followHIM - Doctrine & Covenants 93 Part 1 : Dr. Casey Griffiths

Episode Date: August 21, 2021

Is our house in order? Don't get discouraged! Dr. Casey Griffiths returns and shares the Lord's rebuke of Joseph and others in Section 93, but as we pattern ourselves after the Savior and learn "grace to grace," as He did, we too will become like our Heavenly Parents. Shownotes: https://followhim.co/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FollowHimOfficialChannel"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com/products/let-zion-in-her-beauty-rise-pianoPlease rate and review the podcast.

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. Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Follow Him. My name is Hank Smith, your host. I am here with my graceful co-host, the wonderful John, by the way. Hello, John. That is one I've never been called before, Hank. John, I have known you for many years. You are full of grace. That's why I can call you graceful. Oh, yeah.

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followhim.co, followhim.co. And of course, rate and review the podcast. That really, that blesses our lives. We love to hear from you. John, we have another great mind from the church here with us. In fact, he's been with us before. Tell us to hear from you. John, we have another great mind from the church here with us. In fact, he's been with us before. Tell us who is here today. Yes, we have Casey Griffiths with us again. He did sections 14, 15, 16, and 17 with us before. We're really glad to have him back, and I will refresh our listeners' memories about Casey. He was born and raised in Delta, Utah. That's where Delta Airlines was actually founded. He served a mission in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, before returning home to complete a bachelor's degree in history.

At Brigham Young University, he later earned a master's in religious education and a PhD in educational leadership and foundations at BYU. His studies have focused on the development of religious education programs among the Latter-day Saints. And I want to remember to ask him a question about that in a second. Prior to joining the faculty at religious education at BYU, Brother Griffith served in seminaries and institutes for 11 years as a teacher and a curriculum writer. His research focuses on the history of religious education among Latter-day Saints, the history of the church in the Pacific, and diverse movements associated with the Restoration. He is married to Elizabeth Otley Griffiths, and they live in Saratoga Springs with their three adorable children.

And Casey, welcome, but I wanted to ask you, I've heard people say that kind of the School of the Prophets was like the first adult education program in the country. Does that sound right to you? Joseph Dorowski wrote an article on that. He's a historian up at the Church History Library. And he says, yeah, it was the first or among the earliest. The idea being you get your basic elementary education, then you go off and you're pretty much an adult after sixth grade. And the idea of adults requiring further education was somewhat novel for the time. So, that's an accurate statement.

Yeah, I know that when I used to work at Continuing Education, they always loved to talk about that, that we were basically started by Joseph Smith, you know? Casey, there's just really nobody who knows the history of church education like you do. If there is someone, I've never heard of them. So maybe before we get started, what have you seen there? What have you learned? If someone came up to you and said, hey, after a decade of studying the history of church education and being part of church education, what have you seen? What have you learned?

What have you loved? It's a very narrow field, first of all. So there's probably like about a dozen people out there that are interested in the history of religious education besides me. But I'll say, you know, the most gratifying moment of my entire time in the field of study, back in 2012, we were coming up on the centennial of seminaries and institutes. And the very first seminary teacher was a part-time guy named Thomas Yates, who was actually the engineer at the Murray Power Plant who volunteered to ride his horse from Murray down to Granite High and teach a seminary class in the afternoon. And we did not have a photograph of him.

And they tasked me. They basically said, hey, take a couple days, track down his family, find a photo. We want a photo to show at the Centennial. And I finally found his granddaughter, who was an older lady in her 70s. And she had a whole photo album of this teacher. And I got there and sat down and started talking to her. And she had had a rough couple of days. Her daughter had just passed away.

And she found out that she was going to have to raise her granddaughter. And I sat down and talked to her about her grandpa and how the very first seminary class actually had Howard McDonald, who was later president of BYU, in it, and a lady named Mildred Bennion. And Mildred Bennion marries a guy named Henry Eyring and is the mother of President Henry B. Eyring. And so, I just had the chance to sit down with her for 15 minutes and say, I know that your grandpa might have seemed like this really obscure teacher. He only taught for one year before they hired a full-time teacher. But he made a difference, not just in starting the seminary program, but in teaching the mother of a future prophet of the church. And we cried together for a few minutes. I was really deeply touched. And then I was able to tell her about the fireside where President Packer spoke, and her grandpa showed up right on the screen. They even made a little video depicting her grandpa with Dallin Bales playing Thomas Yates, who looks a lot like Thomas Yates, actually. So, it's little moments

like that. There's men and women out there that teach early morning seminary that just feel like, you know, why do I do this? Nobody cares. I don't get any recognition. And the reason why I've always loved studying the history of religious ed is to highlight those teachers that otherwise, you know, don't get recognition for the long hours and the sacrifice and the devotion they show to their students. And that's just one of about a billion stories I've come across over the years. That's beautiful. Yeah, I've met a few of those seminary teachers, especially 2020 that put them on Zoom or teaching seminary on Zoom. They thought their job was difficult before and then it got even more difficult.

