Revelation: articles and tips | FAIR

by Autumn Dickson

There are major themes throughout the stories we read in the Old Testament. Some of the more negative themes are idolatry, fear over losing power, disobedience, and corrupting influences. The Old Testament does not shy away from showing the fallibility of humankind. There is great hope in faithful stories in the scriptures; there are also important warnings in the stories of people who were not obedient to the Lord.

One of the stories we read this week shows themes of obedience and disobedience. We see people who have a connection to God and follow Him, but we also watch them choose against God and find themselves in deep water because of it.

There are a lot of details for our story in this post, but stick with me. They are important because they set the stage for our principle.

In 1 Kings 13, we read about a man of God and an old prophet. Those are the only “names” we receive for these men, and these titles can get confusing especially when you’re reading the details of the story. Though they were labeled as a man of God and an old prophet, we see their fallibility on full display.

For some quick background, Israel has split into two kingdoms: Judah and Benjamin in the south and the rest of the ten tribes in the north. The man of God was from Judah where the true temple was. The northern kingdom had fallen into idolatry. The man of God was commanded to go to Bethel (in the northern kingdom) and condemn the idolatrous practice. He does so and performs a couple of wonderful miracles as well.

The Lord warns and commands the man of God to not eat or drink in Bethel. The man of God originally follows this command very well as he works to return to Judah. Unfortunately, another man, the old prophet, comes along and finds the man of God resting under the shade of a tree. The old prophet offers the man of God some food and drink, and the man of God refuses. The old prophet says this.

1 Kings 13:18 He said unto him, I am a prophet also as thou art; and an angel spake unto me by the word of the Lord, saying, Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread and drink water. But he lied unto him.

The man of God listens to the old prophet and partakes in food and drink. While the man of God eats, the old prophet tells him that he won’t make it home because of his disobedience. On the way home, the man of God is killed by a lion. The old prophet collects the body, gives the man of God an honorable burial, and requests to be buried next to the man of God when he dies. The old prophet calls the man of God a brother. He testifies that the prophecy made by the man of God earlier regarding the idolatrous altar in Bethel will come true.

There are a lot of confusing details. I don’t know if this was one of those parts of the bible that was translated incorrectly or whether it’s simply highlighting the fallibility of real people who sometimes follow the Lord.

Who was the old prophet? Was he an actual prophet to the Lord? He was in the idolatrous kingdom so when they called him a prophet, was he a false prophet? Was he trying to tear down the man of God for prophesying against the northern kingdom? We know that the old prophet received some revelation from the Lord. He prophesied of the death of the man of God, and he testified of the prophecy given by the man of God. So why did he lie? Was he threatened by the man of God or did he see no harm in his white lie? Was he trying to just nourish the man of God? Was he wicked but then received a testimony while he watched the man of God come and eat?

There is a lot of ambiguity. Oftentimes, I’ll try to take one biblical theory and talk about true principles from it regardless of whether the details are perfect. This time, I’m going to embrace the ambiguity.

The man of God listened to the old prophet and found himself dead because of it.

I’ve seen a pattern on social media. This is a pattern that has existed for a long time, but I’ve seen it more readily because of its prevalence on social media.

On social media (and in real life), we find people who are disgusted by the church. They hate it. They actively fight against it. Their entire online persona can be defined by, “I hate the church.”

But there is another group of people. They claim to be part of the church, to receive revelation, and to love the Lord. Some of their posts are uplifting and encouraging, but some of their posts teach things that can be found in direct conflict with the Lord’s commandments. Some of their posts might not necessarily be in direct conflict, but they are critical of the church in the name of their love for the Lord.

These people are much more ambiguous. What are their true motives? What does it mean that they call themselves members? Because heaven knows you can call yourself a member without actually following Christ.

I don’t have any real desire to discover their motives. If they are sincere, the Lord will work with them and hopefully they will listen. If they are not sincere, then the Lord can handle all of that. I don’t need to know their motives or even condemn them.

Rather, I’d like to highlight a warning from this story. The man of God died because he followed the ambiguous old prophet who had some claim to God but also lied.

I don’t think we’ll get killed by a lion if we follow these accounts, but I do think it can spiritually deaden us. It can blind us.

Isn’t that funny? The rest of the world would call us blind and accuse us of drinking the Kool-aid, and yet, either side could be logically labelled as propaganda. Both sides label themselves enlightened. Everyone thinks their version is the closest one to the truth.

