Priesthood vs. Priestcraft

2 Nephi 26:23 states, “The Lord God worketh not in darkness.” Verse 24 continues, “He doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world, for he loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him. Wherefore, He commandeth none that they shall not partake of his salvation.”

Verses 25-28 expound on this same idea. By contrast, verse 29 talks of “Priestcraft”, prefacing the discussion with a direct statement that “He commandeth that there shall be no priestcrafts.” Continuing, the term is defined: “For behold, priestcrafts are that men preach and set themselves up for a light unto the world, that they may get gain and praise of the world; but they seek not the welfare of Zion.”

Verses 30 and 31 conclude this line of reasoning: “Behold, the Lord hath forbidden this thing; wherefore, the Lord God hath given a commandment that all men should have charity, which charity is love. And except they should have charity they were nothing. Wherefore, if they should have charity they would not suffer the laborer in Zion to perish. But the laborer in Zion shall labor for Zion; for if they labor for money they shall perish.”

The word “priestcraft” seems like an opposing form of “Priesthood”. But if Priesthood is the authority of God, how are these two terms related?

One can consider the word “Priesthood” in connection with its suffix, particularly when considering other words with this suffix such as, “sisterhood”, “brotherhood”, “neighborhood”, etc. What do these words have in common? The suffix “hood” can be understood to mean something like “The close association of”. So for instance, a “sisterhood” is a close association of sisters (or more commonly, women). A “brotherhood” is a close association of brothers (or men). A “neighborhood” is a close association of neighbors. Put this way, “Priesthood” is a close association of priests, similar to the kingdom of Priests as found in the scriptures (for instance, Revelation 1:6). But what are “priests”? 

The Bible Dictionary defines a Priest in the Old Testament times as follows, “The essential idea of a Hebrew priest was that of a mediator between his people and God by representing them officially in worship and sacrifice. By virtue of his office he was able to draw nigh to God, while they, because of their sins and infirmities, must needs stand afar off. The priest exercised his office mainly at the altar by offering the sacrifices and above all the incense (Num. 16:40; 18:2–3, 5, 7; Deut. 33:10) but also by teaching the people the law (Lev. 10:10, 11; Deut. 33:10; Mal. 2:7), by communicating to them the divine will (Num. 27:21), and by blessing them in the name of the Lord (Num. 6:22–27).”

Whether we are ordained as Priests in the Aaronic Priesthood or not, all Latter-day Saints are part of what Exodus 19:6 calls “A kingdom of priests and a holy nation”. As Latter-day Saints serve as a mediator between someone and God, they are serving in a priestly function. For instance, when a Latter-day Saint teaches, shares an impression, prays for, visits, ministers to, or blesses others in the name of the Lord, he or she serves in a priestly function.

To summarize, the idea of “Priesthood” could be understood as a close association of Latter-day Saints (or Christians) that serve others and each other in a priestly manner, building up the kingdom of God by serving as a mediator in imitation of and in the name of Jesus Christ. This is in sharp contrast to “priestcraft”, where individuals skillfully (implied by the word craft) build themselves up at the expense of others. They do not seek the welfare of Zion.

On Prophetic Foreknowledge

Some suppose that as we believe in prophets and prophecy, we therefore believe that prophets have clear, explicit future predictions and understandings. However, as we consider sacred history, ancient and modern, we are confronted with the contrary idea that as Latter-day Saints, we often possess no special access to the future, regardless of our righteousness. Even when we receive clear impressions or promptings indicating a course of action, rarely do we know at the time of the impression the reasons or consequences for following or not following. Our knowledge and perspective is inherently limited to those items which are most needful and pressing for us to know.

Let us briefly examine the role of prophets and limitations with regards to their clairvoyance. In the Bible Dictionary, we read

“The work of a Hebrew prophet was to act as God’s messenger and make known God’s will. The message was usually prefaced with the words ‘Thus saith Jehovah.’ He taught men about God’s character, showing the full meaning of His dealings with Israel in the past. It was therefore part of the prophetic office to preserve and edit the records of the nation’s history; and such historical books as Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings were known by the Jews as the former Prophets. It was also the prophet’s duty to denounce sin and foretell its punishment and to redress, so far as he could, both public and private wrongs. He was to be, above all, a preacher of righteousness. When the people had fallen away from a true faith in Jehovah, the prophets had to try to restore that faith and remove false views about the character of God and the nature of the divine requirement. In certain cases prophets predicted future events, such as the very important prophecies announcing the coming of Messiah’s kingdom; but as a rule a prophet was a forthteller rather than a foreteller.”