So yeah, early morning seminary teachers, all those listening, we love you. They are the unsung heroes of the church. I'm so grateful for all of them. Casey, let's jump in. This week's lesson is a single section of the Doctrine and Covenants, section 93. So just the fact that it's that one lesson on one section can tell me at least a little bit that this is going to be something, there's a lot here. So why don't we let you take over. Take us back. The section is given, it says on May 6, 1833. So you can take us back as far as you want to make sure we understand what we need to understand before coming in. Okay.

Yeah, and you might have noticed that if Come Follow Me is just dealing with a single section, it's usually a really long section. Like section 88 is 143 verses, so it makes sense. Let's take a week and talk this. Section 93 is only 53 verses long. And yet what's in there is so profound that you have to stop every verse or two and kind of sit back and think about the philosophical implications of what's going on. And the other thing that's really curious about this section is we're coming in right after some sections that have really curious about this section is we're coming in right after some sections that have really important historical context, stuff like section 89 or section 90, where there's a lot going on and you've got to know the story.

Section 93 is a mystery to us. We have almost no context for why this revelation came into being. I've got a theory that I'll tell you about a little bit later on, but honestly, in the history of the church, Joseph Smith usually gives a big introduction to each section, at least a paragraph where he's saying, this is what is going on. And section 93, he just writes on the 6th of May, 1833, I received the following, and then dives into section 93. And if you've looked at it, you might have noticed that the opening of the section sounds a lot like the Gospel of John. So, one assumption people sometimes make is, well, he must have been translating the New Testament because this is during his

biblical translation and this is a revelation that came while he was translating the Gospel of John. But the notes that we have from Joseph Smith's scribes indicate that he finished translating the New Testament in February of 1833, several months before this was given. So, it wasn't part of the biblical translation or very, very unlikely that it was. In fact, the closest thing we've got to a context for this revelation, the earliest copy of it, which was recorded by Bishop Newell K. Whitney, that's Joseph's friend in Kirtland, on the back has a note written that says, Revelation given to Joseph, Sidney, that's Sidney Rigdon, Frederick G. Williams, and

Newell K. Whitney by chastisement, and also relative to the Father and the Son. That's what we know. The Lord himself gives us the best context for section 93, right in verse 19, where He says, I give unto you these sayings that you may understand and know how to worship and know what you worship, that you may come unto the Father in My name, and in due time receive of His fullness. So, the Savior's context is he wanted them to know how to worship and know what they worship. And that's why this section is such an important statement about the nature of Jesus Christ, first of all, and then secondly, the nature of God,

and then thirdly, the nature of men and women, the nature of God's daughters and sons of all of us, and what the connection is between the three. That's my guess on the context., the nature of God's daughters and sons of all of us, and what the connection is between the three. That's my guess on the context. At the end of the Revelation, so the Savior teaches all these amazing cosmic truths about his nature and man's nature and God's nature. And then the end of the Revelation is kind of a stern chastisement to each of them about their families. So, he basically goes down the row.

Sidney, Joseph, Newell, Frederick, you haven't looked after your family in your own house, and I'm chastising you for that. 1833 comes at the end of a long period of difficulty for the prophet, but for also people in the church. And we tend to look at it kind of like this. It starts out with March 1832, a year prior, where Joseph and Sidney get beat up and tarred and feathered at the Johnson Farm. They recover from that and immediately go to Missouri. They go on this trip to Missouri that's really stressful. They get back. They immediately go on another trip to New York.

And part of the backstory, at least for Joseph Smith, is what's happening to his family during all this. Most people know that when Joseph Smith was tarred and feathered at the Johnson Farm, they lose a child. They lose their adopted son, Joseph Murdoch Smith. Julia Murdoch survives and grows up and becomes the first Smith child to achieve adulthood. But while Joseph is dealing with this trauma of being tarred and feathered, what about Emma? And what's Emma doing when Joseph has to take off to Missouri? You find out that Emma was living a comfortable life at the Johnson farm, but she didn't have her own home. And when Joseph goes to Missouri, she gets sent to Kirtland to live with the Whitney family who have this aunt that's really cantankerous and doesn't want Emma or the Smith kids there. And she kind of kicks Emma out and she moves from place to place. She's a Frederick

