followHIM - Doctrine & Covenants 23-26 : Dr. Lisa Tait Part I

Episode Date: March 5, 2021

Discover why Samuel Smith is as stalwart as William Smith is reticent with our guest Dr. Lisa Olsen Tait. Hank, John, and Dr. Tait introduce us to the first three branches of the Church and these early Saints’ efforts to carry their crosses, learn the will of the Lord, and begin to weary and wear out their lives in service. They examine the concept of common consent and the rights of women and voting in the early Church.Show notes available at www.followhim.co

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 like our podcast to go and rate it, review it. 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. John, we have another expert here with us today. Tell us who is joining us. Oh, we're so happy today to have Dr. Lisa Olson-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've 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 Young 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 becomes highly recommended by one of our former guests,

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. It was Steve saying that, so you'll have to gauge what level of fun you think that means. Right, what fun means. That's funny. This week, we are looking at sections 23 through 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. Joseph is receiving instruction here for five men. And we've heard of most of these names before. We have Oliver Cowdery, who we've talked about. Hiram Smith, who we talked about with section, what was that? Section 11. Joseph Smith Sr., the prophet's father. We looked at him in section four. Joseph Knight Sr., as a lot of our guests have said, 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,, and how did he felt about the work? Samuel Smith is Joseph's younger brother. He's just younger than Joseph. 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 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 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 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 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, they're going to have a really key role to play. I think they all know that. They've been aware of Joseph's experiences, at least some of them. And so Samuel is poised to play a role here. exhortation to strengthen the church, which the church is just barely coming into being at this point. But thou art not yet called to preach before the world. And that will change. And by early in 1831, Samuel's going to travel to Kirtland, just shortly behind Oliver Cowdery, Parley Pratt, the first missionaries that stop and introduce the gospel in Kirtland, and Samuel follows them shortly thereafter. And for these, especially these 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 he's going to have a 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. It had some implications. Yeah. Yeah. So I think members of the church are going to be, you know, somewhat acquainted with Joseph and Hiram. But I hope that one of hope that one of my hopes in the podcast was that Samuel will become more important to people. He's going to die about the same time as Joseph and Hiram. What? Six weeks after them, or maybe a little bit longer, two months after them, right?

Yeah. I know at least traditionally, his was ascribed possibly to injuries that he suffered in writing all night and the stress of informing the community about the death of his brothers. And so, you know, whatever the case was, he doesn't outlive Joseph and Hiram. And so we don't know, you know, his story doesn't continue in the church history after that. Yeah. And that's just, yeah, I just, I hope, I told my daughter's best friend, her name is Holland. And as I told this story, she said, he deserves a statue at Carthage jail. I want him to have a statue there. So I told her that 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.

I was wondering, did he ever marry Samuel? He did. He marries Mary Bailey. They have four kids. Oh, another thing 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 verse 3. Am I reading that right? Yeah. Thy tongue is loosed, the Lord says to Hiram. Isn't 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 strength in the church continually. I love that. It's like green light, Hiram. Hiram's been waiting, waiting, waiting. Now's time.

I also had another question about in verse 6, it speaks of Joseph Knight Sr. Well, what's interesting here for me is that 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 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 revelation challenges him to do that. And I mean, I think it's interesting 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 do what He would have us do and grow into what He can have us become. Now, in Joseph Knight's recollection, he mentions, and this would be a couple of months

later after this revelation is received, he observes some baptisms. And I think these are the ones we'll talk about here shortly where Emma is baptized, and it's in a stream that's dammed up on his property in Colesville. He says that 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 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 just a lovely little 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 going to 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 can, 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 focus was not on what he had seen, but what on others could see if they went to God themselves.

And 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 a 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 April of 1830. And as Lisa said, June of 1830, he went ahead and submitted to baptism.

Yeah. Yeah. That's fantastic. I just think I felt a little bit of envy as I'm reading this going, Oliver, again, boy, how many do you get? How many sections of the Doctrine and Coven, again, boy, how many do you get? How many sections of the Doctrine and Covenants would we each love to have, you know, unless they're too condemnatory or whatever. But here, 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 message at some of

those. Maybe I'm oversimplifying, but I kind of like that. Oliver, you're doing fine uh message at some of those maybe i'm oversimplifying but i kind of like that oliver you're doing great uh hyrum you're doing great and a little bit of encouragement perhaps yeah well and uh 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 the Lord tells Oliver that he's an elder to the church. He's the first preacher of this church. So again, the Lord is saying, take this calling and run with it, Oliver. You're good to go. Yeah. 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 underway. Let's get started. I remember me with my little children. It was a lot of encouragement, right? A lot of let's get, let's try new things. Let's get going here. And I really like what you said with Joseph Knight, Lisa, do what is difficult. Well, I shouldn't say I like it. I feel it. I feel it because there's

