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The vision of Enoch in Moses 7 bridges the gap between ancient scripture and modern discipleship. We can absolutely see ourselves in it.

On the one hand, it’s a text of great scholarly interest. Go read Jeff Bradshaw’s paper. It’s very long, very dense and very scholarly. Moses 7 expands the kind of sparse biblical account of Enoch into this big sweeping narrative.

And on the other hand, it’s a profoundly practical guide for Latter-day Saints seeking to live faithfully in the present, not in some future idealized world on the actual street that you live on.

The dual significance makes Moses 7 a cornerstone for both intellectual exploration and spiritual transformation. Those two are not pitted against each other, right? Those are the same thing.

Ultimately, Moses 7 matters because it shows that scholarship and discipleship are not separate pursuits.

Understanding the text’s historical or theological depth, it enriches our faith so that we are able to live our lives based on its principles.

Welcome back to FAIR’s Come, Follow Me old testament year.

I am Jennifer Roach Lees and today we are talking about one of the most beautiful pieces of scripture, Moses 7. We’re going to look at both some scholarly insights into this passage as well as some of the practical applications.

This passage is one of the most expansive and theologically rich chapters in the Pearl of Great Price – or honestly, in any scripture.

In this vision, the prophet Enoch is transformed from this hesitant kind of slow-of-speech figure into a seer who beholds the entire cosmic drama of God’s dealings with humans.

And for Latter-day Saints, this chapter is remarkable for its doctrinal contributions such as:

It also has a lot of practical relevance in our modern day discipleship.

One of the most interesting things to me in this chapter is that Zion is not supposed to be just this distant hope or this past thing that Enoch got to experience. It’s supposed to be a lived reality, a community of unity and holiness that invites believers to come and to grow.

Now, it is not always that. And most of us do not live in a Zion-like experience all of the time. But it’s what we’re striving for, right? And I think that part is fascinating.

We will look at this chapter for its scholarly significance as a text and its devotional power as kind of a guide for:

By looking at Enoch’s transformation and God’s compassion, the translation of Zion, we can see how and why this vision is still so important to us today.

Ultimately, this chapter matters because it calls us to participate in God’s work of gathering, healing, and sanctifying. A work that isn’t about like the distant heavens, but about the ordinary choices that you and I make every single day.

So, first we’ll talk a little bit about the history here and the scriptural context. The account of Enoch in Moses 7 occupies this very distinctive place within Latter-day Saints scripture.

Enoch is mentioned in the Bible, but really only briefly. It’s in Genesis 5.

He’s someone who walked with God and then was translated –  taken out of this world – but there is no story beyond that. There’s no narrative given.

So, by contrast, Joseph Smith reveals Enoch’s story as this big, sweeping vision of cosmic scale. He gives us actually 110 verses across Moses 6 and 7 about Enoch’s story compared to less than a handful of verses in the Old Testament. 

This expansion really situates Enoch not as just a righteous patriarch, but as a prophet who establishes Zion, right? So, slightly different than some of the other Old Testament patriarchs that we see.

And Enoch beholds the destiny of the earth. As grand as that sounds, that’s what happens with him. 

For Latter-day Saints, what’s happening here is that restoring this scripture underscores the restoration’s claim to recover lost truths. 

Now, scholars have long noted the parallels between Moses 7 and the Jewish apocryphal writings. 

The Apocrypha is a collection of pre-new testament works. Somewhere between when the Old Testament ends and when the New Testament begins, we get these writings from Jewish people and we call them the Apocrypha.

Many of them are collected into this translation they call the Septuagint, which is a Greek translation of the Old Testament. We call those the official Apocrypha. And there are also other apocryphal books outside of that, that are not in this defined collection. But we refer to all of these as apocryphal writings.

There’s a lot in common between Moses 7 and some of these writings. It is pretty fascinating. There are actually connections in other ancient books beyond the accepted Apocrypha.

And one of those books is called the Book of Giants. We’ll get to that one in a minute.

First, let me tell you about one that is in the Apocrypha. It’s called the book of Enoch. Enoch is a visionary.

Joseph Smith may or may not have been able to read the Apocrypha. It’s connected to the Catholic Bible still to this day. It’s printed in their Bible. Perhaps he was able to read that.

The thematic overlap is certainly there with the book of Enoch and with other ancient traditions.  Most striking here is a depiction of a God who weeps over human suffering.

You see that in the book of Enoch and the Apocrypha. It’s very central to Latter-day Saint theology – this divine compassion. We don’t see that in a lot of other places.

The Book of Giants, another very interesting connection. This is the one that gets me.

Jeffrey Bradshaw has a paper called , Moses 6–7 and the Book of Giants: Remarkable Witnesses of Enoch’s Ministry. You can find it on the BYU website. You can download it for free.

It’s also on The Interpreter Foundation’s website. It’s a very long, dense paper. But it is absolutely worth the struggle to get through. If this intrigues you at all, I absolutely recommend you go download his paper.

It’s really, really good.

Here’s the gist of it though. (And Jeff, forgive me for the simplification of your work here, but…) 

Bradshaw makes connections between Moses 7 and a book that had long been lost to history called The Book of Giants.

This book, the Book of Giants, was found again when they found the Dead Sea Scrolls. So, it existed, disappeared. We didn’t know of any copies of it. We didn’t know of its existence.

It pops back up along with the Dead Sea Scrolls. There’s a lot of things in those scrolls. The Book of Giants is one of them. 

Why is this interesting?

Well, because if the worry is ‘Joseph Smith made up the book of Moses on his own,’ then it’s very hard to explain the similar names and phrases and themes that are found when talking about Enoch in the Book of Moses, and talking about Enoch in The Book of Giants.

There are a lot of similarities.

The Book of Giants was not available to Joseph Smith. It had not yet been rediscovered. And yet today you can go online actually and read the text of The Book of Giants if you want to. You can put that right next to Moses 6 and 7.

And it’s not a copy by any means, but: 

How did Joseph do that except for by the power of God?

That’s one of my favorite little academic tidbits about all of this.

Historically, the Enoch material in Moses 7 really shaped early Latter-day Saint identity.

The vision of Zion taken into heaven inspired Joseph and his followers to pursue creation of Zion communities in Missouri and beyond.

The idea that a people could be so unified and righteous that they would be gathered into God’s presence gave them this really big blueprint for communal living. But also, it gave them some very practical ‘here is how that’s going to have to work out’ steps.

So Moses 7 is not only this expansion, but it’s also a foundational text for the church’s early social and religious aspirations.

The historical and scriptural context of Moses 7 reveals its double significance. It connects us to this great vision and it kind of gives us a framework for how to live today. 

We’re going to move into the next section. I want to talk about some of the themes in Moses 7. It unfolds around several interwoven themes and we’re just going to cover a few of them here.

Actually –

All of these, especially when looked at together, offer a framework for understanding how ancient scripture speaks to modern-day discipleship.

And we’re going to look at each one of those closely so you can see what I mean.

First, Enoch’s own personal transformation.

The narrative begins with Enoch as this reluctant prophet. He’s described as slow of speech.

And yet through God’s empowerment, he becomes a mighty seer whose words cause mountains to flee and rivers to change course.

The transformation underscores this great restoration principle, which is: God magnifies the weak to accomplish his purposes.

And for Latter-day Saints, Enoch’s journey is a reminder that discipleship does not require innate brilliance or eloquence, but just willingness to act in faith. We all are standing on equal ground.