G. Williams family for a little while. And there's a note in there where Joseph says something like, I came back from a long journey and I found Emma very sort of stressed, like she's been overwhelmed. And it's possible that at this point in time, Joseph Smith had been so involved in his church work, and so had Sidney and Frederick and Newell, that they'd been neglecting their families. And so, the Savior basically chastises them for neglecting their families, but after he teaches all these profound truths about where we come from. It's almost like the connection the Savior's trying to make is, I want you to know exactly what a child is, and what a family is, and what an

intense responsibility it is to be a father. And then he ties that back into the fatherhood of God and the role of Jesus Christ in shepherding us all through the plan of salvation. So, I think that's kind of the unwritten context here is that it's not just been a stressful year for Joseph Smith. It's been a stressful year for everybody's family. And this is the Savior reorienting them and saying, look, if you're not taking care of your family, it's that old David O. McKay quote, you know, no success can compensate for failure in the home. The Savior's trying to say it's important to translate the Bible and run the church and take care of this and this and this. But remember, even if you're the prophet, your most important responsibility is at home. Make sure those people

are okay. And I'm glad that never happens today, that people get so involved in their church work that they neglect their families. Man, can you imagine if that happened today? It's a serious temptation. I mean, wow. Because you feel like you're out there and you're doing good, but sometimes you forget that, you know, the greatest good you can do is with the people that Heavenly Father put in the same house as you. Yeah, that is. And I can't tell you how many friends and family, myself, have to, this is a pretty constant struggle. I tell my students, you know, when I was a kid, I had to choose between good and evil. When I'm an adult, I have to choose between good and good and really good and somewhat good. It's just all these good things you have to choose from and you have to choose where you're going to spend your time.

Yeah. Yeah. And when you're in your, you know, third hour meeting with the stake auditor or something like that, sometimes you have to ask yourself the question of, you know, I have limited time, where can I use that time to have the greatest impact? And you get to be a teacher, a bishop, stake president for a couple of years, but you're a father and a husband for eternity. And sometimes you have to make those priorities line up properly. I was really grateful because one of my stake presidents stood up in a high council meeting and said, hey, what's your top priority? And we were like, church. And he goes, no, church should be maybe a little bit

further down the list. Your family's your top priority. Take care of them. Yeah. And then take care of your church responsibilities. And hopefully they don't conflict with each other, but if they do, you know, do what matters most. I remember when my wife was young women's president and she had in our ward over 75 young women. And it was just our ward, right? I've seen stakes with that many young women. And it was just our ward, right? I've seen stakes with that many young women. And it was an, honestly, she could have given 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and it

wouldn't have been enough for all she was doing. And I, you know, I of course was very supportive, John. I was very supportive. Never, I took care of everything for her. Cause that's all I wanted her to do was, was serve. No, actually I complained a lot, uh, because she was, she was gone doing things, um, a lot. And so that's, uh, I'm glad you're bringing this up Casey, cause it's so relevant, uh, to our listeners, both men and women who are saying, how do I balance this? So maybe this section will help them. Well, I think that's part of the message. The idea, the pre-pandemic idea of home-centered, church-supported has been a huge blessing. I mean, for every parent to read this and to say, it's not the Young Women's Presidency's

job to teach my daughter. They want to, and they're going to help, and they're awesome, but it rests here at home. That would be a great message and kind of a cultural shift, you know, to get us all, I shouldn't say a cultural shift, but because it's always been that way. This is just a good reminder. It's been a great reminder. And for me, it was, I mean, my wife took me aside once and said, look, you spend hours and hours on your lessons to your students, and then you're asleep on the couch when we do come follow me at home. I kind of realized I needed to bring my A game to

my family too. Like I needed to get my act together and prepare a couple bullet points and not just be a passive learner, which I kind of was at home. I was Mr. Lead the Discussion in my university classes, but at home I was sort of just, you know, plopping open the scriptures and then falling asleep. Well, this is great. I was noticing, Casey, when you're talking about the background, this is like one of the few that has one line for the little synopsis. It's one sentence, Revelation given through Joseph Smith, the prophet at Cortland, Ohio, May 6th, 1833. And that is the entire backstory we're given here. And it is interesting to see, okay, it sounds like the book of John, but that's not it. So I love it that maybe

the Lord just said, you need this. There's so much here, though, that's so wonderful. Let's jump in. What would you like us to see here? Oh, well, here's the contrast setting up in this section. So the two questions I center my lessons around when I discuss this are just, how is the Savior not like us? And how is the Savior like us? The section starts out by explaining how he is not like us. And if you've just read section 88 and a few other revelations, you come to that conclusion. I mean,

the Savior emits the light that holds the universe together. I mean, section 88 literally says he is the light in the sun and the moon and the stars. And section 93 starts out with the same kind of thing. I am the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. I am in the Father, the Father in me, and the Father and I am one. But verse 3 is where you start to bridge the gap between Jesus is not like me and Jesus is kind of like me. The Father because he gave me of his fullness and the Son because I was in the world and made flesh my tabernacle and dwelt among the sons of men. So after all these revelations about how grand and majestic Jesus is, section 93 is Jesus kind of going, remember, I was once a person on earth too. I took on a tabernacle of flesh. a long way towards kind of humanizing Jesus, helping us see him not just as this majestic

figure that upholds the universe, but as someone that had problems, that sometimes struggled in his mortality, that needed help from Heavenly Father to accomplish what he had to do. That when we speak of Jesus being perfect, we have to qualify that a little bit, right? We don't think that Jesus was perfect in the sense that he never got tired or discouraged or even hungry or sleepy or anything like that. I mean, if you read the Gospels, he's taking a nap whenever he can get like a spare five minutes. But moral perfection is what we're going for here. Jesus never broke the commandments. But in any other way, Jesus is a relatable person that had conflict that he had to deal with and had discouraging things happen to him