So how do we know whether we can trust the old prophet? How do we know whether we should whole-heartedly follow the prophet of our church?

I can’t answer that question for everyone. All I know is that I talk to the Lord, and He responds. I can’t answer for other people, but the more I study the gospel and the church, the more I see the Lord’s perfect hand working with the imperfection of mankind. I have watched some of my loved ones listen to these posts and believe they can disobey the Lord in little ways and be fine, and I have watched some of my loved ones turn these voices off. With the experiences that I’ve had in the gospel, I have no desire to follow anyone (real or on the internet) who tells me that I can disobey the Lord. It’s not just about avoiding dying either. I have found too much joy in the protection and safety of the Lord, and I refuse to lose that joy.

I testify that being obedient to the Lord provides safety and warmth and true happiness. I testify that even in the darkest times, following Him is where we will find respite. I testify that He teaches us through powerful stories in the scriptures, and that His patterns reflect across all generations on the earth. I testify that there is safety in joy in following the word of the Lord as given from Him directly.

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 – 1 Kings 12–13; 17–22 – Part 1 – Autumn Dickson appeared first on FAIR.

by Autumn Dickson

Solomon, David’s son, has become king. Very early on in his reign, Solomon has a dream in which the Lord appears to him.

1 Kings 3:5 In Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night: and God said, Ask what I shall give thee.

This is a really incredible experience as Solomon is stepping into his kingship; the Lord appears and offers to grant a prayer to Solomon. Solomon asks for wisdom and discernment in judging his people. The Lord is pleased with what Solomon asked for especially since Solomon could have asked for more selfish things such as riches, long life, or the defeat of his enemies. Solomon does none of this; he wants wisdom.

For a moment, I asked myself what I would ask for. It turned into quite the exercise as I pondered what I really wanted. Going through this experience taught me a couple of principles.

Principle one: No dream required.

I began thinking of all the things that would bless my life the most. I thought of a grateful heart, seeing people clearly, or or to see His hand moving in my life. I thought of spiritual protection for my kids. I tried to think of which spiritual gift would be the most effective for my own life.

It suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t have to wait for a dream from the Lord in order to ask for things, and I didn’t have to pick just one gift. I could ask for all of them. That’s my first principle. The Lord answers prayers regardless of whether He came to us in a dream and agreed to answer a prayer. What would you ask for? What do you ask for? What will you ask for now?

Ironically, I haven’t prayed for any of those things in a long time. I don’t think my prayers have been bad by any means, but I thought so hard about what I really wanted from the Lord and realized that those values had gotten buried by the day-to-day.

Principle two. It is powerful to have your heart reflected back to you.

The normal pathway for prayers and answers goes like this: We are encouraged by prophets and scripture to pray to the Lord, and He answers according to His wisdom.

The pathway for Solomon in this specific experience: The Lord appears directly to Solomon and essentially offers a wish.

So here are the differences:

The Lord appears directly instead of going through a prophet.

He basically offers a wish which is highly unusual (at least in my experience).

The experience that Solomon had was very different than normal. Why? The Lord is intentional so why did He make this particular choice with Solomon? Both of these differences combined to make a special thing happen. Whether this was the Lord’s intentional purpose is a question that only He can answer. However, one of the side effects was that Solomon had his heart reflected back to him. Let’s talk about both differences.

Difference 1: He appeared directly.

The Lord does not often appear when we have sufficient for what we need. For example, He doesn’t always answer “yes” to everything we ask Him about; sometimes He simply refrains from saying “no.” In my experience, He directly interferes only as necessary. Obviously, He is very involved in our lives and manipulates the details in our favor. I’m talking about when His actions would affect our faith. So the Lord is taking care of me behind the scenes and influencing things to help me out, but He’s not appearing in a manner where I can have a very clear conversation with Him.

And there are reasons for this.

Later in life, Solomon turns towards worshiping other gods, influenced by his many foreign wives. I wonder how much more intense Solomon’s betrayal was because Solomon had this dream from the Lord directly. The Lord is very involved in our life, but He also keeps direct interference to a minimum in order to protect our faith.

And yet, despite the fact that the Lord could have allowed Solomon to simply pray without receiving a dream, the Lord chose to come to Solomon to ask and offer. This extremely direct experience opened up Solomon’s heart in a way that normal prayer doesn’t always achieve. Perhaps ideally, normal prayer would achieve this, but I’m not sure that it often does.