In daily life, this theme encourages believers to trust that God can strengthen them:

Sometimes though, people maybe inside or outside of the church try to pit this idea (that God magnifies the weak to accomplish his purposes).

They try to pit that against the idea that it’s good to study and to learn as much as you can about the scriptures, and that intelligence is good. They want to pit these two against each other as if studying for guidance and praying for guidance were opposites.

But they’re not.

Study for its own sake probably doesn’t help very much. But when a scholar works to study all they can, that can be a form of prayer – as well as information that feeds back into how the spirit can speak to that person.

 are not opposites.Those two things work together.

So when we say, “Enoch was this simple man. God magnified his weakness and made him great.”

We’re not saying, “Oh, study is bad. You just have to wait for God to miraculously zap this into you.”

It just isn’t that way. There’s no division between scholar and disciple when both parts have the same goal. Those are not two separate things.

So, that’s a little bit on Enoch’s own development.

Theme number two, the vision of Zion.

Perhaps the most defining feature of Moses 7 is its portrayal of Zion, a people united in righteousness, dwelling in safety, and enjoying the presence of the Lord. Sounds pretty good.

And at different times in history, Latter-day Saints have seen Zion as a specific place to gather to, and at other times, we’ve seen it as a theological ideal of covenant community.

Let me give you probably the best example I can think of. If you’ve read the Saints books that the church put out a couple years ago, you see this illustrated really nicely.

The first volume, it’s all about the establishment of the church, right?

The second volume is about the Utah period, establishing Zion here, and the struggles that people went through to get to that goal.

But you get to the third book and the church is beginning to build temples around the world. The writers of that book do a fascinating thing at the end of the third book.

I actually kind of had my jaw open when I read the end of this one and realized what they were doing: the narrative significance of this move. It’s pretty brilliant.

Spoiler alert! If you haven’t read it yet, I’m about to tell you how the book ends.

The book follows the stories of a lot of people, but it follows one couple who are living in East Berlin, Max and Erica Zimmer. The Berlin Wall has been constructed, but somehow the Zimmers have received permission to leave Berlin and go to the Switzerland Temple.

And while they’re there in Switzerland, they have a legitimate chance to defect to the west and be free. They’re living in East Berlin. The wall is up. They’re behind the Berlin wall. They don’t have freedom here. They find themselves in Switzerland. And they could run. (I’ve got to admit, if it was me, I would run.)

But they don’t. Instead, they decide to go back to East Berlin. Why? To build Zion there.

I wouldn’t make the same choice. Maybe you wouldn’t have either, to be honest. But their story illustrates how the historical changes in the church, how we see Zion, how those have played out. 

For this couple, the Zimmers, Zion wasn’t about, “oh, you must go to Utah to get to experience this.” It was “No, we’re going to build Zion exactly where we are.”

This becomes both a theological concept for them and a place that they can inhabit without having to uproot their lives to the other side of the world. It becomes both a real physical place that exists as well as a theological concept.

For modern saints, Zion is both this future hope and present task.

We’re building our homes and our wards and our communities where hopefully love and holiness prevail. And it’s hard, right? It just is. If you spend any amount of time – even with your own family – things are hard. Yet it is the work of building Zion.

There isn’t a place we can go. There isn’t a neighborhood you can move into where Zion’s already established and if you found it your presence there would ruin it and it wouldn’t be Zion anymore, right?

We’re all like learning and growing our own development to bring this together as both concept and place.

Third theme, the compassion of God.

One of the most striking passages in Moses 7 depicts God weeping or suffering on behalf of his children. You might not realize this if you’ve kind of grown up in our church and don’t know very much about the theology of other churches. But this image seriously challenges traditional notions about God and if he has emotions at all and if he’s impacted by us.

Sometimes they call it divine impassibility or the idea that God does not feel human emotions and certainly is not swayed by them. That’s the standard non-Latter-day Saint belief. “God doesn’t have passions” is how they would say it.

As silly as it might sound to you to think of God as being kind of cold and distant like that, that’s how he is viewed outside of our church for the most part.

However, interestingly enough, in the last 20 years or so, that conversation has started to change even for Catholics and Protestants.

The theologian Jurgen Moltman was incredibly prolific. He actually died last year. One of the most prolific theologians of the last 50 years. He really started to push the conversation to say, “No, no, we’ve been wrong about this idea that God doesn’t have emotions. We should start reconsidering that.” And because of his status and who he was as a theologian, people listened to him.

And you will find today in some corners of the non-LDS Christian world people who believe, “Oh yeah, of course God has emotions. Of course God is moved by us.” But that’s a new development for them. That has not always been the case.

I think it’s delightful that at least some of them are starting to move toward that.

For us as Latter-day Saints, this idea that God feels for us and feels because of us offers profound comfort. God is not distant from human pain, but He shares in it.

Our daily discipleship involves seeing others through God’s compassionate eyes, right? Allowing them to move us just like we can move God. That we might suffer for other people just like God suffers for us.

As we work to alleviate suffering, we are doing the work of God the same things that he does for us. We are acting as his children to our brothers and sisters.

Fourth theme: the translation of Zion.

Finally, Moses 7 describes the City of Zion being taken up into heaven. We call that translation, and it’s actually a really common theme in apocryphal writings.

Earlier I was telling you there’s a set of writings we call the Apocrypha. There are lots of other books beyond that, that we would just call “apocryphal writings”.

This is a really common theme: someone or something being taken from the earth and translated. They don’t die. They are just taken up to be with God. However, it’s usually just an individual that’s translated, not a whole city.

If you’re listening, I would love to hear if you know of any spots in apocryphal literature where a whole city is taken up and translated in that way. I don’t know of any. It’s usually just a single individual.

For Latter-day Saints, I think part of the message here is: we are redeemed together. All of humanity. All of us together, not just individuals.

We who are living, we care about the redemption of our dead. Because if there’s no redemption for them, there’s no redemption for us either. We are all bound together. If something is going to get saved, it’s not us just as isolated individuals. It’s us in the great chain of sealing all being sealed into the same system.

The fact that the whole city is taken up together, not just one holy individual, to me that really symbolizes the redemption of the entire world, of humanity together.

I think that’s really beautiful.

A few practical applications for daily life.

Moses 7 offers profound theological insights and its enduring power lives and how it shapes our daily lives. So, it’s not just this big thing. It’s a small, little-step thing too.

Enoch’s vision of Zion is not simply this historical curiosity, a thing that used to exist. Or a future promise, something that will someday exist again. It’s a living invitation for us, for Latter-day Saints, for Christians everywhere to embody divine principles in their personal, family and community lives.

Your own personal version of Zion.

Enoch’s transformation from hesitant speaker to mighty prophet illustrates that God magnifies ordinary individuals. For modern saints, this means that discipleship begins with small, faithful acts.

Right? Building Zion personally involves:

These are all the little micro-building blocks of Zion. Zion isn’t something that’s going to happen to us, or that God is going to zap into us. It’s something we’re going to build with tiny little building blocks just like those.

We also have our families. 

But a family that’s striving to be like Zion is one where each member believes that no matter what happens, 

Being a Zion family is not about being perfect.

Just like Heavenly Father has compassion on ours, he weeps for us. And sometimes, as sad and hard as it is, sometimes we weep for our other family members while not rejecting them, while still wanting to be there to support them to the degree that we can.

This model of Zion doesn’t require a family to live in some kind of false perfection. It allows lots of room for struggle because we can model the compassion that Heavenly Father has for us.