and genuinely felt what it was to be immortal. Jesus is kind of stepping down off the throne of God as the first counselor of the universe and saying, yeah, remember, I was on earth. I was like you. I had a lot of things that I had to deal with. And in that sense, I'm relatable. Yeah, I'm excited about this. The first thing that's coming to mind, and maybe I'll bring this up later as this progresses, is the Nicene Creed basically begins with an argument about the nature of Jesus between Alexander and Arius. Arius believes he is someone who, you know, resisted real temptation and, you know, struggled and grew. And Alexander believes, no, he was always God and never had any of those struggles. And that eventually turns into that argument, turns into the Nicene Creed. So maybe section 93 could be an answer there between, you know,

Arianism and what became Christian orthodoxy. It does answer one of those big philosophical questions, which was, how could Jesus be fully divine and fully human at the same time? Section 93 is basically arguing he started out human and became divine again. But our idea of what divine is also is heavily influenced by section 93, because after Jesus explains what he is, he explains what a human being is. And you find out that the whole point of the section to know how to worship and know what you worship is to really not necessarily just teach us about

Jesus, but to teach about ourselves and what our potential is. Like, if you go back to verse one, this is the most comprehensive verse in all of Scripture anywhere, right? I mean, if you had to boil the gospel down to one verse, verse 1 says, Verily thus saith the Lord, it shall come to pass that every soul that forsaketh his sins, and cometh unto me, and calleth on my name, and obeyeth my voice, and keepeth my commandments, shall see my face, and steps that you forsake your sins, come unto Christ, call upon his name, obey his voice, and keep the commandments. And you get to see his voice and fully know what he is. And to know Jesus is to know eternal life. I mean, that's probably the best one-verse summary of the gospel that you can find in any of the four standard works. And it's Jesus just basically saying, look what I'm asking you to do. Isn't that complex? It's basically these five

things. And then the next thing is, and I'm going to show you how I did it. Let's go into the record of John and talk a little bit about what it says about my life. Yeah, that is a comprehensive verse. I was looking at a website that I hope our listeners have discovered, which is called scriptures.byu.edu, where they take any verse from the Standard Works and tell you when it's been talked about in general conference from, would it be Quorum of the Twelve on up? Or is it also Members of the Seventy, I think? Now it's Members of the Seventy since the Restoration. And it was interesting to see in 93 how often verse one was quoted, because that is to start out that way. It's pretty

big time. This is how you can see my face and know that I am. So it was a lot on that one and a few others that I'll mention as we go through. That's the elevator pitch of the gospel, right? I remember back when I was in grad school, they said you needed to be able to summarize your thesis in an elevator ride. If you can't summarize it down to 30 seconds. Well, section 93 verse 1 is the elevator version of the gospel. You could get on an elevator and read that verse to somebody, and they would fundamentally know the essence of why we believe in Jesus Christ and why we follow him and what the promises that you have if you do follow him. That's one I can get my boys to memorize then, right?

Yeah. I can say, let's go through this and have it ready to go at any time. I'm seeing a lot of the gospel of John. Just as it starts in verse 2, talking about he being the light, and then you go to verse 8, he's the word. That's all. And I think it almost quotes John the Baptist in the Gospel of John, chapter 1, I'm okay with that, where they tell the Savior that John is still testifying of him, even though he's in prison. This is in Matthew 11, 11. And Jesus says, among them that are born of women, there hath not risen greater than John the Baptist. I mean, it's Jesus ranking all the prophets and saying, hey, there's me and then there's

John the Baptist. But you kind of look in the New Testament record, John baptizes Jesus and is the forerunner. But why is he ranked so high? It seems like section 93 is saying he's ranked so high because the role of a prophet is to testify of Jesus Christ. And the ultimate testator, the person who baptized him and then first saw of his full glory, saw what he really was, was John. And so, like I said, that's a theory, but it's backed up by some people that I think know their

stuff. This could turn out to be the record of John the Beloved, but I think it's kind of neat to think that this might be what you would have heard if you were hearing a sermon preached by John the Baptist. And John the Baptist is the person that gathers all those important disciples, John, Peter, Andrew, that go on to become apostles a little bit later on. Of them that are born of women. I think that's everyone. A big group, yeah. Yeah, of them that are born of women, there's none greater than John the Baptist. If you ever read the Bible Dictionary section on John the Baptist, you can tell how Robert Matthews, who had great influence on the Bible Dictionary, pretty much wrote it, how he felt about him. He called him the greatest Aaronic priesthood holder in all history.