If the Lord came to you, I have a feeling you would be much more intentional in comparison to praying in faith. As least, I would be more intentional…and because it forces intention, you get to see what really matters to you. It reflects your heart back to you.

Difference 2: He offers a wish.

If you knew you had the opportunity to ask the Lord for something that He had offered to grant, it changes how you approach what you’re asking. The Lord has already offered to answer prayers, but this is different. He offers to directly answer one prayer. It’s almost like He offered to give Solomon a wish.

When I approach normal prayer, I am very open and talk through things and ask for little things. I’m not always perfectly focused. I ask for a lot of things. When I was thinking about what my request would have been, I suddenly got extremely intentional and this wasn’t even my experience! This didn’t even happen to me, but all of a sudden I was way more concerned about what I was asking for. It gave me an opportunity to reflect on what really mattered to me. What are my values? What do I really want?

It’s interesting because the Lord already knows our hearts. While mankind looks on the outside, the Lord looketh on the heart. So this wasn’t about the Lord trying to figure out Solomon’s heart. One of the effects was that Solomon was able to take a good look at his heart as he ascended the throne where he would have power and responsibility. Not only do we pray more intentionally, it also pushes us to live more intentionally.

How did Solomon feel when he approached that throne to govern his people? How did this experience change how he approached that throne?

I have not stepped onto a throne recently. I have not received a dream or a wish, but even my less-intense experience of pondering what I would ask for has changed my prayers. And in turn, as I pray for help with specific gifts, I’m more intentional as I approach experiences that call upon those gifts.

I testify that the Lord is intentional. I testify that He already knows our hearts. I testify that He is very involved in our lives and acts with purpose. If we can learn to act with purpose as He does, we start to change more readily. Our lives become much more available to Him.

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 – 2 Samuel 11–12; 1 Kings 3; 6–9; 11 – Part 1 – Autumn Dickson appeared first on FAIR.

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 – Genesis 6–11; Moses 8 – Jennifer Roach Lees appeared first on FAIR.

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

I’ve given this message before, and I’ll probably give this message again someday. This message has been repeated so frequently throughout scripture so I figure it’s not the end of the world if I repeat it too. It is something that has been taught by modern day prophets. It has changed my life profoundly.

If someone were just beginning their family, what advice would you give them? What would you focus on? If you could give them advice that they were supposed to read over and over and over throughout their lives, what would you emphasize? If you were trying to teach a group of people how to build a society, which principles do you think would be some of the most valuable to learn?

Over the past couple weeks, we have been reading about the beginning of one of God’s projects. It includes the building of a world. It includes the building of God’s family, and the building of a new society upon the earth. There was a father and mother and a whole lineage of people. I have so many questions about how some of these things came to pass. How did they build their society? How did it change? Did they even consider the idea that they were setting up the foundation of a society?

I’m not sure.

But out of every message that the Lord could have sent us, one of the messages that He gave us was this.

Moses 6:5 And a book of remembrance was kept, in the which was recorded, in the language of Adam, for it was given unto as many as called upon God to write by the spirit of inspiration;

A book of remembrance was kept. It was given unto as many as called upon God to write by the spirit of inspiration. Was this one of the pieces of advice you would have chosen to give to this new society you were directing? Because it was one of the pieces of advice that God thought was important.

Do you call upon God? If you do, here is the bible teaching us that you’ve been called upon to write by the spirit of inspiration.

Please stay with me for a moment if you don’t feel like you’re ready for this message. If you hate writing and reading, if it’s not something that you particularly enjoy, stick with me. A book of remembrance doesn’t have to look like what you’re picturing.

I almost feel bad sharing this message because writing is something that comes naturally to me. Even if I wouldn’t classify myself as overly talented, I love writing. I’ve written regularly in a journal since I was 14 years old (and boy do I wish I could burn those journals).

My journals were not always written according to inspiration. For a lot of my life, my journals were where I angrily wrote about my angel parents that I didn’t appreciate, about boys, about friendships at a time in my life when I didn’t know how to be a good friend. It wasn’t until later that my journals became filled with true, uplifting purpose.