And then finally, a global Zion. Moses 7 expands Zion’s vision to encompass the entire world. God’s weeping over all of humanity calls believers to see all people as children of God. For Latter-day Saints, this means engaging in peacemaking, justice, compassion in and outside of the church. Right?

Daily discipleship may involve 

In this way, Zion becomes not just a local community as if you happen to just move into a really great ward, right? Or you happen to be born in a really great family. No! This is all of us together, the entire human race, learning to do this with each other. It’s a global ethic.

Moses 7 matters because it transforms this lofty vision of all eternity and redemption into really practical calls to action by building Zion personally. All those little, small building blocks within your family. How we treat each other with compassion and in our worldwide community. We are  building Zion.

Latter-day Saints participate in this same divine work that Enoch and his people participated in. This chapter’s relevance lies not in some distant history, but in the choices that saints are making every single day to embody unity and compassion and holiness.

The vision of Enoch in Moses 7 bridges the gap between ancient scripture and modern discipleship. We can absolutely see ourselves in it. On the one hand, it’s a text of great scholarly interest. (Go read Jeff Bradshaw’s paper. It’s very long, dense and scholarly)

Moses 7 expands the sparse biblical account of Enoch into a big, sweeping narrative.

And on the other hand, it’s a profoundly practical guide for Latter-day Saints seeking to live faithfully in the present – not in some future idealized world – on the actual street that you live on.

The dual significance makes Moses 7 a cornerstone for both intellectual exploration and spiritual transformation. Those two are not pitted against each other, right? Those are the same thing. Ultimately, Moses 7 matters because it shows that scholarship and discipleship are not separate pursuits.

Understanding the text’s historical or theological depth, it enriches our faith so that we are able to live our lives based on its principles. In Enoch’s vision, we find this beautifully woven together, a reminder that building Zion is the work of both mind and heart.

Thank you for joining us today in this conversation. Come back next week! We’re going to look at the last chapter in the book of Moses, chapter 8, as well as Genesis 6-11.

We’ll see you then.

Jennifer Roach Lees holds a Master in Divinity as well as a Masters in Counseling Psychology. She is a licensed mental health therapist and lives in Utah.

The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Moses 7 – Jennifer Roach Lees appeared first on FAIR.

by Autumn Dickson

Christ is the center figure in history. He was the promised Messiah who saved and changed the world. He brings light into the world. He created the world.

But a long time ago, He was just a baby that was born in a small town to a couple who had just begun their life together. Despite all that it cost them, they welcomed Christ into this world.

This week is Christmas, and as such, we focus on Christ. I would also like to draw our attention to those who welcomed Him into the world. I want to talk about Mary and Joseph who welcomed Him into their family and watched over Him when He was vulnerable. Maybe we can learn what it truly means to invite Christ into our lives.

Inviting Christ into their home was not easy. Right from the beginning, the couple faced difficulty and potential ridicule. Mary could have been in a lot of danger for being pregnant without being married, and Joseph, her betrothed, was likely very confused when she came to tell him about what was happening.

Instead of being able to rest and bring him into the world at home, Mary and Joseph travelled to Bethlehem. It was a small town six miles away from Jerusalem, and it was packed because people had travelled there as part of the census.

He was potentially born in a stable, and most people know that story. Other biblical scholars suggest that the birth story may have played out differently. From a different translation, it is possible that Christ was born amongst the animals on the first floor of a family home that Mary and Joseph were staying at. Regardless, it wasn’t a comfortable birth, and I can’t imagine that she was comfortable while travelling right before giving birth.

I had the tremendously unique experience of going to Bethlehem and Jerusalem while pregnant. I testify that it’s not comfortable, and I had a car and an air-conditioned room to sleep in.

Shortly after the birth, Mary and Joseph had to flee to Egypt to protect their Son. Instead of going home, they spent anywhere from several months to two years in Egypt amongst people who were very different from the Jews. They were separated from family and friends with very little ability to communicate with them. Joseph wasn’t practicing his work where he had been previously, and Mary was on her own as a first time mother in an unprecedented situation of raising the Son of God.

The Bible gives us very little after that. There were the wise men. Christ grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. Christ turns water to wine for Mary at a wedding. Somewhere along the line, Mary lost Joseph despite Christ’s power.

And then, of course, Mary also had to lose her Son. We don’t know how much she knew about what was happening on that cross. She had pondered in her heart, and the angel had warned her that her heart would be pierced with sorrow as a result of bringing Christ into the world, but did she understand what was going on? Or, like the apostles, was she confused at what happened? Did she feel dreadfully alone with Joseph gone and now her oldest Son as well?

When we speak of inviting Christ into our lives, we often speak of rejoicing and peace and miracles. These are very real factors that Mary and Joseph both experienced as part of having the Messiah be born into their home. I have found immense amounts of joy since I have accepted Christ as my Savior and leaned into His promises. They are real and true.

There is also difficulty that comes with inviting Christ into our lives. There was very real difficulty that came into the life of Mary and Joseph as a direct result of welcoming Christ into their home. There will be difficulty in your life that comes as a direct result of inviting Christ into your heart and home. It will be different from the kind of difficulty experienced by Mary and Joseph, but it will be difficult nonetheless.

It can be difficult to invite Christ into your home when it brings uncertainty, rocks the boat, or brings potential whispers and judgment. It can be difficult when we’re asked to jump into the dark and trust when we’re called to go somewhere, and we don’t know how it will work out. It can be difficult when the responsibilities we’ve been given take us away from our families. It can be difficult when the powerful God that you love doesn’t give you a miracle to save your family member. It can feel lonely and even devastating.

There comes a point where you get to decide if it’s worth inviting Him in.

If an angel appeared to you and warned you about the sorrow that would pierce your heart as a result of inviting Christ into your life, how would you respond?

He follows us into our darkest moments. Will we follow Him when things get dark? Will we follow Him when the bread stops? Will we follow Him when we don’t feel that gigantic hug from behind when we’re praying and asking for help? Will we follow Him when we have to face our own cross? Will we resent Him if He doesn’t answer how we want Him to answer us? Will we curse His name when He takes away instead of giving?

Would we invite Him into our hearts and homes again, knowing what we know?

Why would you invite Him in again?

I love to testify of how Christ shows up for us. I want to take this moment to testify of a grand opportunity to show up and give our loyalty to Him no matter where He chooses to take us. It can be difficult to follow Christ when it feels like He asks too much. It can be difficult to follow Christ when He requires not just our obedience and time, but our whole souls.

I testify that He is worth our loyalty. He has earned our undying loyalty, and we will never truly be let down if we’re willing to give it to Him. I testify that offering our whole souls, just as He offered His own, is liberating and beautiful. He will never let us down even when we have to follow Him through difficulty and darkness. We can hold to Him and His promises.

Autumn Dickson was born and raised in a small town in Texas. She served a mission in the Indianapolis Indiana mission. She studied elementary education but has found a particular passion in teaching the gospel. Her desire for her content is to inspire people to feel confident, peaceful, and joyful about their relationship with Jesus Christ and to allow that relationship to touch every aspect of their lives. Autumn was the recipient of FAIR’s 2024 John Taylor Defender of the Faith Award.

The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Christmas – Part 1 – Autumn Dickson appeared first on FAIR.

by Autumn Dickson

In the past, I have shied away from talking about the Official Declarations, not because I don’t believe what’s in them, but because I feel that there are an immense number of people who can speak on those subjects with more knowledge, wisdom, and personal experience than I can. That being said, I do my best to simply share what the Lord wants me to share, and if I get some of the details wrong, the principles that I teach are true and I figure the Lord forgives me and is proud of me for making the attempt.