He said he was one of the few prophets to operate in all dispensations. There is a love there of John the Baptist in the Bible dictionary. And there's a nice kind of harmony to think that we've got the greatest holder of the Aaronic priesthood here bearing testimony of the greatest holder of the Melchizedek priesthood. We're going to learn in just a few sections that the Melchizedek priesthood itself is really just the holy priesthood after the order of the Son of God in section 107 of the Doctrine and Covenants. So, there's a nice little bit of connection between those two. How far does John's record go into this? Basically up to about verse 19, where the

Savior takes the wheel and says, I'm telling you this for this reason. But because most of the stuff that you're seeing here is found in the gospel of John, it's kind of when you get to around verse 12, that what the record of John has to contribute really helps us understand about Jesus Christ. So, take a look at this. This is where we get into the whole, how could Jesus be fully human and fully divine argument? Because John says this, I, John, this is verse 12, saw that he received not of the fullness at first, but he received grace for grace. And he received not of the fullness at first, but continued from grace to grace until he received the fullness. And thus he was called the son of God because he received out of the fullness at first. See, it seems like what John is arguing

here is we sometimes have this image of Jesus coming to earth and being perfect from the get-go. Not just perfect morally, but perfect in knowledge, perfect in stature, perfect in wisdom, all those things that Jesus just arrives on earth fully formed as Jesus. And John is saying, no, he had to receive all those things back. It's a way of saying Jesus didn't really come to earth with any special privileges. He didn't get the veil lifted. He didn't come to earth with a full knowledge of the plan of salvation, that when he was in the manger, he's just as innocent, and I guess you would say blank, as any baby is, that he did exactly what we've been asked to do, which is come to earth and gain back all the knowledge that we had in premortality. That Jesus basically went through the whole plan, no exceptions made for who he was and what he was going to do.

Why do you think that's important for the Savior to tell these saints and us? I can see some important things there. I want to ask you what you see. Well, I think it's important because it humanizes him, right? When I was a missionary, we used to stay up late talking about, you know, church history and scriptural figures. And I remember at one point a missionary saying to me, like, I can relate to Peter and I can relate to Joseph Smith, but I have a hard time relating to Jesus because Peter messed up all the time.

And Joseph Smith messed up all the time and I mess up all the time. And so Smith messed up all the time, and I mess up all the time, and so I can connect with them. But we place Jesus on such a high pedestal that sometimes he becomes this almost unrelatable figure. Like, well, I'll never be that good, so I'm more discouraged than inspired. John here is saying, no, he came to earth and he had to get everything back, grace for grace. That the idea that when Jesus was born, he had all knowledge. In fact, this is the thing that kind of gets me. Okay, so it's Christmas time. And one of the Christmas hymns we sing is, The cattle are lowing, the poor baby wakes, but little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.

In other words, Jesus was such a good baby that the night he was born, he did not cry. And you're looking at that and going, are we sure we want to commit to that idea? Because first of all, it's not a sin if a baby cries, as far as I know, and being born is a semi-traumatic experience from what I understand. Was he ready in that manger to stand up and deliver the servant on the mount? John is saying, no, he came to earth and gave up everything that he had. We're talking about the person who's literally Jehovah in the Old Testament, and he comes to earth and is a child, a child like any child that we have, like we were, like every single person does. There's a passage where Paul addresses this in Philippians. Let me read this. This is in Philippians chapter 2, verses 5 and 8. He says, Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God,

thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in the fashion of man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. Like Paul and John right here are arguing that the Savior went from being the most powerful being in the universe behind God himself to being an ordinary infant in a manger somewhere. And that, like I said, should allow us to approach Jesus a little bit more carefully. Like we still accept fully, he never sinned. The scriptures are

clear on that. But did he have all knowledge? I mean, there's a point where the disciples basically say, tell us the time of the second coming, and the Savior says, I don't know. He says, nobody knows except the Father which is in heaven. That seems to indicate that Jesus had a lot of knowledge, but he didn't know everything. And at a certain point, even he is operating on faith. I mean, that allows us to connect with him a little bit. It's okay for us to say that Jesus got discouraged. It's okay for us to say that Jesus struggled with stuff, that he had interpersonal conflicts with his disciples, with his family. He never sinned. But being sinless doesn't

get you out of all the complexity and trouble that still exists in this life. You know what this reminds me of as you're talking, Casey, is that wonderful verse in Alma 7, 11, and 12 that says, he'll take upon him our infirmities and our sicknesses, and then He will know according to the flesh how to succor us. According to the flesh, it says it twice, and I've always just thought, yeah, He'll be here in a body and He'll know. And rather than saying to us, therefore, don't complain, it's more of a, see, He knows what, He knows, He can relate to what we're going through.

We can, He knows that because he was here in a body and then that wonderful line that he may know how to sucker his people. And as we've talked about, I think sucker in 1828, Webster's dictionary was literally to run to, to come to aid in time of need. And so I like that thought of, none of us can say, well, you don't know what it was like. Actually, well, actually I was there and I had sicknesses and infirmities or whatever those verses say. I've always wondered, did he have sicknesses? Or it sounds like he did. I'm wondering if we say that to Jesus, you don't know what it was like.