Thus, the biblical idea of a prophet as a forthteller rather than a foreteller suggests that prophets may lack specific knowledge of the future. Certainly predicting future events was at most a less significant part of the biblical prophetic office. This seems consistent with what we read throughout scripture. For instance, consider the timing of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Paul evidently believed that the return of Jesus was imminent, as implied in 1 Thessalonians and elsewhere. Similarly, early Latter-day Saints, including Joseph Smith, believed that the Second Coming was similarly imminent.

For instance, Joseph Smith taught in D&C 130:14-17: “I was once praying very earnestly to know the time of the coming of the Son of Man, when I heard a voice repeat the following: Joseph, my son, if thou livest until thou art eighty-five years old, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man; therefore let this suffice, and trouble me no more on this matter. I was left thus, without being able to decide whether this coming referred to the beginning of the millennium or to some previous appearing, or whether I should die and thus see his face. I believe the coming of the Son of Man will not be any sooner than that time.”

From the scriptural record in each Gospel account, it seems that the earliest Christians were surprised, even shocked by the death and also the resurrection of Jesus. The disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24, for instance, seemed befuddled by the entire situation. At the time, neither of those events seemed intuitive or predictable to these earliest Christians. Only in hindsight, after the resurrection, did they see Christ in the Old Testament.

More recently, in his opening message to General Conference in April 2020, President Russell M. Nelson stated, “Little did I know, when I promised you at the October 2019 general conference that this April conference would be “memorable” and “unforgettable,” that speaking to a visible congregation of fewer than 10 people would make this conference so memorable and unforgettable for me! Yet the knowledge that you are participating by electronic transmission, and the choir’s beautiful rendition of “It Is Well with My Soul,” bring great comfort to my soul.”

While perhaps not extremely explicit, it indicates that President Nelson had at least a limited knowledge of the future, and perhaps did not foresee the pandemic before it occurred. Yes, many church members point to the blessing of a “home-centered, church-supported” church that was taught and in some ways, implemented shortly prior to the pandemic. Latter-day Saints can be grateful for the providential blessings from God without insisting that prophets had perfect clairvoyance into the future. All that is necessary is for prophets to discern and follow the will of God. But understanding all of the future implications is neither necessary nor realistic, and that perspective neither diminishes the blessings of following prophetic counsel nor the power, love, majesty, and foresight of loving Heavenly Parents who work through limited mortals to accomplish their work.

Similarly, we could point to prophetic wrestlings with the Priesthood ban, particularly by David O. McKay, as well as explanations and prognostications provided by Bruce R. McConkie which, after the June 1978 revelation was received, he explicitly repudiated.

These and other examples highlight the limited nature of prophetic insight into specific future events. This principle can help Latter-day Saints better understand prophetic limitations while not discounting the blessings of following prophetic counsel. In other words, specific future foreknowledge is not necessary for prophetic direction to be inspired, and for individuals to be blessed by following prophetic counsel.

Training to Listen

"It takes training, focus and the ability to create silence in the soul to learn how to listen, whether to God or to a fellow human being." -Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

In my life, I find myself most at peace when I take time to try and calm down spiritually so I may listen to the still, small voice.  Proper preparation, time, and mindset can help heaven feel close.

The above quotation from Rabbi Sacks sets the sacred task as "To learn how to listen".  Listening is not just the simple act of paying attention, but requires preparation.  Sheer focus is not enough; training and developed ability are required.

But as in the above quotation from Rabbi Sacks, such listening requires a silence in the soul.  It takes time and planning to clear out the clutter in our lives and make some space for breathing, for peace, for divinity.  There is always one more chore to get done, one more box to check, one more distraction.  And yet, God invites and empowers us to take time apart from the business, from the constant hum about us, inviting us to draw near, to seek, and to find.

How might we learn how to listen to God?  How might we prepare, or develop this ability?  As in a previous quotation, Rabbi Sacks meaningfully counsels, "Listen deeply to those you love and who love you."