a lot of times and 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. 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, you're going to have to do some difficult things here, right? Take up your cross. Yeah. And unite yourself with the true church. And I think sometimes maybe, 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 new experiences. 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's a good word for it. I feel like I had it in me and all that sort of thing. And so I appreciate reading about these and the Lord's not telling him, I'm going to remove your trials and make this easy. As Lisa said, it's more like take up your cross. Here we go. Wow. Here we go. In July of 1830, Joseph and Emma are back 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 dammed 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 dam and they were not able to do the baptisms that day, so they had to dam 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, a 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 the church is just minding their own business doing, you know, doing what they think they they need to. And somehow other people come in and disrupt it. And yet it's Joseph Smith, who's the disorderly person. You're the disorderly person. Yeah. But so he's hauled off, he's taken to court. It's an 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 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 confirmation meeting at the time.

And so Joseph and Emma return back to Harmony, Pennsylvania, where their farm is. And then these revelations, 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 very beginnings are not, it's not smooth sailing here for these little branches. The Lord does say in verse three, you've got basically three little branches of the church, right? You've got Colesville, which is down by Harmony. You've got Fayette, which is where the Whitmers are, and Manchester, where the Smith farm is.

Right. So you've got your three tiny little branches of the church, and they're already 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 work of the adversary. He's going to crush this thing, going to attempt to crush it before it even can grow some legs. Nip it in the bud. Yeah. Yeah, I think when we have that same feeling, like this doesn't make sense,

it's like, yeah, then this must really be something. Right. I mean, I feel like you do. Here's a testimony of it. Why would it be opposed if somebody 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 it's caused me a lot of reflection why this little obscure boy that I was would call forth such opposition from these important people. And why did they even take notice of me? That's going to be the story all the way along. 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 Joseph 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 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, just a couple of believers getting together, you know, to have a baptism. Yeah. On our own property. I love, I've always loved that line. I think Sherry do even gave a talk about

being annoyers and disturbers that kind of thing really got the attention of the adversary apparently even though to us it doesn't make sense you're looking at it like why would you care some of the teenagers listening would probably agree that they have little brothers and sisters that are disturbers and annoyers. What are some of the things that we, some of the things that are remarkable, some of the things that you put red pencil under or whatever in 24 and 26?

I mean, for me, one of them 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 thee 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, I mean, I think that's the Lord's way of dealing with us. He'll lift us up out of our afflictions and he'll reprove us at times with sharpness when that's what we need to hear. This also shows Joseph's sincerity. Like, hear this this also shows joseph's sincerity like well the lord said it it's going in the book uh if it was me i'd say let's start at verse three can we edit that part that was just for me that was meant just for me not for everybody else everybody to read about my transgressions. But he's sincere. 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 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, when rebukes are handed out, he's just as likely as anyone to receive one along with everybody else. It is really interesting. Yeah. I look at verse 8. How would you like to have verse eight said to you?

Be patient in afflictions for thou shalt have many. Yeah. It's probably feeling like I've already had many. Thank you very much. Could we change that to thou shalt have a few? Yeah. Or you have had many already. So again, it's July. Joseph Smith is a farmer. It's a farming economy. And 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 sowing your fields. And it's because he's been building up the church.

It's because he's been fulfilling his calling and doing 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 sow 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 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 thee by the Comforter, expounding all scriptures unto the church. One thing to know about especially these early revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants is that when they say scriptures, they mean the Bible for the most part. In this culture, the scriptures were the Bible. 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 study the Bible and do the translation of it that becomes the JST. But this verse 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

shall have strength. And then verse 9, in temporal labors 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. The Smith family was a hardworking, independent family. 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 going to be 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 put your efforts into, not in the temporal labors. I remember John used to say this as bishop. He would say, my time is not my own. And I think Joseph could probably say that 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 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 you're not going to be a farmer really a lot anymore, brother. You, you're, you're going to 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 spouse think when you are told that by the Lord? What? We're going to have to rely on others all of our lives? And how does that make Emma feel? I love that she gets some instruction from the Lord coming up here because I just wondered how that would make her feel. No, you're not going to be any good at that. Well, I'm overstating it, but that's not where your focus is. section 24 and 25 go together because section 24 sets up the circumstances that the revelation to 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 talks about how several times when Joseph was translating the Book of Mormon, Joseph Knight came to visit him or the Smiths went to visit him.