And he's saying, hey, I was born in 0 BC when I didn't have indoor plumbing like you did. Okay. When I didn't have modern medicine, I dealt with all this stuff. And Jesus as a mortal is really the big theme of this section. And like I said, for me, it fills in an important gap, because when you read the New Testament, it is frustrating that it basically jumps from Jesus as a baby to Jesus being 12, and then he's there as a fully formed adult. Now, that story when he's 12 and that little mention that the Gospels make that Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in

favor with God and men is great. But to me, the underlying principle is he's getting back who he was. It's not just that he's perfect from the get-go, he's rediscovering what it means to be himself and gaining back the knowledge that he lost. Elder McConkie speculates that during this time, Jesus is taught by angels and he has to go through his seminary and Sunday school classes just like the rest of us. But those classes aren't a learning of new things. They're a rediscovering of things that we already knew and a recognition of what our potential really is.

I like that a lot. Me too. As I've studied the New Testament, I've thought, was there a moment where Mary and Joseph were reading scripture or something, and Jesus says, keep talking about a Messiah. Who's that? Right? And Mary, Joseph kind of looks at Mary like, why don't you go ahead and tell him? Right? Yeah. Or that moment when Jesus goes back to Nazareth and he has to finally tell them who he is. And

they're like, seriously? You know, the carpenter's son? And they list off his brothers and sisters too and basically say, the brother of, you know, so-and-so, you're the Messiah. Well, greatness grows up around us, grace for grace. Nobody arrives on earth as President Nielsen or President Hinckley or Abraham Lincoln. They have to rediscover grace for grace. And grace means gift, gift by gift. Heavenly Father gives you back the person that you were in premortality as you qualify and become him. So, that first verse where he says you have to do these things is Jesus saying, this is my life personified. This is what I did. I'm not asking you to do anything except what I did myself. He doesn't mention the atonement and the infinite

suffering here because we don't have to do that. He's talking about just the day-to-day, make it through life and try every single moment to be a good person, do the right thing. He's saying, I did that. Don't just focus on those hours of the end of my life, focus on my entire life. That's the atonement. And also, there's an amount of patience that's needed when it says grace for grace. I mean, sometimes I would like the process to go a little faster personally in my life. Let's speed this up because I seem i would like the process to go a little faster personally in my life uh let's speed this up because i seem to be making the same mistakes over and over yeah um do you also think uh i i've read this in verse 15 that john says we heard the voice after the baptism

this is my beloved son and it's not just a testimony to John. It's a testimony to Jesus of who he is, that he has this powerful spiritual experience where he finds out even, you know, yet another revelation to him on who he is. So he can move forward with his ministry with that knowledge, with that experience. I love anything that elevates that moment in importance, because you'll note how much the gospel writers, and not just the gospel writers, but the Book of Mormon writers, kind of fixated on the baptism of Jesus as a point where we connect with each other. Like if you read 2 Nephi 31, this is also the argument that Nephi makes. Nephi says, Jesus had to do everything that we have to do, And then what's the thing that he points towards? He's going to get baptized. You guys have to get baptized. So, don't think of Jesus as this being that's miles and miles above you that you can't ever reach out to or that won't have empathy for you because everything is just so perfect for him. Think of Jesus as someone who's done

exactly what you have to do and made it. A couple of years ago, my wife and I went down to this canyon in southern Utah. Spooky Gulch is what it's called. And I like to go on these adventures. Spooky Gulch narrows down to like 10 inches across. And we're going through it. And my wife was just like, we are going to die. We're going to die here. And our children are going to be left orphans.

And the thought that kind of stuck in the back of my mind was, no, we're not. Hundreds of people do this every year. And only a couple of them die. That wasn't exactly comforting to my wife, but the idea that I had seen people coming out of the gulch earlier in the day and they survived was enough for me to go, let's just keep going. Maybe we can make it through this. Jesus is basically picking all of us up off the ground here and saying, look, I did this. I know how hard it is. I know that it's not fun to learn grace for grace, that it would be wonderful to just have an infusion of everything you need to know to be divine and exalted.

But really, there's no easy path to becoming exalted, that you have to learn. You're not going to be a very empathetic leader unless you have been down in the trenches and experienced what it's like to just be ordinary. And in some ways, that's what the message is, the section 93 is. Jesus was extraordinary, yeah, but he was also ordinary in the most important ways. Wow. It says in verse 16 and 17 that after his baptism, he started to receive, you know, the fullness of the glory of the Father. He just chose it. He just chooses it a little bit faster maybe than us. But it's the same choices that we can make to receive all that the Father has available to us in our lives today. Do you read it that way? Pete I read it that way too, and that's another choice as well. Jesus chooses to be ordinary. He gives up everything extraordinary that makes him Jehovah. But then when he achieves full maturity at that time of his baptism, he has to choose to be extraordinary again. He has to choose to be a leader. Sometimes that's a really difficult choice

