all kinds of different people, and what connects us is our beliefs. Not our background, not our upbringing, not our socioeconomic status. What brings us together is the belief in Jesus Christ. And in that little laboratory, yeah, we learn how to love sometimes even really difficult people. We learn how to serve. And we learn what it means to be part of the body of Christ that you can't say to the hand, I have no use of you, because they might be doing something totally different. And we learn to extend mercy to those whose circumstances we can't fully understand. Like, I'm just really grateful to have that little community that I've been part of. I think I've been part of my ward for, like, 20 years. And it's a word where people move in and out all the time, starter homes. Whenever anybody introduces themselves in Elder Scorm, I say, yeah, I moved in in September of 2002, and I'm the old man in the ward now. But it's just been so wonderful to have these people care for me and care for my family and really help lift us up. It's just a huge blessing.
- [17:26]
John
And, Casey, doesn't it just rip your heart out when you hear someone have a terrible experience? In your experience knowing church history, when do things go wrong? When does it turn in a way that this is not how it was supposed to be?
- [17:44]
Michelle Baer
There are stories where it went wrong and stories where it turned into a problem for people, but it's generally us trying to find that happy medium between being too involved in someone's life, maybe putting too many Expectations on them and being too little involved. My experience with my word and my word is awesome, they just have been so amazing throughout the years, is that we do run into problems sometimes when we get a little too judgmental. I think I've mentioned that I have a son that has autism. When he was little, he was really hard to control. A guy in our ward came up to me and said, why don't you control your kid? During sacrament meeting, he was an older guy. And I said, you know, he has autism. Did you know that? And he didn't back down. He was like, well, that's no excuse. But then a week later, he brought over a sheet of printouts on autism that he had found on the Internet. And it was kind of his mea culpa. This is way of saying, hey, I'm sorry. He couldn't actually say the words I'm sorry, but his sorry was, I've been researching this and I think there's some stuff here that would help you. And he came to become my dear friend. And as that little boy grew up from being a troublesome child who would. Sometimes he ran up and grabbed the microphone in the middle of sacrament meeting and yelled, boom. And then ran back and sat down. Our word just always embraced him. Our son would go through phases where he was really obsessed with trains and with Ben 10, and then he got really obsessed with Michael Jackson. I remember him passing the sacrament. And he passed it and then did like a Michael Jackson spin and went. And my wife and I were just mortified, you know, covering our faces. And everybody in the ward was like, that's just Josh. A few weeks after that, I remember he came to church and all of the young men and young women had learned the dance to Thriller as a treat for him. Man, it was like Christmas morning for my son. He always knew that we loved him and that we cared about him. But to have this larger family that did stuff like that for him and that stuck up for him at school and looked out for him has just been a major blessing for us. Again, in these verses, this kind of captured that idea of, hey, the duty of the officers of the church is to keep everybody in line. But don't press too hard, but also be involved. Be part of people's lives. That's what we're signing up for when we join the church.
- [20:22]
Casey Griffiths
Back to Moroni 6. There's a line that I've just always loved. There the church did meet together oft to fast and to pray and to speak one with another concerning the welfare of their souls. So it wasn't they went to listen to one guy or one woman every week. It was, it's us. Let's speak one with another concerning the welfare of our souls. I've always loved that line, that it's a community of saints getting together. What did Elder Holland say? The church isn't a monastery for perfect people. It's at least one aspect of the church is more like a hospital for those who are ill and want to get well.
- [21:00]
John
Yeah. Two stories. One, Casey, just to make you feel better, I had a son who bore his testimony one week that you can feel the spirit, and God will speak to you through horror, video games and explicit music.
- [21:19]
Michelle Baer
I know this son. I have met this son. He's a character.
- [21:24]
John
That was an interesting moment for my wife and I, but I was a lot like you, where I looked around and I thought, this ward, they know this boy, and they love him. They love him. We all just kind of chuckled together. One to share one other. John. I've never shared this before, but a good friend who moved into a ward has a lot of children like we've talked about. They sat down behind an older gentleman in church, and the boys and, you know, the kids were just pretty loud and crazy. And this man and his wife stood up and went and sat on the other side of the chapel. My friend was so bothered by this. He thought, you know, I'm trying. I'm trying to help my kids. And he said he felt frustrated with this man. He just couldn't get past it. Well, eventually, my friend is in the bishopric, and this older gentleman passes away. At his funeral, somebody said, I think it was a daughter or somebody who knew him said, you may have noticed how difficult it was for him to be around children. It's because in Vietnam, he had a lot of experiences where children were armed to come after him. And so if he ever was around children, he had to usually remove himself because of all that trauma that occurred there. And my friend just said, oh, and had I known. Had I known what he was suffering with. Casey, I love. I love what you've taught us. We're here for each other.