But anyway, Joseph Knight came to see that Joseph waserel, some taters, as he says, potatoes. You know, I mean, like he's, Joseph literally has gotten already through the translation of Book of Mormon because of the support of Joseph Knight. And that has been a demonstration of this dynamic that this revelation is talking about. The church is going to support thee. He's going to have to learn to accept that. 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 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 workman 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 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, uh, a little bit about our future general authorities that there, 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 the way it's going to work. Yeah. And Hank, you were remarking about my time as a bishop, and I was just thinking, well, compared to what some people do, when do you get released if you're in the quorum of the 12? Right. I can tell you in my job, I have opportunity to work with some of our leading brethren, and they truly do consecrate their lives. It's been amazing to me as I've interacted 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, 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, a couple of 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, and the same thing with President Monson. He was wiggling his ears, right? And then by the end, you remember 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 this service. So section 24 has become just over this, you know, just in the cut, this discussion is 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 abiding real testimony, you know, to give your whole life to that until the day you die. It's amazing. Yeah. Well, and in Joseph's case, you know, not only are you, you know,

you're never going to get rich, 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. I do want to mention one thing from DNC 24 really quick. And that is, there's a reference, I think to Jacob five in verse 19 for thou art called to prune my vineyard with a mighty pruning. Even this last time and do as you have ordained. And if you go to Jacob five,

there's a great moment where in Jacob five, 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 five, verse, um, 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 and Covenants 24, 19, a mighty pruning, yea, 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, these few servants of the Lord turn the entire vineyard around and it starts to produce precious fruit. And 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 going to do, right? These church, they've got to be thinking, us? What are we going to do? These three little towns of the church right now, what are we going to do? And the Lord's kind of can see, this is going to change the world. That's a good, that footnote is right there. It's footnote 19a to Jacob 5. So I hope people will mark that and go there. One of the things when I teach Jacob 5, I love to have my students count how many times 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 that phrase in verse 19, I'm going to prune my vineyard. Pruning is not the same as I'm going to trim it and make it look a little nicer. Pruning is I'm going to take off the bad vines and keep the good ones. Pruning can be a painful process. I'm glad you brought that. That was very agrarian, Hank.

Yeah. What you just brought up there. We're learning these bigger words that our experts use. We had to warn Dr. Tate, try not to use multi-syllable words on Jonathan. Don't use your PhD language. He even calls it a mighty pruning. 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. But the language of vineyard and pruning, that's biblical language. Yeah. 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 living the Bible. They're living out what's in the Bible. And there's another example of that here in section 24 in verse 14. I mean, the Lord has talked about requiring not miracles, 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 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 I think in Jacob, and 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 Isaiah 5 or 2 Nephi 15.

It's like Isaiah's only parable. I had a vineyard and a very fruitful hill, and I did everything, and it brought forth – what does Terry Ball call it? He uses the Hebrew, like'er O'Sheme. And it doesn't mean wild grapes. It means worthless, stinking things. It's funny. 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 prove the vineyard. Yeah. And Matthew chapter 10. I mean, there's take no script, neither stay, two coats. This is all Matthew chapter 10 language.

Right. And 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 gospels about instructions given to the 12. If you read Wilford Woodruff's missionary journal about wading through the swampy streams in the southern United States, I think there probably were some snakes 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 looking at this through and that they're interpreting their experiences through. I think it's really important to understand that. And 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 are biblical on page 43 there about these instructions. Thank you for saying that, Lisa. Yeah, and 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. That's right. Leaving and the miracle where the ice parts. Right. We'll talk about this later. But the endowment of power. These are biblical people. Yep.

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 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 you 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. 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 that means for the church moving forward? Yeah, this principle of common consent in the church is very interesting that it's here from the very beginning. 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 ways of governing a church or of legitimating the decisions and the actions of a church is by what's called common consent. And it goes along with the early American experience, right? 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 influence the direction 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 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 early America. And the whole podcast is excellent. So I'm going to 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 European heritage, right? Yeah, especially from the older, what we would call high church tradition that's very much dependent on ordained ministers and educated clergy and so forth. As I say, there is a context for it in the early United States where this idea of common consent wasn't original to Joseph Smith and to the church. But it definitely aligns them with that 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, one of the women that I do a lot of study on, 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 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 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 conferences and so forth. And so certainly by the Nauvoo period into the middle of the 19th century, This does give women at least a vote or it does give women the opportunity to make their support known and to vote on church matters in some capacity. Wow. Wow, that's absolutely fascinating.

And we can see that this is still important to us. 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 steak 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 to say.

And I think that's evolved over time. It's been understood and taken different forms over the time. If you go back into the 19th century records, you will find examples of people voting against, of it being more of a vote 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 our covenants to support the Lord and support the church and its leaders. And so the question as we raise our hands in common consent now is, will I support this? It's more of a personal commitment than being an absolute vote. But it is still, should we call it a pressure

relief mechanism within the church where there is the opportunity to let it be known if you know something that maybe the bishop doesn't know, or you have concerns, there is this mechanism for making that known. I really like this. I like to compare it to when Paul says that the church is a body and that the body needs every piece. 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. I just, I was a little bit of a stickler when I was bishop for the wording that doing this isn't sustaining. Doing this is signifying that you will sustain future tents throughout their calling 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 raise of the hand. I liked the language and I liked that it was

a future commitment. Please join us for part two of this podcast.