Writing in a journal has blessed my life. I have gone back to read what I used to care about. I have been able to observe the growth I had and watch how the Lord guided my life, page by page. It’s actually pretty fun. Not to mention, I record all the absolutely ridiculous things my children say and that is one of the best blessings of my life.

But the commandment we find in this verse is not necessarily what you think. It’s not about writing what you did every day or even every month; I love writing, and I think that would bore me to death. My life isn’t exciting enough for that.

We need to rethink what it means to keep a journal. When God gives a commandment, it’s to draw us closer to Him so let’s look at our book of remembrance through that lens. And as a matter of fact, let’s look at another phrase from the verse that we read from Moses.

Write by the spirit of inspiration. If that sounds intimidating, let me try and ease your worries. Let’s look at what it means to receive inspiration.

Inspiration is when God gives you thoughts and feelings to propel you in a specific direction. He gives it to you.

When someone gives something to you, are you the one who is supposed to be stressing about how the gift makes its way into your lap? No! That’s not your job. You just have to make yourself available to receive it.

Hence the writing. Make yourself available and trust the Lord to give you what you need. He knows how to give.

I have one practical piece of advice for starting your book of remembrance. It’s just one piece of advice to start things out so that God could push you in the correct direction that will fit your personality and circumstances.

Open a journal when you’re praying, open a note on your phone, or open your computer to type. Just open it and make it available once a day for one week. When you’re praying. That’s my tip.

You don’t have to write your prayers like I do. I just do that because it helps me focus when the last seven years of my life have been interrupted approximately every three minutes. Don’t do it before bed; I never write my prayers before bed because I’m not in the proper mindset to write by inspiration. I’m too tired. The Spirit can whisper through a lot of things but apparently not my exhaustion (or maybe I’m just bad at listening through my exhaustion?). It doesn’t have to be a long prayer. It doesn’t have to be an impressive prayer. Open it, and simply start talking. He may not say anything immediately because He usually only talks when He needs to. You may start to feel like you should pick up your pen. Trust the feeling and do it. Even if you don’t know what you’re going to write, just start and open yourself up and He will speak.

It’s remarkable. You will feel so close to God.

Just as the verse taught, if you have called upon the name of God, you have been called to write by inspiration. He wants to talk to you too.

I testify that God loves you and knows how to give you inspiration. I testify that it’s not your job to figure out how to receive a gift; it’s just your job to try and make yourself available to receive it. I testify that writing by the inspiration of God will change your life as it has changed mine.

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 – Genesis 5; Moses 6 – Part 2 – Autumn Dickson appeared first on FAIR.

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 – Genesis 5; Moses 6 – Jennifer Roach Lees appeared first on FAIR.

by Autumn Dickson

For this week, we get to read more about Adam and Eve and their posterity. While reading about this posterity, we find a really beautiful summary of how to live. It is so simple and yet so profound.

Moses 6:3 And God revealed himself unto Seth, and he rebelled not, but offered an acceptable sacrifice, like unto his brother Abel. And to him also was born a son, and he called his name Enos.

I want to take it one phrase at a time. God revealed Himself to Seth. Seth didn’t rebel. Seth offered an acceptable sacrifice like his brother did. Though this is about the personal life of Seth, there is a pattern that all of us can follow.

First, God revealed Himself.

It is not enough to try and interpret the bible perfectly. You can’t. It’s not possible for man to interpret it correctly even if it had been translated perfectly. God has to reveal Himself and the truth concerning why we are here and how we get back. You can’t go to school and have other people teach you about God because they have studied a ton. No matter how hard you think or how long you ponder, it is insufficient unless God chooses to reveal Himself.

He does this through a variety of ways. He reveals Himself through His prophets. He teaches us as we’re reading the bible. He teaches us as we listen to other people, but we have to remember that He is the one who gives us the information.

Then comes the next part. We decide what to do with it. Seth rebelled not.

Honestly, it reminds me of something that I read about the Tower of Babel. One of the reasons that God was so frustrated with the people in relation to the Tower of Babel was because He had told them how to reach Him. These people were descendants of Noah’s sons after the flood. Noah walked with God, and so it’s easy to assume that these descendants had been given a knowledge of how to form a relationship with God.

We do not know exactly what this looked like. We know that after Moses, there were more extensive ordinances contained in the Law of Moses that helped the people reach for God. In our day, we likewise make covenants and perform ordinances in order to reach Him and develop a relationship with Him.