too, right? There are times when you just want to be the guy that sits in the back of the pews and is there and is supportive, but is not really doing anything too extraordinary. And you have to make the choice to engage. I mean, you wonder if at a certain point Jesus was thinking, this Messiahship is a big burden and to take on all power and all glory and to be the example, and to literally take the choice to submit to everybody's sins. Another reason why I love the Doctrine and Covenants is that it gives us section 19, which is that moment where Jesus says, it was enough when I was confronting the atonement

that I shrank, that I didn't know if I wanted to do it or not, but I did it. I went forth and I did it, and I overcame those things. Sometimes the choice to be great, I guess, is a difficult thing too. You have to choose to engage with the world rather than just kind of sitting back and letting it pass you by. So I appreciate that too, the choice to be ordinary and then the choice to be extraordinary, again, are two things that are highlighted in the Savior's journey here that are really profound. I keep thinking how section 93 would have helped the council of Nicaea. There's this moment in

the council that Arius is saying that Jesus was truly tempted, that he could have submitted to temptation, and he did not. That offended one of the bishops there named Saint Nicholas, who eventually becomes Santa Claus, that he attacks Arius in the council. He actually goes down to the floor and attacks Arius for saying that Jesus was tempted, right? Because he says, no, that Jesus was never tempted because he was God. So you can see this back and forth. How can he be both, how can he offer exaltation, but yet experience humanity? And section 93 seems to answer that question, which they struggled with for six weeks and never really got the right answer.

Even with all the councils that came after that, they were trying to find the right answer. And here's Jesus himself saying, yeah, yeah, I can be both human and divine. Yeah. The question of how can Jesus be fully human and fully divine? section 93 basically just says, no, here's the answer. He was fully human. He came to earth and lost everything and then gained it back grace from grace and became fully divine. He was both.

And like we said, there's days when we need Jesus to be fully divine, when we need to know that he has all power and that he is in control of the universe, that he's steering the car, we're going to be fully divine, when we need to know that he has all power, and that he is in control of the universe, that he's steering the car, we're going to be okay. And then there's days when we need to know that Jesus was fully human also, where we need to know that he's not just this distant figure that watches over the universe, but someone that's been down in the mud and the muck and experienced the complexity that comes from life. I mean, we need both those things to really have faith in him fully. Well, as you've been talking, I keep thinking of the phrase, well, a couple of things. First of all, I'm thinking of how heavily Greek philosophy had influenced, you're talking about the Council of Nicaea, and that was the intellectual, that was what truth was of the day.

And so they're trying to square the scriptures with Greek philosophy and they're making compromises and so forth. But I was also thinking just how the phrase, he descended below all things, is kind of a good way to put everything you've been talking about, Casey. And that's helpful because we can't tell him you don't know how hard it was. No, he knows and more because he descended below all things. That helps us to know, like you said, that he is relatable. He's been here. He was in a body. He was as in always tempted as we are yet without sin. And that's helpful. Yeah. To me, it's helpful. You know, there are days when, you know, I'm struggling. I'm really having a hard time. And to know that Jesus went through these things and went through, like you said, John, He descended below all things. Isn't that the most helpful phrase in the Doctrine

and Covenants? The Savior doesn't say, I'm going to give you magical power to overcome your problems. I'm going to solve everything for you. He just says, I know what it's like. And sometimes that's all you need to hear from somebody is just, hey, I know what you're going through. They don't offer any solution to your problem. They're just offering you empathy. Pete I like to call that same boat therapy. And to know if you're going through a trial, part of the blessing of that trial is that you will come in contact with others who are going through it and you'll be able to say, oh my goodness, I've been there. And for some reason, like you say, there's just something wonderful about somebody who can tell you, we went through that, or I've been through that. And to feel like

somebody knows what you're feeling is, I don't know why that works so well, but that same boat therapy is really powerful. We have, my son has autism and he's remarkable in a lot of ways. But when he was little, he was really violent, you know, so violent that we would go to church and I literally had to go to primary and like hold him on my lap and he would just scratch and claw and throw his head back and headbutt me. And it got to a point to where I talked to my wife and said, you know what? I'm not getting anything out of church. Why don't we just rotate? I'll go to church one week and you can stay home with Josh and you go to church one week and I'll stay home with Josh. My wife said, no, we're not going to

do that. He can't throw a fit and get out of church. We're there. There was this other family in the world that had a kid with autism. And one day when I was in primary and it was especially trying, she took me aside and she said, you know, sugar, you're going to be okay. When he turns eight, he's going to get baptized and get the Holy Ghost. He had this deep Southern accent, and he's going to be just fine. He's just going to sweeten right up. And I was like, okay. That literally happened. Like, he got baptized, he got the Holy Ghost, and he sweetened right up. But in that moment, just to have somebody who said, I've been where you were, and I've gone through what you've gone through, what you're going through, and you're going to