This week, we read about polygamy and race and the priesthood. For many, these are not easy topics. This post is not to try and convince anyone that the Church is true. Rather, I hope that this post can comfort those who still believe that this church holds the fullness of the gospel but simultaneously feel pain when reading these declarations.

As I was studying for this post, I came across a talk that we’ll discuss more about later, but I wanted to start with this quote from President Eyring’s April 2009 General Conference address titled “Adversity.” President Eyring is speaking of trials and difficulty when he says, “The anger comes at least in part from a feeling that what is happening is unfair…When they vanish, a feeling of injustice can come.”

I think some people can relate to these feelings of unfairness and injustice when speaking about the declarations. If you’ve received a testimony of the gospel and you know the Lord has led you here, sometimes this makes it more painful, not less. Instead of being able to say, “God would never allow something so unfair,” you find yourself with the feeling of, “God you’re telling me to come here, but this was so unfair. Don’t you love me? How could you do this if you really love me?”

Though you may be feeling these questions in a very specific context, these questions are not new or unique. You are not the only one to ask them. As part of our mortal experience, each of us reaches some experience where we ask those same questions. Is God truly fair? Does He really love us? Why does He allow such suffering? I have answered those questions many times in the past, but today, I don’t want to answer those questions. Rather, I want to share something that the Spirit whispered to me recently.

This is not an Article of Faith or excerpt from the Official Declarations, but I hope it soothes some of what people may feel when they struggle with the declarations. I want to share something from The Book of Mormon; Alma is speaking to the people of Gideon about the Savior.

Alma 7:11-12

11 And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.

12 And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.

We read these verses at church this past week, and I had a thought occur to me. Perhaps I’m rather late in noticing this nuance, but that’s okay. It struck me rather hard.

Christ suffered for our sins. He paid for them. He died and was resurrected. This enabled us to return to live with our Heavenly Father. It saved us.

But Christ also suffered for our infirmities. I always knew that this particular suffering happened with the atonement. He suffered for our pains and sicknesses just like He suffered for our sins, but that’s two different ideas; isn’t it?

Did Christ have to suffer for our infirmities as part of the atonement? Was that absolutely necessary in order to help us return to live with God? Or did He just do it because He loves us and wants to be there for us? Did He really need to do that? Or did He simply want to? Could He have skipped that whole bit altogether and just brought us home at the end of the mortal experience? After looking into these questions a bit more, I found the talk from President Eyring that I referenced earlier.

President Eyring’s ideas are based on this phrase in the same chapter of Alma.

Alma 7:13

Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh…

In response to the passage in Alma 7, President Eyring teaches, “He could have known how to succor us simply by revelation, but He chose to learn by His own personal experience.”

He chose to suffer with you. He could have said, “Hey I know it feels unfair and unjust. I know it hurts, but we have to do this. Suffering, even unfairness, is so important to the plan, so important for your well-being and growth and glory. You need this. I’m sorry it’s unfair, but you have to go through this.” And He does say those things (not in so many words, but He says it).

And despite the fact that He already paid for your sins and despite all that it cost Him, He also says this, “I know exactly how you feel. Exactly how you feel. I have felt it too. I am here.”

There are reasons for unfairness. There are ways to turn these painful moments into powerhouse experiences that glorify you. There are answers.

But beyond that, there is an ultimate unfairness that was entered into voluntarily because of a deep love. Christ could have received revelation about how to comfort you. He had already paid the ultimate price, but that wasn’t enough for Him. He wanted to take the journey with you. He wanted to feel it personally and walk with you, and when necessary, carry you. He wanted to. Because He loves you.

He will make it up to you. He will one day answer all of your questions, but until then, rejoice that you are so beloved.

I testify that Christ loves us. He loves us enough to pay the ultimate price for us to come down here, grow, and return home despite our mistakes. But beyond that, He loves us enough to go through what we go through in order to succor us through the entire experience. He is the very definition of above and beyond and it is because of how much He loves you, how much joy He draws from being your greatest Friend.

Autumn Dickson was born and raised in a small town in Texas. She served a mission in the Indianapolis Indiana mission. She studied elementary education but has found a particular passion in teaching the gospel. Her desire for her content is to inspire people to feel confident, peaceful, and joyful about their relationship with Jesus Christ and to allow that relationship to touch every aspect of their lives. Autumn was the recipient of FAIR’s 2024 John Taylor Defender of the Faith Award.

The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR – The Articles of Faith and Official Declarations 1 and 2 – Part 1 – Autumn Dickson appeared first on FAIR.

by Autumn Dickson

Thomas B. Marsh was frustrated with Joseph Smith for calling two of the apostles on missions without consulting him. He received a revelation that helped him repent and gave him spiritual counsel. Within the counsel he receives, there are two phrases that are found next to each other which take on profound meaning when you observe them together.

Doctrine and Covenants 112:13 And after their temptations, and much tribulation, behold, I, the Lord, will feel after them, and if they harden not their hearts, and stiffen not their necks against me, they shall be converted, and I will heal them.

The Lord is talking to Marsh about the apostles. The Lord told Marsh to correct them and be an example to them before sharing this verse where He promises to reach out to them. The phrases that are interesting when placed together are, “…they shall be converted, and I will heal them.”

There are a couple of definitions of the word convert that are relevant. The first one is, “change in form, character, or function.” The second definition is to, “change one’s religious faith or other beliefs.” Let’s talk about both definitions and how they lead to healing. I’m actually going to talk about the second definition first.

To change one’s religious faith or other beliefs. This is an interesting one. We’re obviously not talking about converting to a different religion, but even within our own church, we need to be evolving our own beliefs as we learn more about the gospel. Let me give an example. It’s a long one, but sharing all of the details helps me teach the principle.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve actually had multiple friends come to me with marital problems and I shared a piece of advice that I had received. Love your spouse when you don’t feel loved. Interestingly enough, this is good advice no matter what kind of marriage you find yourself in. Even more interestingly, this is good advice for any relationship you’re in.

I can imagine that this might cause some outrage, especially for people who have escaped abusive relationships, but let me explain further.

God loves us infinitely more than anyone else. His love leads Him to act mercifully, to make sacrifices on our behalf, to continually turn towards us even when we’ve rejected Him. God’s love has also led Him to reject us, to put up boundaries, to separate us from Himself and others.

Love is a feeling, not a specific action.

When I originally shared this advice with my friends, some of them struggled with it. They felt that they had already sacrificed enough, and they weren’t seeing enough sacrifice on the part of their spouses. AND THIS IS PRECISELY WHAT I’M TRYING TO TEACH.

They struggled with the advice because they had inaccurate ideas of what love means and what it looks like. When I explained to them that my definition of love was a feeling that could lead to several different appropriate actions, that softened the blow a bit.

When we talk about converting in relation to the gospel, we’re talking about changing aspects of our faith and beliefs. I’m not talking about getting baptized in a different church; I’m talking about true, internal change within our hearts as we receive new perspectives and interpretations of doctrine. The more we convert, the more we heal. Let’s look at our example of love again.

I also gave this piece of advice to a friend whose significant other broke up with them in a hurtful way. I told my friend to love her, truly love her enough that you wanted what was best for her. I told him that if he wanted to heal from getting hurt in this manner, his best strategy was to love her. Love didn’t mean following her around. He had to change his belief of what love was and looked like, and if he chose to allow a more accurate definition of love to take hold in his heart, he was going to find healing.