- [23:07]
Michelle Baer
Yeah. Yeah. It's a laboratory. We wouldn't run into people like that in our regular life. And during the pandemic, I felt that we were siloed in our basements and we weren't seeing people. When we went back to church, I started to see the value in that. Hey, this guy next to me might be totally different from me. He might be crazy in this one direction. But I need his perspective. I need to see that so that I know that the world isn't full of scary people. It's full of good people who are different from us, but who we can see a lot of good in and we can learn to love. So again, these sections just kind of emphasize we're all up in each other's business. We're a big family, and that's by design. That's on purpose.
- [23:58]
John
The Lord says in verse 47, you're going to visit the house of each member. Right. Then we're not just going to see each other on Sunday. We're going to be in each other's houses.
- [24:09]
Michelle Baer
Yeah, we're going to be all up in each other's business all the time, which is by design, not by accident. Thank goodness for that. Now, if I could, let me jump to verse 70, and I want to do a broad overview here for a second. When it comes to what the church does, John, you brought up this question of why the church, and a big part of it in Elder Christofferson's discourse was because we have authority to perform ordinances. Let me point out the ordinances here and you give me kind of the one of these things is not like the other. So baptism is here, confirmation, sacrament, prayers, and blessing children. Now, which one of those is different from the others in a fundamental level?
- [24:56]
John
Blessing children, right?
- [24:58]
Casey Griffiths
They have no idea what's going on.
- [25:02]
Michelle Baer
I put up pictures in my class and say, hey, is this a saving ordinance? Is this a saving ordinance? Blessing children is not a saving ordinance. Baptism, the sacrament are both spoken of as being essential in the Book of Mormon and here and in the Bible. But blessing children is an essential. Like we don't do baby blessings. If a person joins the church when they're 73, that would be weird. You know, we bring him down and we bounce him up and down and say, the name he shall be called by is Murray, or something like that. But it does point out the purpose of ordinances. On the one hand, some ordinances are essential for us to be saved. You have to be baptized, you have to be confirmed. I don't know if you have to take the sacrament or not to be saved. I guess you get baptized, confirmed, and die and never take the sacrament be okay. But some ordinances are just given to allow us to do good and to be good. The rule of thumb for an essential ordinance is, do we do it on behalf of people that are deceased. In the temple, we do baptisms and confirmations, endowments and sealings. If they were married. But some ordinances we just do to make the world a better place. Some ordinances we do just to invoke the power of God. A later section of the Doctrine and Covenants is going to say, in the ordinances thereof is the power of godliness manifest. And sometimes we just use the authority God's given us to do something good. Like, there's this little couple that lives next door to me, and they've become our good friends. They had a baby, and you know how your first child, you're constantly panicking about everything. They called me and said, our baby's yellow. This was like three or four days after she'd come home from the hospital. And I wanted to say, you know, she's probably got a little jaundice, and it's pretty normal. Most of our kids were yellow for a couple days, too. But they were just absolutely panicked. Do we go to the hospital? Should we call the doctor? What should we do? And finally they said, could you come and give us a blessing? And so I went over. I remember the mom was holding the baby. The dad was really nervous, but I said, this is your child. You play Sansa. So little tiny baby, just barely putting her hands on her head while mom held the baby. All three of us were participating in some way, and I just listened to this father, and I literally had to sort of explain the instructions while he was doing it. Okay, say this, say this. But I listened to this little father invoke the power of godliness to bless his child. The baby's fine. You know, she's over at my house a couple times a week now and terrorizes us and everything. But I thought to myself, hey, that is something that we do also. Sometimes we get so caught up in the work we have to do to save people that we neglect the influence we can have and the power God gives us just to do good things. Some ordinances are for salvation. Some ordinances are just to help people, to give them comfort and guidance. That's another purpose of the church, too, is, hey, if you are struggling, if you need to make a big decision, it's okay to call your ministering brothers and have them come over and give you a blessing of comfort. You don't have to be in the hospital and attached to a respirator before you ask for the power of God to assist you. Some things we do because they're essential. They're ordinances where we make covenants with God. Some things we do just to bless people and just to help them.
- [28:34]
John
Casey, let me ask you a question since we have you here. So here's the basics in section 20. Now, obviously we do a lot more than this today. Primary's not here. Young men's and young women's isn't here. Eventually we're going to get to bishops and apostles. I know that you've studied the history of the Church. Why do we have this program and then switch it up and do this program? And why do we shift on this and then go back to that?