I’m not sure what it looked like in Noah’s day, but these people had a prophet and it was likely that they had oral traditions to lead them along.

Unfortunately, they rebelled. They didn’t want to reach God in that way. They wanted to do it how they wanted to do it, and they ended up with chaos and confusion.

Through modern-day prophets, God has revealed how we can draw closer to Him. These avenues are not exclusive; they’re available to everyone who wants them. Some have had incredible experiences with the gospel but have chosen to only accept some avenues of closeness. Some believe they don’t need these extra things in order to draw closer to Christ rather than gratefully receiving any options He gives us to think of Him and follow Him.

I think of Cain and Abel. Cain was mad that God didn’t accept his crops even though God had asked him for a lamb originally. Cain only wanted to give what Cain wanted to give. And when God didn’t accept it, he was angry. Interestingly enough, God didn’t ask for a lamb for fun. It was very specific and meant to help Cain understand Christ. Cain missed the memo.

If you’ve had good experiences with the gospel, I can promise that accepting all of the gospel will only bring more goodness. Don’t rebel against it. Give it a chance, soften your own heart and see if God doesn’t bless you.

Then there is the last portion of this pattern that we’ll talk about today.

Seth offered an acceptable sacrifice like his brother. I love this part. We can offer acceptable sacrifices like our Brother.

There is much to be said of sacrifice, but I want to focus on one specific principle here.

The Lord asks for specific sacrifices. There are general ways that we draw closer to Christ through ordinances and covenants, but there will also be very personalized sacrifices that the Lord asks us to make. Christ had a very tailored sacrifice to give. It was perfectly picked just for Him.

There are very tailored sacrifices we will be asked to make. They are tailored in two ways: how we can give and how they can bless us.

Some of them are because God gave us gifts and expects us to use them to bless others. In ancient times, the oldest brothers received an extra portion in order to take care of the mother and sisters. Each of us have received some kind of specific extra portion, spiritual gifts that are not given to everyone. We are expected to take care of those who don’t have what we have. It is completely fair for Heavenly Father to ask us to give when He has given us more precisely for that purpose.

We have also been given a responsibility to make specific sacrifices because of how they will bless us. They will mold us to be more like the Savior in the exact ways that we need. Just like the lamb wasn’t random, our sacrifices don’t need to feel random. They can refine us.

I got pregnant 3 months after having a baby. My fifth child was born when my oldest was just six years old. I despise being pregnant. I’m grateful for it. My children are my greatest blessing, but I can’t begin to describe just how much I lose myself when I’m pregnant. Conner was out on the east coast every other week for work. I was overwhelmed and sick. My body was destroyed, and I still had a tiny baby that needed me so much. I had three other kids who also needed me, and I still felt the Lord telling me that I needed to keep sharing my testimony of Christ.

There were a million lessons learned through this specific trial given to me. The Lord needed me to change in specific ways in order to step into the life I wanted for myself and my family. I let go and let my kids step up in ways that were powerful for them, a beautiful blessing that I would have never voluntarily given over. I miraculously finished my work and still got a desperately needed nap almost every day. Both of these specific lessons have set me up in exactly what I want for my life. Most importantly, I learned that God really is on my side.

When I first found out I was pregnant again, I felt utterly betrayed. Believe it or not, we had taken some pretty intense measures to prevent pregnancy. This wasn’t a mistake on our part. It was a definitive choice for the Lord. I had told Him that I wanted to wait a bit. There have been numerous times in my life that the Lord has chosen different for me than I chose for myself. I grumbled and fought it just like anyone else. Getting pregnant again and losing myself for 18 months instead of 9 months felt like more than I could bear. For the first time, I felt truly betrayed by God. I felt like He had completely ignored everything I had wanted for myself. I felt like He had ignored what I needed, that He didn’t care what I needed. He was going to choose what He was going to choose. I knew logically that wasn’t the case. I had experiences with God and knew He loved me, and maybe that’s why it had been so painful. I had trusted Him, and this felt too far.

It took some time, but I learned the tailored lesson He sent me. I turned my heart around and accepted the sacrifice that had been asked of me and just like with any sacrifice, it was for me. He was trying to bless me, and He did. I thought I trusted Him before. It multiplied after this last baby. The Lord tailors our sacrifices for us, and in the end, we make them acceptable by putting our heart into it.