As we convert closer and closer to the gospel, we are going to naturally find healing. Even as members of Christ’s church on the earth, we still have some inaccurate ideas surrounding gospel principles that we’re going to weed out as we grow older.

When we learn that forgiveness can look like complete mercy and letting go of past grievances as well as loving someone from a healthy distance, we can find healing.

When we learn that serving can bring about resentment if we’re not throwing our heart into the mix, we can soften our own hearts and find healing.

When we learn that humility doesn’t mean squashing ourselves and the spiritual gifts we’ve been given, we start to step into our divine destinies, and we find healing.

There are so many different aspects of faith that need to evolve as we learn more about the gospel. Following gospel principles inaccurately can make things more difficult, but if we convert our faith as we learn a more accurate perspective on these same principles, we will find the healing that Christ has talked about.

The first definition that I mentioned was to “change in form, character, or function.” I’m not going to elaborate too much on this because it’s simply another way of saying what has already been said. We change. Not only do we change our functions (i.e. the outward actions of the gospel), but we change in character. If you can utilize the actions to actually change your character, you find the salvation that Christ promised.

I testify that following Christ accurately is what brings about the true blessings of the gospel. I testify that we do need to convert as we learn more and more and more about what Christ meant when He gave certain commandments. I also testify that when we allow our faith to convert and transform, we will find the healing that He promised us.

Autumn Dickson was born and raised in a small town in Texas. She served a mission in the Indianapolis Indiana mission. She studied elementary education but has found a particular passion in teaching the gospel. Her desire for her content is to inspire people to feel confident, peaceful, and joyful about their relationship with Jesus Christ and to allow that relationship to touch every aspect of their lives. Autumn was the recipient of FAIR’s 2024 John Taylor Defender of the Faith Award.

The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Doctrine and Covenants 111–114 – Part 1 – Autumn Dickson appeared first on FAIR.

In this episode, Ryan welcomes Jeffrey Thayne for an insightful discussion on worldviews and their profound influence on discipleship and beliefs. They explore the role of psychology in both conversion and deconversion, the powerful impact of media on our perspectives and psychological intuitions, and the fascinating dynamics of fast vs. slow thinking. Tune in for a thought-provoking conversation on the intersection of cognitive psychology and the gospel.

Dr. Jeffrey Thayne graduated from BYU with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in psychology. He completed his doctorate in Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences at Utah State University. He spends time mentoring students at Brigham Young University-Idaho and writing about the intersection of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and culture.

Ryan Sorensen is a native of Cache Valley, Utah. He earned his Bachelor’s degree at BYU-Idaho and is currently pursuing a Master of Divinity at Abilene Christian University, with plans to become a chaplain after graduation. Ryan previously hosted a podcast called The Whom Shall We Go? Podcast. In his spare time, he enjoys being involved in interfaith work, reading about Latter-day Saint theology and history, training for triathlons, and spending time with friends and family.

The post The Cause for Christ Episode 3: Faith, Psychology, and the Power of Worldviews with Jeffrey Thayne appeared first on FAIR.

by Autumn Dickson

We have arrived at the war chapters. Within these chapters are plenty of principles that we can still spiritually engage with despite the fact that the events are taking place on a battlefield. During one such battle, Captain Moroni bears his testimony to Zerahemnah (one of the antagonizing military leaders) regarding the protection of the Lord.

He testifies that they have the true faith and that the Lord strengthened and protected them because of their belief and worship. After bearing testimony, he commands Zerahemnah to make an oath that he and his men will never come against the Nephites again. Otherwise they will commence the battle and wipe out the remainder of the men.

Zerahemnah delivers his weapon to Captain Moroni but refuses the oath. Zerahemnah gives this as his reasoning:

Alma 44:9 Behold, we are not of your faith; we do not believe that it is God that has delivered us into your hands; but we believe that it is your cunning that has preserved you from our swords. Behold, it is your breastplates and your shields that have preserved you.

Captain Moroni believes that they won because of their faith. Zerahemnah believes it was because they were good at war. Note that both sentences contain the word “belief.” People can find evidence of whatever they choose to look for. Captain Moroni found evidence of the Lord’s protection, and Zerahemnah did not.

What we choose to see

I taught a man on my mission who had lost his faith. He had grown up a devout Catholic. He attended mass regularly, and after marrying his wife who was a member, he also started attending church meetings with us. He met with us regularly, read The Book of Mormon, and participated in other faith-promoting activities.

And yet, if you were to ask him, he would have maintained that he didn’t feel any faith in God. He had watched a movie that had asked a question, “What if it’s not true?” or something along those lines. That question had stuck with him, and he had not been able to feel faith since.

My companion and I worked over and over and over to teach him to look for those good feelings from God. We wanted so badly for him to find that faith he had lost. There was one evening where the Spirit was so powerful. We had randomly chosen to sing a hymn or primary song (can’t remember which one). He, his wife, my companion, and I found ourselves in tears. It was “thick” in the room.

But still, our friend could not bring himself to attribute it beyond good hormones that were conjured up with beautiful music. He still could not bring himself to see God in it.

I’ve learned since then that faith is a choice, both when it comes to obedience and when it comes to seeing God in our lives.

My friend participated in faith-promoting activities but wasn’t choosing faith; he wanted faith to descend upon him. Where we felt the presence of God, he felt good feelings that didn’t necessarily come from Him. People can look at the same event and draw completely different conclusions.

When I pray about finding my lost keys, I can choose to believe that God helped me find them or that it was a coincidence. When I feel good emotions associated with church, I can believe that the Lord is making His presence known or that I simply have positive pathways built in my brain when it comes to church. When we look at mistakes leaders in the past and present, we can choose to see fallible humans who are still generally led by God or we can see evidence that they can’t really be prophets if they had flaws. When Alma faced off with Korihor, he testified that all of creation was a witness of God. Obviously, there are millions of people throughout history who have come to a completely different conclusion.

The truth remains that you can find “evidence” to support your beliefs no matter which beliefs you ascribe to. I feel that almost most everyone goes through moments in their lives when they ask, “What if it’s not true?” Though these moments can be a little scary, both for ourselves and those we love, these moments can be defining. They can be the threshold in our lives where we really decide where we are going to invest our belief, and that’s incredibly powerful.

We may be tempted to desperately avoid questions such as, “What if it’s not true?” However, rather than avoiding them, we can examine them closely and try to include the Lord we’ve been taught about. We can use it as a testing ground rather than unraveling because we’re afraid of it.

Why should I choose to invest in faith?

So let’s say we’ve reached that threshold. We’ve asked ourselves, “What if we were wrong about everything? What if I was just seeing what I wanted to see?” If you can find “evidence” of whatever you believe in, why should you choose faith?

Unfortunately, this is an extremely personal question that gets handled by the Lord according to each individual. I can only share my experiences.

For a long time, I’m not even sure I had a good reason for choosing to invest in faith because I’m not sure I was consciously choosing it. I was afraid to consider the alternative of leaving the church, and I had found enough goodness and evidence that I felt okay moving forward. I invested in faith because I had been taught to invest in faith. I believed that my good feelings were coming from God because I had been taught to believe. I’m so grateful for that gift.

I’m also grateful that I reached the point where I’ve made my own, conscious choice to continue investing in faith. It was scary facing some of those questions at first, but walking through those low points created an opportunity for me to invest on my faith on purpose, and that has been far more rewarding.