- [29:06]
Michelle Baer
We've been talking about the importance of section 20, but really it's not all supposed to be here in section 20. This is foundational. This is the foundation that the superstructure is built on. Later revelations, the Lord's going to say, men should be agents unto themselves and do many good things to bring to pass righteousness. This is part of the living aspect of the church too, where this is the minimum expectation for what the church can do. We meet together, we administer ordinances of salvation, we. We check up on each other, and we use the power of godliness to bless each other. But as the church has progressed, there's been a number of additions to the functions of the church, all of which have served their purpose. Some come and some go. We don't go to church for three hours anymore. We don't have 70s quorums in stakes any longer. That reflects the living, growing nature of the church. But just to give you an example, the Primary association was started by a woman named Aurelia Spencer Rogers. She started it because Eliza R. Snow came to her ward and introduced Relief Society. And Aurelia's problem was the kids were like getting into trouble and causing issues. And she basically said, why can't we have something like Relief Society for the kids? Or at the time they were setting up the mia, the Mutual Improvement association, the Young Men, Young Women's Program. What do we do for the little kids? And Eliza R. Snow said something like, there must be some way to teach them the primary principles of the gospel. There you go. The primary association is introduced a lot of stuff in the church. We assume the model is revelation comes from on high to the leaders of the church, and they make changes. But just as often, revelation comes from the bottom up, where something like the Primary association is started by Aurelia Spencer Rogers in Farmington, Utah, and it's a good idea. And it catches on and then becomes an official church program. Seminary was started as a little program by the Granite Stake just because they were worried about kids that couldn't go to a church academy that had to go to a public high school. But it caught on and it became something that helped people. None of these ideas are permanent. I'd say what's in section 20 is the foundational bedrock of the church. That doesn't mean that we can't feel free to improvise. Like, if we're building the church as a house, we want to put a granite countertop in here or knock down this wall and add in an extra bedroom or something like that. It's a living, breathing organization. And what are here basically is the skeletal structure of the church that is beautiful and wonderful and essentially talks about what we do, but can be expanded, can be broadened. The Savior's charge here to look after each other, to bless each other, can take on different iterations and forms. Like I said, if you're reading through section 20, you would think that just the priests, teachers, deacons and elders would be visiting people today. Ministering sisters do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to helping people throughout the church. And I think that's a wonderful addition. I'm really happy that when my daughter, who's 11 right now, turns 14, she's going to go out and minister and she's going to be assigned a family in the ward that she's supposed to keep an eye on. An older lady who's going to mentor her in the ways of ministering. So the Doctrine and Covenants is foundational, but a lot of the revelation happening in the church is taking ideas of the Doctrine and Covenants and adapting them for the circumstances that we live in. And it seems like, especially recently, the leaders of the church have been giving us a lot more flexibility. And part of that is us looking and saying what's essential, what's not essential, what can we keep, what can we get rid of? I'm guessing the church will look quite a bit different 100 years from now than it does right now. What you see in section 20 will always be there in some way, shape or form.
- [33:04]
John
I have to add one fun fact. My sister, Jennifer Johnson, who is over women's conference at byu, she once presided over the largest primary in the church. It was in Spanish Fork, Utah, with hundreds. That's really hundreds of children in primary for the first time, to my knowledge, they received permission to split the primary in a ward. And so they had two primary presidencies. And that would be an example of adjusting to fit circumstance.
- [33:37]
Michelle Baer
We're being flexible. A ward my wife and I lived in when we were younger had nine nurseries. Nine nurseries every fast Sunday half the meeting was taken up by baby blessings. I remember my bishop getting up and saying, hey, we have a few baby blessings today, but not many, just six and then moving on. So we change and adapt using these foundational principles and things will change.
- [34:05]
John
Sometimes I think we get converted to a program. It's hard to see it go.
- [34:10]
Michelle Baer
Yeah, my wife and I have experienced that. Like I got called as the teaching improvement coordinator. The TICK was our abbreviated version of that. And I loved it because I was Mr. Teaching and I was observing people. And then I came to church one Sunday and they said, actually the Sunday school president does that, so you're out of a job. My wife loved cultural arts. She would stage plays and we did an interactive Easter every year. And then she was the cultural arts director of the cad. One day they stopped doing that too. And my wife and I have both said, you know what, we're the finishers in the church. Generally when we get a calling, it means the calling is going to end. That happened. My wife was the personal progress leader in our Word when all that changed. That's part of the ever changing nature of the church. Some things we do will never change, but most things are flexible.