I testify that the patterns of the Lord are simple. I testify that He can guide our individual details in the midst of those grand patterns. I testify of a Lord who made an ultimate sacrifice and set an example for how we can draw closer to God. I testify that the scriptures can teach us of these patterns, and if we choose to accept them, He blesses us more than we can imagine.

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 – Genesis 5; Moses 6 – Part 1 – Autumn Dickson appeared first on FAIR.

Jennifer and guest Sarah Allen discuss the books of Moses and Abraham.

Sarah Allen is a Senior Researcher with FAIR, a former member of Scripture Central’s research team, and the 2022 recipient of the John Taylor: Defender of the Faith Award. An avid reader, she loves studying the Gospel and the history of the restored Church. After watching some of her friends lose their testimonies, she became interested in helping others through their faith crises. That’s when she began sharing what she’d learned through her studies. She is a co-moderator the LDS subreddit on Reddit and the author of a multi-part series rebutting the CES Letter. She is also the co-host of FAIR’s “Me, My Shelf, & I” podcast. She’s grateful to those at FAIR who have given her the opportunity to share her testimony with a wider audience.

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 1; Abraham 3 – Jennifer Roach Lees appeared first on FAIR.

by Autumn Dickson

I want to share something from the Official Declaration 1, the declaration that ended the practice of polygamy in the latter-days. This post isn’t specifically about polygamy, but the principle I want to teach is being taught through the polygamy example.

The Lord has told me to ask the Latter-day Saints a question, and He also told me that if they would listen to what I said to them and answer the question put to them, by the Spirit and power of God, they would all answer alike, and they would all believe alike with regard to this matter.

He then proceeds to ask the people what would be better: to comply with the law of the land and cease the practice of polygamy or continue to practice polygamy and lose the priesthood organization and temples and be forced to stop polygamy anyway?

I’ve heard people express the idea that the church supposedly believes in revelation but fold the second they receive outside pressure. I’ve heard it conveyed that it was so convenient for the Lord to stop the practice of polygamy when things got too difficult for the people to live it. Even as a teenager, I believed in the church but remember thinking, “Isn’t there a third option? Can’t the Lord enable them to continue practicing polygamy without losing all of the men and the temples?”

Though polygamy is unique in many ways, there is not really any new argument against God. These specific questions boil down to a question that is as old as religion, “If your God is truly so powerful, why doesn’t He enable you?”

The answer to that specific question varies because the circumstances of mankind vary, but I’ll do my best to teach the overarching principles by referring to this specific example of polygamy.

According to President Woodruff, the Saints were facing some pretty dire circumstances. He had a vision of everything that the Saints would lose if they continued the practice of polygamy. To put it shortly, they would lose everything that mattered. I don’t think Satan was worried about stopping polygamy as he was about utilizing polygamy to stop the work in general. If the Saints continued on, this would surely stop the work. They would lose temples and the men; if they lost these, apostasy would reign and Satan would have won (especially since the Lord has promised that we will not fall into a Great Apostasy again).

When we face dire circumstances, the Lord can react in a number of ways and He makes wise decisions based on what will bring about His purposes.

The Lord’s potential reaction #1:

Sometimes He asks us to continue on through difficulty and lose everything. I think of Abinadi. Abinadi was asked to continue preaching despite the fact that it put his life in danger. Abinadi died. Sometimes the Lord asks for the ultimate sacrifice. He could have asked the Saints to make the ultimate sacrifice, but He didn’t.

The Lord’s potential reaction #2:

The Lord can tell His people to keep going and then remove the difficulty. There are a million examples of this, the most obvious being Moses parting the Red Sea.

When it came to polygamy, the Lord could have responded in this way. He could have “parted the sea” and removed the difficulty. The Lord could have enabled His Saints to continue practicing polygamy. He could have wiped out the entire earth other than the Saints if that’s what it took, but He didn’t.

The Lord’s potential reaction #3:

Sometimes the Lord tells us to stop. I think of Alma and his people. They were threatened with death if they prayed, and so they only prayed in their hearts. The Lord could have commanded them to keep praying, but it wasn’t their time and so He didn’t. Technically they kept praying, but there are other instances. For example, there was Zion’s camp. An “army” of members left Kirtland to go win back Missouri for the Saints, but the Lord told them to turn around after they got there. I did a whole video on why the Lord might have chosen after this manner. There was also the time when the Lord excused His people from building the temple in Zion for a time.