I still receive all those good feelings and quiet moments and associate them with God, but those are not the reasons I choose to keep investing. Those are rewards I receive from investing, but they are not the reasons I continue investing.

I think my most definitive reason for investing right now is how I’ve felt guided. Over the past couple years, I have been watching the Lord guide my prayers before something happened and then watching them be fulfilled before my eyes.

I’ve told the story before, but as we were moving to Virginia, I opened my journal and prayed for absolutely everything I wanted. I left nothing out, no matter how silly or artificial it seemed. At a time when my husband was under immense stress trying to find something we could afford that wasn’t a box in an alley, I was feeling pretty good about everything and asking for whatever I wanted. Sure enough, seven months later, we were led to a temporary home that had every single thing I had asked for. Not to mention, it was given to us at a price that was unheard of, and we did absolutely no work to get it. It quite literally fell into our laps.

I would have been fine if the Lord had given us a tiny apartment without all the extras and I told Him that too, but it was one of those moments where one of the most important lessons He taught me was, “I heard you.” Maybe in and of itself, this can be considered coincidence, but this has been repeated over and over and over.

I pray. I am guided as I pray. Things come together, and I recognize the Lord’s hand because He told me to pray for it. He would likely still bless my family, but because I prayed for it, I was given the tremendous gift of recognizing that He was speaking to me.

Maybe this is how Captain Moroni felt. Maybe Zerahemnah was impressed with their shields, breastplates, and cunning, but maybe Captain Moroni had felt something nagging at him ahead of time to prepare his men in precisely this manner. Then, when he saw everything come together, he quietly thanked the Lord for preparing him ahead of time. Or, maybe Captain Moroni had enough experiences of that manner that he knew the Lord had been guiding them, even if he hadn’t felt any specifics in that particular moment.

Right now, prayer and its results are the reasons I keep investing in faith. I have had other experiences where my prayers have been much shorter and involved far less of my silly, little wants, and I have seen how those prayers were also guided because He led me towards something that I wasn’t expecting. I have had even more experiences where I did pray for everything I wanted, but I felt this little nagging feeling that I wasn’t going to get it. And sure enough, I was led elsewhere.

The Lord could lead me for my entire life without me knowing it. But because He has commanded me to pray, He has been able to guide my feelings ahead of time so that I can recognize Him later. And isn’t that just a beautiful reason to pray? Prayer isn’t about getting what we want. It’s about helping us find our Heavenly Father, and it has surely done that for me.

I testify of Heavenly Father who hears and answers prayers. I testify that He can guide our prayers and feelings if we practice that skill. I testify that He can make Himself known to you should you choose to invest in faith and ask for help in recognizing Him. The experiment surely won’t hurt you. You have nothing to lose by asking Him to help you see Him if He’s really there. The rewards I have personally experienced have gone far beyond what I could have imagined, and I know it all comes from a loving Heavenly Father who loved me because He made me.

Autumn Dickson was born and raised in a small town in Texas. She served a mission in the Indianapolis Indiana mission. She studied elementary education but has found a particular passion in teaching the gospel. Her desire for her content is to inspire people to feel confident, peaceful, and joyful about their relationship with Jesus Christ and to allow that relationship to touch every aspect of their lives.

The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Alma 43–52 – Autumn Dickson appeared first on FAIR.

by Mike Parker

(Mike Parker is a long-time FAIR member who has graciously allowed us to use materials he originally prepared for the Hurricane Utah Adult Religion Class. The scripture passages covered in his lessons don’t conform exactly to the Come, Follow Me reading schedule, so they will be shared here where they fit best. This post will cover the content for the next two weeks.)

Class Notes

Handout

Additional Reading

Alma₂’s testimony in Alma 36 is one of the longest and most complex examples of chiasmus in the Book of Mormon; it is a poetic and literary masterpiece. See See John W. Welch, “A Masterpiece: Alma 36,” in Rediscovering the Book of Mormon, eds. John L. Sorenson and Melvin J. Thorne (Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1991), 114–31.

Michael R. Ash, “The Sin ‘Next to Murder’: An Alternative Interpretation,” Sunstone 143 (November 2006): 34–43. Mike Ash argues that the serious offense for which Alma₂ chastised his son Corianton was not sexual sin (although that, in itself, is serious), but rather destroying their testimonies of the Zoramites₂ through his bad example. In effect, Corianton committed “spiritual murder.” See also “KnoWhy #147: Why Was Corianton’s Sin So Serious?,” Book of Mormon Central, last modified 20 July 2016. For the doctrinal reasons behind the seriousness of sexual sin, see Jeffrey R. Holland’s 12 January 1988 BYU address, “Of Souls, Symbols, and Sacraments.”

In 1856 Brigham Young delivered an address in Salt Lake City in which he discussed, at length, the location of the post-mortal spirit world. See Journal of Discourses 3:367–73.

This chart shows the major chiastic elements in Alma 36.

Mike Parker is a business and marketing analyst with over twenty years’ experience in the financial services and cellular telephone industries. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in Management Information Systems from Dixie State University (now Utah Tech University) of St George, Utah. He also has eight years’ experience in corporate training and currently teaches an adult religion class in southern Utah. Mike and his wife, Denise, have three children.

The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Alma 36–42 – Mike Parker appeared first on FAIR.

by Autumn Dickson

This week, we find the well-known sermon taught by Alma about planting a seed of faith and nourishing the tree. Alma is approached by the poorer class of people who have been cast out of the synagogues because of their coarse clothing. Alma then begins to preach unto them, teaching them about worship and belief. Here is the beginning of the analogy he teaches to the people.

Alma 32:28 Now, we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves—It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me.

When you nurture a seed of belief, it grows within you, whatever it is that you choose to nurture. I believe that many of us read this sermon and apply it to our own faith, but I’m not sure how many of us have recognized the implications for belief in general. A sentiment I often hear is that it’s arrogant to believe you have the real truth when so many others believe the same thing about their own faith.

One of the principles I pull from this verse is that what you nurture grows. My husband often talks about how most people don’t know whether what they believe is true. They believe, but they don’t know. He talks about how any time you take time to nourish belief, that’s where you’ll continue to build and find evidence of your beliefs. You find what you look for. If you invest and nurture belief in pretty much any positive belief system, you’re going to find “evidence” for what you believe.

This has a million implications.

All truth will find a tree

One of the implications is the fact that all truth produces good fruit, not just truth that is directly taught by those within the restored gospel.

We believe we have found the truth in Jesus Christ. However, people who belong to the Islamic faith also believe they have found the truth. They have nurtured their belief and found good-tasting fruit in those beliefs.

When we look at it from the perspective of the seed analogy, it makes complete sense. Whatever bit of truth you’ve found, you’re going to find good-tasting fruit. There was a time on my mission where we knocked on the door of a Muslim family. They invited us in, fed us, and they even took The Book of Mormon. They weren’t interested in the gospel, but they were so kind. They asked if we had any rules about the book, whether it should be kept off the ground or anything like that because they wanted to respect something that was sacred to us.

If they treated most of the things in their lives the way they treated us, of course they were going to find good-tasting fruit. If you’re respectful to others, you find fulfilling relationships and that feels good. That’s just how things work. And as these people practiced these good principles, they were going to find the same blessings. In my mind, they were practicing Christlike principles even if they didn’t yet know Christ, and He still rewarded them and blessed them for that.