- [35:01]
Casey Griffiths
I was one of those 18 month missionaries. I don't know how it happened, but I imagine it. Hey, we think there might be a good idea to have the elders go for 18 months. And I don't know if it was for school or scholarships. I've heard all sorts of guesses. And so they did for a while. My mission call said 24 months on it, but then another letter came out and said 18. So we among ourselves said, well, we can do 24 months of worth of work in 18, but. And then they changed it back. I just figured that was one of those cases where it was, lord, we want to try this. And later on, Lord, it didn't work the way we thought. That's okay.
- [35:46]
Michelle Baer
Yeah, that's the church, right? It's living. It's true. It grows and it changes with the times. I would say that there's openings left in there as well because obviously there's going to be more saving ordinances. We eventually receive the ordinances of the temple and there's going to be more blessing ordinances too. We do more than just bless children. We can do blessings of comfort or father's blessings to provide guidance or blessings of healing. And all of that is laid out in later sections of the Doctrine and Covenants. I'd be okay if new ordinances are established. I don't think The Doctrine and Covenants talks about blessing homes, but the latest handbook does. The Doctrine and Covenants doesn't describe dedicating graves, but the handbooks of the Church do. And instructions are updated based on the revelation to the leaders of the Church, which is based on the necessity of the circumstances we find ourselves in.
- [36:44]
John
And Joseph Smith taught that very thing.
- [36:46]
Michelle Baer
Yeah, I think Joseph Smith was clear that we shouldn't be too tied to a particular way of doing things. As long as we recognize the fundamentals which he seemed to think were what Jesus did for us, we could embrace a lot of change as they came along.
- [37:03]
John
I love it.
- [37:05]
Michelle Baer
Section 21 is kind of a follow up where Section 20 was written before they had this organizational meeting on April 6th. Section 21 was actually received the day that they're organizing the Church there in the presence of everybody, Joseph Smith dictates a revelation that's written out. And this has to do with the structure of the Church, which, like we said at the time, was pretty basic. Two elders, here's the basic offices of the Church. But it's going to be talking a little bit about the role that Joseph Smith is going to play. And again, one of the biggest questions we still wrestle with in the Church is what is the role of the leaders of the Church? Are they infallible? Are they not infallible? When do they have the right to receive revelation? And when should we seek our own? Joseph smith is given five titles here. Verse 1. Behold, there shall be a record kept among you, and thou shalt be called a seer, a translator, a prophet, an apostle of Jesus Christ, an elder of the Church, through the will of God the Father and the grace of your Lord Jesus Christ. The titles that are given to Joseph Smith are seer, translator, prophet, apostle and elder. We could walk through each one of those and say what each one means. For instance, the Book of Mormon says that a seer is greater, that a seer is one who can perceive hidden things. John A. Widtsoe said, a seer is one who sees with spiritual eyes. He perceives the meaning of that which seems obscure to others. Therefore he is an interpreter and a clarifier of eternal truth. We've all seen examples of seership. We've been talking about change in the Church. But that three hour to two hour change, which we kind of use as an example of change because it's fairly innocuous. Nobody was offended. In fact, it was probably the most popular revelation in the history of the Church. Like literally nobody complained. But the underlying motivation behind it was President Nelson had been given direction that we needed to be more home centered. We don't always acknowledge that we went from three hours to two hours to zero hours of church. And the church functioning at its most basic level during the pandemic, which was at home. I remember the first Sunday that my son and I blessed and passed the sacrament to the rest of the family. President Nelson was really gifted with seership in recognizing, and I'm not saying he knew that there was going to be a pandemic, but that the home was where the magic really happens and we needed to be better prepared for that. It was a blessing that we had that shift in focus, even if it was just for a little while before we went into that kind of lockdown survival mode.
- [39:51]
John
That's really great, Casey. Can I throw in that I think the church also learned about its single members during that time and thought, wait, what do we do when someone is at home by themselves? How do we make that work for them? And I saw a lot of adjusting in a ward and a stake level.