Sometimes the Lord does tell us we can stop. People love to act like this is because our God isn’t real or that He isn’t powerful. The answer is neither.

Sometimes the Lord tells us to stop because He is wise.

Despite the fact that the Lord could ask His Saints to sacrifice everything and despite the fact that the Lord could have removed the obstacles they were facing, He chose not to. I emphasize the point that we do not always know why the Lord makes specific choices unless He tells us directly, but let’s think for a bit about why the Lord would have made this decision.

Despite the fact that the Lord reigns over all and despite the fact that He is tremendously powerful, sometimes He chooses to act in a certain way with mankind because of His purposes. The “limitations” are not true limitations; they are self-imposed limitations that enable Him to push His purposes along.

His purpose is to bring about the immortality and eternal life of man and because of His chosen purpose, He often works within the constraints of mankind so He doesn’t ruin His own plan. Let’s look at this principle in the context of polygamy.

The Lord’s potential reaction #1:

The Lord could have asked them to continue on in difficulty and sacrifice. They would have lost the temples and priesthood organization that kept His restored church on the earth. That doesn’t really fit His purposes so He’s not going to choose this option.

The Lord’s potential reaction #2:

The Lord could have asked them to continue on and then removed the difficulty for them. This answers the question that I’ve heard posed more than once in my life. Believe it or not, this would have also frustrated His purposes. He COULD have destroyed everyone except the Saints, but that doesn’t contribute to His purposes. He COULD have sent down miracles to stop the rest of America from being able to infiltrate Utah and take the temples and arrest the men, but it would have taken some large-scale miracles in order to keep the work moving forward.

In the history of the world, the Lord has performed some incredible large-scale miracles. We read about these miracles, and we rejoice in them.

However, the Lord does not often choose to work after this manner. He just doesn’t. Why? Because faith is an essential ingredient in His plan. I have studied the purpose of faith over and over and over. You can’t bring about the Plan of Redemption if you wipe out the principle of faith, and large-scale miracles run the risk of doing just that.

The Lord could perform large-scale miracle after large-scale miracle and fix everything, but He doesn’t. Why? Because removing faith from the mortal experience has far dire consequences than anything we could potentially face on earth.

So the Lord COULD have chosen potential reaction #1 or #2, but He didn’t because they don’t contribute to His purposes.

The Lord’s potential reaction #3:

He stops it.

And honestly, this makes sense. Temple work and the priesthood organization were more important. Faith was more important.

I believe that polygamy was a policy laid down by God. I do. I also believe that polygamy doesn’t make logistical sense on a grand scale so it was the wisest choice the Lord could have made.

There are a million arguments made against the church. One of them is the idea of, “If your God is so powerful, why doesn’t He enable you to xyz?”

I testify that God is real and powerful, and I testify that He is in this work. I also testify that God is wise and because He is wise, He has self-imposed limitations in order to bring about His purposes. He could easily interfere with evil on a daily basis, but He knows the cost would be too high. I testify that the Lord is wise enough to make the decisions necessary to bring about our eternal life.

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 2 – Autumn Dickson appeared first on FAIR.

by Autumn Dickson

This is a message for anyone who feels that they have found God and love Him, but also carry around a doctrine or policy that doesn’t make sense to them; this is for anyone who is having a difficult time reconciling the idea of a loving God (with whom they’ve had good experiences) with doctrines that don’t seem loving to them.

For this week, we are studying Section 137 and 138. It’s important to understand that Section 137 is not in chronological order. It was placed next to Section 138 because doctrinally, they fit together really well. It’s actually really important to understand that Section 137 is out of chronological order for a number of reasons. In order to understand what I want to talk about today, let’s talk about the chronological order of a few more things.

When Joseph was young, he struggled with which church to join. His mother was Methodist, and his father aligned more closely with the ideas of a unitarian. His father didn’t believe that God would send someone to hell because they hadn’t been baptized into a particular church. Joseph received the First Vision and over time, he learned more and more of what it meant to have the restored church of Jesus Christ.

Alvin died in 1823, a few years after the First Vision, before the authority to baptize had been restored. I wonder if Joseph was leaning towards his father’s views that Alvin wouldn’t go to hell just because he hadn’t been baptized. After all, Joseph was taught that the true church was not upon the earth. Maybe Alvin wasn’t in hell.