get past this, meant so much to me. Kept me going for a couple years until things did get better. And the Savior's doing that here, right? He's saying, I did this, you guys. You guys can do this. In fact, when you get to verse 19, that's the point. He says, I told you this stuff, everything prior to this, everything that's in that gospel of John or record of John or whatever you want to call it, that you may understand and

know how to worship and know what you worship. For me, the first part that's most important is just to know what Jesus actually was. What he was was a human being that became divine. And now he's going to flip the script and start to examine us. He's basically said, here's my backstory. Now let me tell you your future story. Let me tell you what your destination is based on what you know about me. It's really brilliant in the way it's structured. Pete Yeah, I love that verse 20, you shall receive grace for grace. Pete Yeah, if you keep my commandments, you shall receive of this

fullness and be glorified. You're going to do exactly what I did. You're going to make it, buddy, is basically what he's saying here. And I say unto you, you shall receive grace for grace. Going backwards just a little bit, I had somebody, it was in my father-in-law's neighborhood, somebody who was a brand new bishop. You know, he's like, any advice? And I said, you know, he was talking to his former bishop and I am a former bishop. And I said, what we're doing right here is one of the best things I ever did. I called a couple of friends and we went to lunch and the same boat therapy coming from, I'm a bishop.

How are you doing this? How are you doing? How are you taking care you doing this? How are you taking care of your marriage? How are you taking care of your family? Do you have this happen? I mean, we laughed and we empathized and it was just really good. And I just felt so buoyed up by that. And boy, your story, I think there's a lot of folks out there dealing with a child with autism or whatever that will just go, wow, Casey's real too. And they're dealing with this. And somebody came along and said, hey, know how you feel. And it helped. I remember all the bishops in our stake used to get together for Bishop's Welfare Council, which is where you're supposed to talk about welfare council. You're

supposed to talk about welfare, but it turns into a big group therapy session where everybody's like, oh my gosh, I've got a person in my ward. They never mention names, I'll say that. Oh, sure. But I'm dealing with this person that's struggling with this. What would you guys do? And I can't tell you. I mean, that was the one meeting that as a bishop, I didn't want to leave.

Like, you're always looking at the clock like, oh my gosh, I've been meetings all day. But when we met together with the other bishops and we had a chance to kind of empathize and say, yeah, yeah, I understand where you're coming from. And like I said, we didn't always come up with solutions, but just the fact to know that you're not alone in what you're dealing with can be really, really powerful powerful it can be really therapeutic to use your word john um i had a friend who tragically uh backed over his uh with his car his younger daughter and she ended up passing away and later uh they would uh he and his wife would, would see that it happened again on the news. You know, every year it's, there's someone that, that this happens to. And, um, after they would, they would do that, they would, um, after they would read about that, they would, or hear about

it, they would contact the person and see if they wanted to go out to dinner with them. Um, they, some people took them up on it. Some people didn't. Um, and, uh, and when you asked him why, you know, why they did this, um, he said, there's something in you that when you suffer through something that excruciating and you see someone else going through it, you, you automatically want to go reach out to them and share. He said, you just almost can't hold yourself back from running to them and, and, and sharing, um, you know, just telling them that you've been there and that you, you can, you know, you can take their hand and help them through it. And I think that's maybe what we're talking about here. And that reminds me of Alma 7, John, that you already brought up, that he may know how to run to his people according to their infirmities. It's almost, he wanted it to be an automatic human

reaction in him to suffer these things so he can go and help someone else. And I, you're making me a little emotional here because I know that guy too. You and I were both brand new seminary teachers when our friend lost his daughter. And my daughter was two weeks old. And when I heard about him, I was so devastated. I went home and just held my baby in my arms and thought about what it would be like to have her snatched away. If you've experienced something, sometimes, yeah, it empowers you to go out and help other people.

I grew up in this really small town, and I knew this girl in high school whose twin brother committed suicide. And it was tough because our town was real small. Our high school was a couple hundred people, and everybody knew her brother. And it was really because our town was, you know, real small. Our high school is a couple hundred people and everybody knew her brother. And it was really tough for her. But I worked at the store with her. That's how small the town was, by the way. There was just the store.

And this lady came in who had just lost a baby to SIDS. And I saw this young lady who'd lost her brother go straight over to her, not say a word, just put her arms around her and hug her and hold her there for about five minutes while they both cried because they both lost somebody. And that's the essence of the Savior, right? He's basically saying, I could empathize with you because I've experienced everything. I've been below all things. Don't think of me on a pedestal. Think of me as someone that's had a shared traumatic experience with you and then knows exactly what you're going through. And in essence, that's my power. That's the power that I have to get you through the next day and then the next day and the next day so that you can overcome. You can do this, basically. That's good stuff. and then the next day and the next day so that you can, you can overcome, uh, you can,

you can do this basically. Um, that's good stuff, right? That's important stuff. That's why we worship him. Please join us for part two of this podcast.