- [40:12]
Michelle Baer
Yeah. And that's part of their role. Right. A seer can see things that the rest of us don't see. The old analogy of a watchman on a tower means that they might perceive changes that we need to make. And sometimes the changes can be difficult, but they're looking out for us to kind of steer us in the right way. Now, the others might seem a little bit stranger, like a translator. I'll have students say, hey, has anybody besides Joseph Smith done any major translation? And the honest answer to that is no. Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon and then the Bible and then then the Book of Abraham. But translator in our understanding too. We'll probably get into this more as we progress in the Doctrine and Covenants and his purpose to translate the Bible. When you look at Joseph Smith's Bible translation, it's clear that it wasn't always just putting back stuff that was lost. It was understanding the intent of the original scriptural writer. And if that's what a translator does, if they're translating not necessarily from one language to another, but understanding the intent of the writer, I would say that's still something that the president of the church is asked to do, that he's given a spiritual gift to read a passage and understand the intent. Because language is one thing, but intention coming from written words is a completely different thing. The other terms that he saw is a prophet. A prophet is someone that testifies of Jesus Christ. Like the most basic definition is in Revelation 19:10, where the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy. And so a basic role of the president of the Church is to serve as a witness of Jesus Christ, to testify of his divinity, his resurrection, all those things that we've been talking about. Then the last two titles are linked to each other. He's an apostle, which is literally just a word that means one sent forth. But it showed up in the Doctrine and Covenants prior to this. When Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer are both called apostles in section 18. In section 107. It's going to become Church Calling Apostle with a capital A. It's going to be defined in section107.23 as a special witness of Christ Apostle. And the last title is Elder are linked to each other too. Elder McConkie gave this great definition. This is from his doc. Only an elder remember this, where the guy came to him and said, I'm only an elder. Elder McConkie said, An elder is a minister of the Lord Jesus Christ. He holds the holy Melchizedek priesthood. He is commissioned to stand in the place instead of his master, who is the chief elder administering to his fellow men. He is the Lord's agent. His appointment is to preach the Gospel and perfect the saints. Apostle and Elder are closely linked. Elder is the actual title we use for apostles. Each one of these titles is really important in understanding and defining leadership within the church. But there's a lot to explore there too about what they mean and what the limitations are as well. Section 21 was just basically explaining to them and giving the Lord's endorsement. We'll go to verse three. This church was organized and established in the year of your Lord 18:30, in the fourth month, on the sixth day of the month, which is called April, Wherefore meeting the Church, give heed unto all his words and commandments, which he shall give unto you as he receiveth them walking in holiness before me. For his word ye shall receive as if from mine own mouth in all patience and faith. For by doing these things, the gates of hell shall not prevail against you. And the Lord will disperse the powers of darkness from before you and cause the heavens to shake for your good and for His Name's glory. It's wonderful to think that they show up with this incredible foundational document, section 20. But they also receive a revelation right there with everyone present so that they know that this is the foundation. But it's going to continue. I'm going to give you instruction and I'm going To help you understand and know what my will is, we go forward. It goes back to that. This is a living church. We're going to continue to receive direction and guidance.
- [44:31]
John
Casey, would you say that. End of verse five, John, you've pointed this out before. You're going to receive it in all patience and faith. Meaning it's going to take some patience and some faith to receive the words of prophets.
- [44:47]
Michelle Baer
Yeah. Oh, man. If we could track the fates of all those 40 people that crowded into the Whitmer home. Some of them die for the Gospel. Some of them apostatize and leave the church. Some of them make it all the way here to Utah, where we're at and are buried in the soil that we make our homes on right now. They were going to go through a lot, and I think the Lord was trying to prepare them as well. And also let them know that patience and faith are two major requirements for someone that believes in Jesus Christ. That you've got to trust in him and also accept that not all blessings come immediately that you're seeking.
- [45:28]
John
It kind of reminds you of section one. I gave. In their language, these commandments serve me were given unto my servants in their weakness after the manner of their language that they might come to understanding. So I can connect that to verse five. So since it's in their language, in their weakness, use patience and faith.
- [45:49]
Michelle Baer
Yeah.
- [45:50]
John
Sometimes I think we're a little too harsh on our leaders. The way they say things. I don't like the way he said that or she said that.
- [45:59]
Michelle Baer
Yeah. And I mean patience and patience on the opposite end of things, too. It can be frustrating when you are a leader. I love that phrase Elder Holland shared. Imperfect people are all the Lord has ever had to work with. So be patient with each other. Go easy on each other. Recognize we all have our foibles and our faults, and we're all striving to do better. Let's be kind.
- [46:23]
John
As a historian in the church, Casey, have you seen times where leadership and membership got things just they needed patience and faith with each other, even leaders in the church. At least I know one biography of an apostle.