In 1829, Joseph received the authority to baptize. Joseph learned that baptism was essential, and it hadn’t been done with the right authority for a long time.

Think, for just a moment, about what this means to Joseph. He rejoiced in the restored church. In fact, he was overwhelmed with joy after baptizing his father.

But I also want you to think about the perspectives that Joseph was operating under at this period in time. He knew that authority to baptize was essential. He knew that his brother wasn’t baptized at all, let alone by any needed authority. For a long time, I believe that Joseph still thought Alvin had gone to hell.

It wasn’t until 1832 that Joseph learned there were different kingdoms in heaven. Can you imagine the relief that Joseph felt knowing that Alvin wasn’t burning up in eternal flame? But can you also imagine the pain that Joseph still felt when he believed he had still lost Alvin? There were some conflicting emotions there; Alvin wasn’t in hell, but were they still going to be separated?

Joseph received a vision of Alvin in the Celestial Kingdom in 1836. Here is part of that vision.

Doctrine and Covenants 137:5-6

5 I saw Father Adam and Abraham; and my father and my mother; my brother Alvin, that has long since slept;

6 And marveled how it was that he had obtained an inheritance in that kingdom, seeing that he had departed this life before the Lord had set his hand to gather Israel the second time, and had not been baptized for the remission of sins.

Joseph marveled to see Alvin in the Celestial Kingdom; he was surprised. This is part of the reason for my assumptions. For three years (not including the time before the priesthood was restored), Joseph believed Alvin was still burning up in hell. For four years, Joseph carried around the wound from his beliefs that he would be separated from Alvin.

There is an important implication from this timeline.

Joseph loved God. More than most, Joseph knew that God was real and that there was truth and that you had to be baptized and that there was specific authority. He knew this. Joseph had good experiences with God, but Joseph also carried around this painful wound that something felt tragically unfair.

Despite his knowledge of God, I wonder if Joseph ever still struggled with questions. How could a loving God do this? How could required baptism and authority be congruent with a fair God who loves all of His children? How could God have let Alvin die before the church was restored? What about all the other people who suddenly don’t qualify because the authority wasn’t on the earth?

And perhaps the question most of us have related to at one point or another in our lifetime, “If God is truly so loving, how is this His perfect plan?”

It doesn’t make sense. Joseph knew that God is perfect and just and fair and loving, but for a long time, Joseph was also operating under the assumption that God was going to let those who were unbaptized just suffer. How did Joseph reconcile this? Did he ever reconcile this or did he just hold on anyway?

Do you carry around anything that doesn’t seem congruent with a God who is perfect and just and fair and loving? Have you also had experiences with God and you have felt that He loves you and is leading you along here? Are you having a difficult time reconciling these two facts: that God is good but He also allows “xyz?”

I promise you two things. There is an answer, and there is also Christ’s atonement. Joseph was a prophet who received plenty of revelation, but God chose not to give that particular revelation for a while. Despite Joseph’s close relationship with God and despite his near constant influx of restored information, it took nine years for Joseph to learn that Alvin wasn’t going to be punished for dying before Joseph received the proper authority to baptize.

Take a page out of Joseph’s book. We don’t know everything yet. Is it really so implausible that God knows what He’s doing, that He has a plan that will take care of everything that you’re worried about? This isn’t said to negate any pain that you’re feeling trying to deal with this. Rather, it’s meant to give you hope in the midst of it. There is an answer and beyond that, there is the atonement of Jesus Christ. I don’t know why Joseph had to wait 9 years to learn about Alvin. You would think that Christ could have slipped that in at some point, but Joseph waited.

And Joseph was blessed. God is perfect and is handling everything beautifully. Beyond just a perfect answer, Christ suffered deeply so that He can carry us through the pain while we wait for those answers.

There are answers. If you hold on and rely upon the atonement of Jesus Christ and all of His adjacent promises, you will find answers and you will find joy. Not to mention, everything you’re experienced shall be for your good. The difficulty you’re wading through will transform you into exactly what you were meant to become.

I testify that God has a perfect plan. I testify that He truly is loving and perfect and fair and just. I testify that He is good and is handling everything beautifully. You don’t have to carry this. He’s got this. I also testify that beyond having a perfect plan, Christ paid for the plan and suffered what you suffer so He can run to you and comfort you.

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 137–138 – Part 2 – Autumn Dickson appeared first on FAIR.