Because they were living their lives in a good manner, they were going to find good fruit. They were going to find “evidence” that their beliefs were producing something, and so they were going to continue to invest in those beliefs.

This may feel extremely confusing for some. How are we supposed to find the truth, if any bit of truth that gets nurtured grows into good-tasting fruit? If everyone is tasting good fruit within their own religions, how are we supposed to differentiate who has the truth? This is a legitimate concern. It would make things a bit more confusing if you’re trying to look for the truth. However, look at the Lord’s alternative.

What if He only helped the tree grow when it was a perfect seed? What if He only sent good fruit when we had every bit of truth rather than just a portion of it?

This would be disastrous for a million reasons. I grew up in the church, and my seed (my understanding of the truth) still isn’t perfect. What if He had never let any of the tree grow because my seed wasn’t perfect? What if I had never tasted anything good because my seed wasn’t perfect? The consequences would be disastrous because nobody would ever take the time to nourish anything. If I had never had good experiences with the gospel, I wouldn’t have nurtured anything. I would only have a dormant seed.

In another less-extreme, alternative plan from the Lord…what if He only let your tree grow within the restored gospel?

Surely, this would help people recognize the truth when they found it more easily. No one would get confused about other religions if their religions weren’t producing fruit. However, would anyone seek religion at all? Can you imagine if no one got good fruit unless they had been taught the restored gospel? Once again, the results would be disastrous. The world would be a terrible place filled with people who had never tasted good fruit and probably wouldn’t be willing to try it even if it was offered to them because life would suck.

No, the Lord chose to send good fruit to anyone who was nurturing any bit of truth. It was the only legitimate way to bring as much good into the world as possible. It gave His restored church the best chance to flourish, and it would give people the best chance to find it in comparison to never receiving good fruit at all. Sure, it sometimes makes things confusing as people find good fruit and “evidence” in all sorts of different churches, but the alternative option for the Lord was worse.

And that’s actually another reason I love our beliefs so much. The Lord picked the best option for this fallen world (namely sending good fruit to anyone who nurtured any goodness). This had some tricky consequences because of our fallen world; namely, it made it a little more confusing to find the truth when everyone found evidence within their own good beliefs. However, we believe in the Plan of Salvation. We believe in a perfect God who allows all of His children to truly hear and accept the gospel. Everyone will get a real chance. We don’t have to be scared of the tricky consequences because we believe in a perfectly fair God who sent His Son to perform the atonement and make sure we all really had a chance to go home.

Planting weeds

There is another implication to the idea that whatever we nurture, grows. This isn’t just true for good truth and good fruit. Nourishing the negative will bring in bad fruit. If you nurture weeds, they grow. Eventually, you don’t even have to nurture them anymore, they stick around all on their own. And weeds are tricky, tricky little things.

What have you been nurturing lately? What resources have you been bringing into your life and do you feel more faith or discontent when you’re done utilizing those resources?

Whatever you feed, grows.

There was a time in my life where I was consuming far more social media than spending time in the actual scriptures. This doesn’t have to necessarily be a bad thing; social media doesn’t have to be evil. However, I found that I was listening to lots of voices. Some of those voices even came in the form of members of the church, but they were sowing discontent.

I took a step back from some of the accounts I was following and made a goal to spend more time simply reading The Book of Mormon with no outside commentary. The faith crisis I had been feeding went away rather quickly, and I found that despite my questions and concerns, I felt different. I felt more compassion towards the imperfections. I felt more faith towards a more perfect future. I fed my hope.

What you feed, grows.

Some may argue with me that I was unwise to turn a blind eye towards issues, and that’s fine. I don’t feel blind; I just feel more faith. There are some who believe we have a duty to churn up the issues and make our voices known about it. That’s fine too. You can choose to feed that.

But my personal experience is this. I wasn’t happy listening to the discontent. It wasn’t right for me. There are times when I listen and explore and turn to the Lord with concerns (and that’s important and can lead us to more truth), but there are also times when that discontent grows out of balance. I’m happier seeking out faith over bitterness and discontent. I’m happier when I feed my faith sufficiently. I feel close to God, and my testimony that He’s there seems to grow stronger. I know we find evidence of what we’re nurturing, but I like what I’ve built and worked towards. I like what I’ve nurtured, and I like the fruit I’ve found. I believe it’s a happy way to live.

So picture your future. What do you want your life to look like? What fruit do you want to be experiencing? Do you want to feel closer to God? Are the resources you’re using nurturing that belief in Him?

By their fruits, ye shall know them.

I believe in my Heavenly Father. I believe there’s a reason we’re counseled to seek out voices of faith, and I have found more faith and more happiness as I’ve listened to that counsel. I have found that I want to nurture what I’ve been finding even more. I believe in a loving Lord who provides fruit to help us understand what we want to nurture, and I’m grateful He’s chosen to give good fruit for any goodness we choose to follow. It isn’t a perfect system, but it’s the best plan He could have chosen for our fallen world, and I believe that He sent His Son to make up for the gaps in that imperfect system. I’m grateful for Them and the peace I’ve received investing in Them.

Autumn Dickson was born and raised in a small town in Texas. She served a mission in the Indianapolis Indiana mission. She studied elementary education but has found a particular passion in teaching the gospel. Her desire for her content is to inspire people to feel confident, peaceful, and joyful about their relationship with Jesus Christ and to allow that relationship to touch every aspect of their lives.

The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Alma 32–35 – Autumn Dickson appeared first on FAIR.

by Mike Parker

(Mike Parker is a long-time FAIR member who has graciously allowed us to use materials he originally prepared for the Hurricane Utah Adult Religion Class. The scripture passages covered in his lessons don’t conform exactly to the Come, Follow Me reading schedule, so they will be shared here where they fit best. This post will cover the content for the next two weeks.)

Class Notes

Additional Reading

Gerald Lund explored Korihor’s teachings in “Countering Korihor’s Philosophy,” Ensign, July 1992, pp. 16–21.

Who were the separatist Zoramites₂ and where did they come from? Sherrie Mills Johnson suggests some answers to those questions in “The Zoramite Separation: A Sociological Perspective,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 14, no. 1 (2005): 74–85, 129–30.

Matthew L. Bowen, assistant professor in religious education at Brigham Young University–Hawaii, has argued that the syllable ram—found in both the names Zoram and Rameumptom—could come from the Hebrew for “the one who is high/exalted,” which fits both the Zoramites₂’ pride and the high tower upon which they prayed. See his article,  “‘See That Ye Are Not Lifted Up’: The Name Zoram and Its Paronomastic Pejoration,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 19 (2016): 109–43.

Which spirit is the “spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life”? (Alma 34:34) See John A. Tvedtnes and Matthew Roper, “Do Not Procrastinate the Day of Your Repentance,” Insights 20, no. 10 (October 2000): 4.

Mike Parker is a business and marketing analyst with over twenty years’ experience in the financial services and cellular telephone industries. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in Management Information Systems from Dixie State University (now Utah Tech University) of St George, Utah. He also has eight years’ experience in corporate training and currently teaches an adult religion class in southern Utah. Mike and his wife, Denise, have three children.

The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Alma 30-35 – Mike Parker appeared first on FAIR.

by Matt Crawford

The widow of Zarephath is one of my favorite stories from the Old Testament. Perhaps the greatest reason that this story resonates with me is because the widow is an outsider. She is not a member of the house of Israel—a fact the Savior confirms (see Luke 4:24–30)—and she meets Elijah at the gate of the city. That is, she is physically on the outskirts of this village where she lives. At least symbolically, the location of the widow’s initial contact with Elijah infers that she is marginalized. Yet her belonging came as she did one thing: she obeyed a prophet.