- [46:40]
Michelle Baer
Yeah. A couple stories come to mind. John Taylor and Brigham Young were sort of like polar opposites. Brigham Young was like an American guy down to the bone. And John Taylor was a proper English gentleman. And Brigham Young would often be sitting there and have soup stains on his shirt from eating food. And John Taylor was always prim and proper and dressed exactly right. I remember a story where John Taylor apparently walked in and Brigham Young Said something like, oh, here comes Prince John. And John Taylor walked over and said, sir, you are a despicable person and a prophet of God. And then walked out. Well, there's been conflicts among leaders. There's concerns that go back and forth. We're all struggling. And when a person recognizes that, when you follow President Eyring's advice, I think first he said, assume that half the people you talk to are really struggling. And then six months later, he came back and said, just assume that everybody's struggling. Probably be right most of the time. I think this is the Lord underlining that principle, patience and faith, with what they have to say. The book I wrote was on an apostle named Joseph F. Merrill, who nobody's ever heard of. But I loved the guy. He was like my spiritual mentor because I just spent years in his papers and his writings. He was an apostle from 1933 to 1952. He wasn't the most outgoing guy. He was shy. I've talked to his family members. A lot of them said, yeah, he was usually the quietest person in the room and not a big ebullian personality. But he had this friend who was a fellow apostle, Richard Lyman. Richard Lyman was a big, huge guy with a big ebullient personality that everybody sort of loved. They were best friends. I mean, they were professors at the U. They met at the University of Michigan. They served as apostles. They used to walk from their homes down to the church administration building. On this one occasion, Elder Merrill and I found this in his journal. Went to a meeting in Salt Lake Temple. This was In, I believe, 1943. Was ushered into the room and quickly told by a member of the first presidency that Richard Lyman had committed a really serious transgression, that they were considering his membership in the church. Elder Merrill sat there while they talked back and forth about the best thing to do. And they eventually removed Richard Lyman from the church. Imagine if this happened today, you know, if any of the apostles were removed from the church, how devastating that would be. But as I read in Elder Merrill's journal, I started to find this pattern where it would say things like, I ate dinner with Richard Lymon tonight, or I took Richard Lyman to a football game, or Richard Lyman and I went for a drive this afternoon. He didn't give up on this guy. He loved him and he helped him. And one of the last things I found was a little slip of paper from 1954. This was two years after Elder Merrill passed away. That was from Richard Lyman that read, it is my pleasure to inform you that by unanimous decision of President McKay and the Quorum of the Twelve, that I shall be rebaptized and readmitted into the Church. Richard Lyman ended his life in full fellowship. He was never made an apostle again. If the rest of the Quorum were doing what Elder Merrill did, it meant that, yeah, this guy did a terrible thing, but they didn't cut him off, they didn't shun him. They reached out, they lifted, they blessed, and they helped him. And that's part of the role of church leaders, too, is to seek the lost sheep and to find those that are out there. Like an apostle and an Elder sometimes goes to preach the gospel to those that haven't heard it, and sometimes to find those that have heard it but have fallen in the course of transgressions. That story captures the imperfection of the leaders of the Church, which is going to be manifest as we go through the Doctrine and Covenants. You're going to find plenty of leaders of the church causing major issues and in some cases, apostatizing, but also the essence of the Church, which is we don't give up on people. We stay in their lives as long as they'll let us. We do what we can to try and help and build and lift them.
- [50:59]
John
What an inspiring, inspiring story. It's going to take patience and faith.
- [51:05]
Michelle Baer
Yeah. Good stuff.
- [51:08]
John
Casey, let me ask you about verse 8. His weeping for Zion I have seen. Is this Joseph?
- [51:16]
Michelle Baer
Yeah, I think it's the Lord attesting to the sincerity of Joseph Smith. His weeping for Zion I have seen, and I will cause that he shall mourn for her no longer. His days of rejoicing are come unto the remission of his sins and the manifestation of my blessings upon his work. Now, that might harken back to the beginning of section 20, where we said that he received a remission of his sins might be a reference to the first vision in Joseph Smith's mind. That wasn't the end, that was the beginning, that you receive a remission of your sins, but you got to receive it over and over and over again. But that's part of the purpose of the church, too, is we come to church, we take the sacrament, we make our covenants again, and one of the promises of our covenants is that we receive a remission of our sins, but that it's a continual thing. So the Lord here again, when the church is being organized, is saying, I'm giving him a remission of his sins. And that must have been really comforting to Joseph Smith. Especially after all the ups and downs dealing with the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and all the challenges that he faced. But it's part of the function of church too, is for us to go and it's kind of our way of saying, hey, am I doing okay? Am I still in line with things? There's an old saying, I can't remember who said it, but somebody pointed out that if you can take the sacrament every week and do so worthily, you're going to make it. Don't sweat the small stuff. If you're worthy to participate in that one symbol of ordinance, which they did that that day as well, you're worthy to enter the celestial kingdom and you're going to be all right.
- [52:53]
John
Casey. This has been fantastic. We have one small section left, section 22, same time period.
- [53:02]
Michelle Baer
It's received around this time. We don't think it was received the exact day that the church was organized. But a natural question that would have come up was one, if I've already been baptized in a different church, do I need to be rebaptized to join this church? And there was also the question of, well, some people like Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery and Samuel Smith had been baptized before the church was organized. Did they need to be baptized again to show that they were entering into the church? The Lord gives a very simple and direct teaching about the role of the church that we still follow today. Behold, I say unto you all, old covenants have I caused to be done away in this thing. This is a new and everlasting covenant. Even that which was from the beginning. Wherefore, although a man should be baptized a hundred times, it availeth him nothing. For you cannot enter in at the strait gate by the law of Moses, neither by your dead work. I think clarity is kindness. In this particular case where he's trying to say, yes, you do have to get re baptized because this is the beginning of a new church and baptism is the entrance into the church. I remember the first guy that I taught on my mission who got baptized. I was a brand new missionary and this guy was very, very kind and we were teaching his whole family. At a certain point we were teaching him, by the way, in our mission president's home. My mission president assigned me to his area because I think he saw me and thought, this kid's trouble. I need to monitor him and make sure he's okay. So we were doing a cottage meeting and my mission president and his wife were the fellowshippers. And the guy said, well, I've Already been baptized. Why do I have to get baptized again? And I hemmed and hawed because I didn't want to say because you were in the wrong church. I didn't want to say because of your dead works. I remember my mission president turned to the guy and said, have you been baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints? And the guy said, well, no. And my mission president said, you have to get baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And the guy was like, oh, okay. I spent the entire time trying to come up with a great theological reason for why, but my mission president did what the Lord did here, which is basically just be clear and concise and explain. The church has been renewed. Baptism has to come by authority. The authority has been gone from the earth. I don't think he's saying that their works don't matter or that they didn't mean anything, but he's just saying, no, the Old Covenant is done away. You've got to get baptized into the New Covenant. That's just the way it is. Not trying to be mean or anything. That's how things work now.
- [55:43]
John
And if he says, if you're struggling, verse four, don't seek to counsel your God.
- [55:51]
Michelle Baer
It'S great how he can do that. This is the way it is. And sometimes we need to have the courage to do that also to be clear and courageous and tell people the way things actually are, especially when the.
- [56:05]
John
Lord has made it very clear.
- [56:06]
Michelle Baer
Yeah, definitely.
- [56:08]
John
We don't want to let you go without soaking every bit out of this sponge here. So let me ask you something that I think we've asked you before. You've been on the show many times. There may be someone out there who's listening who thinks, I don't know if I can trust the character of Joseph Smith. From what I've heard, so many people speaking evil of the prophet these days, is he really who he claims to be? You've studied the history of the Church more than a lot of people. You're not that old, but it has been. You're into the decades now of studying the history of the Church.
- [56:47]
Michelle Baer
Yeah.
- [56:48]
John
What would you say to someone who says, I don't know what to think about Joseph Smith and the history of the Church?
- [56:56]
Michelle Baer
I remember one of my teachers, Richard Bennett, basically telling me, like, hey, I've read a lot. And the more I get into things, the more convinced I become that Joseph Smith was a sincere person. We've spent a lot of this discussion talking about imperfections, and we tend to kind of nowadays hone in on a person's imperfections. And we do that to try and prevent us from having too high expectations for our leaders. But sometimes I also wonder if we have too low expectations. Joseph Smith was sincere. I've read tons of documents on his life. When you were talking just now, I brought to mind a letter he wrote to Emma. Joseph Smith is stuck in Greenville, Indiana. He's having a hard time. It was a really tough time in his life. It was right after he and Emma had lost twins, and then they'd adopted twins, and one of those twins had died, and then he'd been tarred and feathered and a lot of rough stuff had happened. He wrote this letter to Emma. The church doesn't own this letter. It's in an archive, but you can find it on the Joseph Smith Papers site. He wrote, I've called to mind all the past moments of my life, and I am left to mourn and shed tears of sorrow for my folly in suffering the adversary of my soul to have so much power over me as he has in times past. So this is just a letter to his wife. This isn't a public epistle to the church. He's just very sincerely telling the woman who he's closest to that he feels awful about the things that he's done. But as the letter continues, he also writes this. He said, but God is merciful and has forgiven my sins. And I rejoice that he sendeth forth the comforter unto as many as believe and humble themselves before him. I will try to be contented with my lots, knowing that God is my friend. In him I shall find comfort. I've given my life into his hands. I'm prepared to go at his call, and I desire to be with Christ. That's a person that I can give the benefit of the doubt to. This wasn't a public sermon. It wasn't a public performance. It was a private letter written to his wife that was discovered way, way, way, way, way down the road. And it seems to present a picture of a person who genuinely went through what we went through. Everybody's fighting a hard battle, but also took comfort in knowing that the grace of God was there. Like a simple statement like, God is my friend. I've given my life into his hands. I desire to be with Christ. I'm willing to give Brother Joseph the benefit of the doubt and say that a person that writes a letter like that in the darkest moment of his life is striving and searching and trying to be sincere. But just like all of us, he had to rely on the merits, the mercy and the grace of Christ. He did. That's how he picked himself up and kept going in his day to day struggles. And I just hope that we can kind of do the same thing. So I'm judging Joseph by the records he left behind which testify that he was sincere but struggling, testify that he was an imperfect person that was called to do an extraordinary work and that testify that he found comfort and solace and hope in the mission of Christ in knowing that he had a savior. And I can identify a lot more with somebody like that than a perfect figure that never did anything wrong. We just need to do the work to make these restoration figures whole people and not just cardboard caricatures. When we say Joseph Smith was perfect, we're doing a disservice. When we say he was evil, we're doing a disservice. The truth is that everybody's more complicated than that. Let's see them as whole people and love them in that sense.