As Elijah, himself hungry and thirsty, traveled a great distance to meet this widow, I wonder what the prophet thought when he was told that a widow woman would care for his needs. Was he reticent about asking her when he saw her hunting for sticks? Wasn’t she already suffering enough? Would the added stress simply make her life worse? Or did he anticipate the miracle that would occur before he met her and found excitement in talking to her? Whatever the case, he invites her to act, and she responds.

Elijah “said, Fetch me, I pray thee a little water in a vessel, that I may drink…. Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand” (1 Kings 17:10–11).

The widow responds, “I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die” (1 Kings 17:12).

When Elijah assures her of sufficient oil and meal until the famine is over, “she went and did according to the saying of Elijah” (1 Kings 17:15).

The response of this widow is intriguing. It seems to me that she says, in essence, “What do I have to lose? Obeying this man will not make my life more difficult.” She already recognized that she and her boy would die and by doing what this stranger asked her to do she would not be any worse off. That said, she may have wondered why this man would even ask her to do anything. What did he know of her circumstances? How could he possibly help her?

For all the possible questions that she may have had, she did that which was counterintuitive. She chose to do that which was unexpected. Someone preparing to eat a last meal would hardly be asked to feed another first. “According to the world’s standards, following the prophet may be unpopular, politically incorrect, or socially unacceptable. But following the prophet is always right” (Sister Carol F. McConkie, “Live According to the Words of the Prophet,” October 2014 general conference).

Consider the offering of the Filipino widow of Tondo told by one of the children, Len B. Novilla.

There are six girls and a boy in our family—a mix that does not bode well in a society where women are not regarded as men’s equals. I am the fifth child in that brood of seven. I was six when my father[, Tondo,] died of cancer. Our eldest had just turned 18, and the youngest was two years old….

Without a stable breadwinner and with seven children left to a mother without a job or a college degree, our finances were tenuous. We grew up in poverty—not just income poverty but also a scarcity of opportunities. We were too poor to get an education, but my mother persisted in her dream to have each of her children complete a college degree. She believed in the power of education to enlighten and transform lives, to equalize social standing, and to be the vehicle out of our dismal circumstances. She borrowed money even at high interest rates to keep us in school….

Four years after my father died, two young American men knocked on our door looking for my mother. They introduced themselves as missionaries. Behind them was a throng of Filipino children fighting for their attention and calling out, “Hi, Joe.” Under the sweltering Philippine heat, these young men stood out in their white shirts, ties, and black briefcases; to us they looked like a toss-up between James Bond and CIA agents. I was about to say to them that my mother had told me to tell them that she was not home when my mother’s friends and their children, who came with the missionaries, showed up. My mom overheard and motioned to me to let them in. I quietly asked myself, “What are we getting ourselves into?” Inviting these Americans in was social suicide, as my mom was known in our community for her staunch devotion to the dominant faith.

…The year after my father died, martial law was declared in the Philippines. On top of that there was a national shortage of rice—the country’s staple food. To stave off the shortage, rice was combined with corn and rationed to five kilos per family. Food and jobs were scarce. For us to survive, my mom marshaled every inch of strength she had. She talked a friend into allowing her to be paid a meager sum for helping to deliver rice. She would leave at 4:30 in the morning and would come home at 11:00 at night. At the end of the day she would pick up grain after grain of rice and corn that had spilled on the floor of the delivery truck. She would not stop until she had several handfuls for tomorrow’s meals. Our life was already at its worst. How could listening to these Americans help? What could these missionaries offer that would make our life better?

To our surprise, our mother listened to the missionaries….It must have exacted much willpower from my mother to stop drinking coffee and to stop smoking—just because two foreigners barely in their twenties said so—at a time when nicotine patches were unheard of. It must have taken real faith to part with a widow’s mite for tithing.

…My mother, my younger sister Ruth, and myself were the first to be baptized. My older sisters followed months later. My brother was baptized when he turned eight. It took years and a temple in the Philippines for our father to be baptized by proxy and for us to be finally sealed as a family.

What did the missionaries offer? They offered us the opportunity of knowing that families can be together even beyond death—something my father had always hoped we could be. The missionaries taught us that we have a Heavenly Father who knows each of us by name and who loves us dearly—a concept so foreign to us, for the God that we knew lashed out with punishments and heard only memorized prayers….

The fruit of the gospel is remarkably sweet, and we paid a high price for it. Following our baptism, relatives and friends distanced themselves from us. They charged my mother with blasphemy and insanity. Some refused to extend any help despite our needs. The loss of that social safety net was economic suicide for a family already living on the edge of poverty. Even as young children we were not spared from many trials, and we had to grow far beyond our years. When I was attending a private school of another religious faith, a nun confronted me in front of my sixth-grade class for choosing to be baptized as a Latter-day Saint. I came home that day in tears. My sister and I were eventually disqualified from receiving the highest academic honors. We were denied the very measure of success that we had worked hard for. This was not the end. Many more challenges came.

How did we keep the faith? …[I]t was never because we were smarter or stronger, nor were our lives easier. With the help of the Holy Ghost, a conversion rooted within our hearts drove the change. What helped us was that we stayed on course. We did not give up at the very first sign of adversity. We kept going even when the tempests in our lives were raging. We kept paying tithing even when the choices came down to not having enough to eat. We kept coming to Church with the thought that if we continued to do so, eventually principles that were once unclear would make much more sense. We kept going with the understanding that people around us were not perfect but were putting forth the effort to be better….

Has the Lord been mindful of our sacrifices? Yes! He is continually involved in our lives. There was no way that a mother widowed at age 41, without a job and a college degree, could have possibly raised seven children from two to 18 years of age without divine help. Heaven must have heard her many pleadings and interceded in so many ways that it amazes us even to this very day. Through the Lord’s design and blessings, each of us was able to complete our studies: two doctors, a nurse, a lawyer, an accountant, a hotel and restaurant manager, and an IT support specialist. Thus was the promise of Elijah also fulfilled to the widow of Tondo:

“And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days.

“And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah” [1 Kings 17:15–16] (Len B. Novilla, “Journey of the Soul, Anchors of the Heart,” BYU Devotional, February 1, 2011).

Preservation, strength, and ability to keep going come as we obey the words of prophets.

I personally observed this reality several years ago. Through the example of an extremely old brother, I am reminded to obey the prophet’s invitation to serve in the Church.

I visited a sacrament meeting and watched a hunched old man, an usher, ever so slowly shut one set of side doors to the chapel in preparation for the blessing and passing of the sacrament. As I observed his movements, I wondered if I was watching slow motion footage on television I wondered if he was going to be able to get the doors shut before the prayers began. With the sound of the closing click, the prayers started. He had done it. Following the completion of the sacrament, as if in slow motion replay in reverse, he opened the doors and set the doorstops.

After the meeting I inquired about this man. I found out that he was officially called and set apart as an usher and faithfully fulfilled his calling every week.

Following the prophet and doing what he asks is simply not easy all the time. It generally is not convenient. And it definitely takes faith in things we cannot see. Yet a poor, hungry widow, as well as many others, continue to show me how to trust prophetic words.

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Matt Crawford is a husband, father, teacher, and writer. He resides with his family in Layton, Utah.

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