- [60:56]
John
Wonderful. John, section 20 again. We've studied it before, but it's new to me. I see it differently.
- [61:05]
Casey Griffiths
Me too. And usually I'm not totally inspired by the italics at the beginning, but look at the synopsis here. The Book of Mormon proves the divinity of the latter day work 1 16, 17, 28. The doctrines of creation, fall, atonement and baptism are affirmed and then it's laws governing repentance, justification, sanctification, baptism set forth. It's a great summary. You did a great job with that, Casey. Thank you. But that's a pretty inspiring synopsis, isn't it?
- [61:38]
John
Yeah. Casey, you just walked us through this in a way that not only now I understand the history of the church and its foundation, its bedrock constitution, but I also have. I've opened my heart to these good people who probably had no idea what they were in for, they were getting into.
- [61:58]
Michelle Baer
They didn't know what they were getting into, did they?
- [62:01]
John
Just beautiful. So, Casey, what are you and Scott doing over at Church History Matters, A sister podcast, we call it.
- [62:11]
Michelle Baer
You could call us your children, because I think I've said this before, but you guys gave us our microphones. So it would be me and Scott with a tin can and a string that runs to Rexburg. If it hadn't been for you guys. We're doing the same thing where this year we pivoted to go through the Doctrine and Covenants. Normally we explore topics in church history, but we felt like it would be a little strange if we ignored the most important historical documents, which are the revelations of Joseph Smith. So what we're doing is a little bit different than what you guys do. We do a lot of context. We do a lot of controversies. Those are the four Cs. We do the context, content, controversies, and consequences. And I would say you guys do such a wonderful job finding the salvational principles of the gospel. Scott and I like to dive into the minutia. One of our reviews on Apple podcasts said, hey, this is not just for nerds that might say. The audience that we catered to at first was basically history. Nerds that want to just talk to death everything about this document or this particular event or anything. But I will say, you guys and your producers, Dave and Lisa, are just so wonderful and have been so encouraging to us. And, I mean, the other day when we went up on the podcast charts and it was probably because Scott appeared on your show, it was your producer that texted us a picture saying, hey, great job, guys. I just can't thank you guys enough for being gracious and helping everybody up their game, do better and use this medium to help and reach a lot of people. Guys have just done really good stuff, and you should be very proud.
- [63:59]
John
Well, you are our friends. We want to send everybody over to church. History matters. It is really good.
- [64:05]
Casey Griffiths
Yes.
- [64:06]
John
You can tell you're having fun.
- [64:08]
Michelle Baer
Yeah, it is a blast. And, man, you and I got hired at the same time. Right, Hank? Seminary teachers. Can't believe you could do this for a living. I live a charmed life. That's all I can say.
- [64:19]
John
Right?
- [64:20]
Michelle Baer
So blessed.
- [64:21]
John
Come over to YouTube and leave a comment for Casey. We'll make sure he gets those. You can go to our website followhim. Co. Followhim. Co. There's a little place you could send us a message. We would love to pass those on to Casey. Wherever you are in the world, it's fun to show our guests how big their classroom is. Where you're listening from. From Springville to New Zealand, we want to hear from everybody. Want to thank Dr. Casey Griffiths for being with us today. We want to thank our executive producer, Shannon Sorensen, our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen, and every episode, we always remember our founder, Steve Sorensen. We hope you'll join us next week. We're going to continue in the Doctrine and Covenants on Follow him. Today's show notes and transcript are on our website, followhim. Co. That's followhim. Co. Of course, none of this could happen without our production team. David Perry, Lisa Spice, Jamie Nielsen, Will Stoughton. Crystal Roberts, Ariel Quadra, Amelia Kabwica and Annabel Sorenson. Whatever questions or problems you have, the answer is always found in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.
- [65:37]
Michelle Baer
Turn to him.
- [65:39]
Casey Griffiths
Follow him.