With regards to improving or developing our ability to listen, might I suggest that the answers are as close as they are numerous.  Each of us, often many times a day, has multiple interactions with others.  How engaged are we in listening?  When someone else's lips move as they deliver a message to us, are we receiving the message as it is being delivered, or do we find ourselves drifting away or shutting down?  Do we interrupt?  Do we strive to thoughtfully enter that person's head space to better understand not only what they are saying, but where they speak from?

I know I have mountains of work left to do to improve my listening skills, particularly when it comes to focusing on the present, on the here and now, and the person right in front of me.

And we may suppose that the fruit of such efforts is not necessarily improved memorization or rote recitation, but a deeper understanding of the depth of humanity, of the motivation, and of the divine imprint of goodness on those we strive to listen to more charitably and deliberately.

Reflections on D&C 19

D&C 19 is a beautiful section given to Martin Harris.

The first section, after a brief prelude, focuses on repentance and on punishments that befall those who do not repent, as in verses 5 and 15-19.

There is an interesting aside about the idea that God's name is eternal, so that eternal punishment is God's punishment. A reasonable extension is that eternal life is God's life.

The thrust of repentance is so that Martin Harris may more fully keep the commandments which he has received by the hand of God's servant Joseph Smith.

Verse 21 seems to be a pivot towards preaching, though it seems mid-stream.

The back half of this section seems to focus on several interrelated points such as:

1. Pray (see vs. 28 and 38)
2. Preach  (see 21, 29-31)
3. Seek the Lord (see 23-24,
4. Humility (see 23, 30, 41)
5. Sacrifice (see 25-27, 34-37)

The Lord is encouraging Martin to willingly sacrifice his property for the publication of the Book of Mormon, and to look forward to service, to preaching, in a spirit of prayer and humility, rejoicing in the great promises such as verse 38.

Considering Martin's wealth, age, and past history with the plates, it is understandable that the Lord saw fit to focus on humility.

This is wise counsel to all of us. How am I building the kingdom of God? What am I sacrificing? With increasing wealth, how humble am I? Do I remember to pray fervently to the Lord? Do I look forward to preaching and sharing the Gospel?

Reflections on Jonah

Jonah is commanded by the Lord to go to Ninevah and cry against it as its wickedness had come up to God

The text indicates and even emphasizes that Jonah flees to Tarshish "from the presence of the Lord".

The Lord sends a big storm which jeopardized the ship. While the sailors reacted by fervently praying to their gods, Jonah slept.

Being woken up, Jonah is encouraged to pray to his god, though it appears he does not. The crew cast lots to determine who is responsible, and the lot falls on Jonah. As they ask Jonah more about his God and his background, they realize the power of the God of Israel, and were afraid that Jonah would flee from such a powerful god. Asking Jonah what to do, he replied to throw him into the sea, which they ended up doing, in fear and trembling. The men even offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows after Jonah was cast overboard.

Jonah is of course consumed by the sea creature, where he becomes more humble, quoting various psalms.

The Lord forgives Jonah and he is cast out of the fish, and goes to Ninevah to preach. Unfortunately for Jonah, the people repent. This actually makes him upset. He was prophesying destruction and doom and gloom on them, not mercy and blessings of repentance.
 So when they repent, he struggles.

To teach him a lesson, the Lord provides a shelter from the hot sun with a vine that grows on it. When the vine withers and dies, Jonah feels great sorrow and sadness for it. The Lord chastens Jonah for feelign sorry for a vine dying, when the city of Ninevah has thousands of his children.

This book has a couple of odd stories which seem almost smashed together. Each could be read separately, but they also work together. Sometimes, we are afraid of what God is asking of us, or we may even disagree with the direction that we are receiving. We may want to ignore it or move away.

Sometimes we are confronted with the idea that those who do not worship or live as we do in many ways are more admirable and respectable to God than we are, particularly if (when?) we are prideful, hypocritical, arrogant, stand-offish, or self-righteous.

This can be humbling, and is a call to repentance of a sort.

At other times, we may see that those things that we value, that we treasure, either by our money or our time or our thoughts, are really of very little significance. Sometimes we find that we neglect or even refuse the seek the welfare of those who are most in need of our friendship, our fellowship, our blessing, our attention, our message, our love, our time.

Sometimes we struggle when things do not turn out according to our plans, to how we see the world. Hopefully we are humble enough to realize that we are not God, and that He has his plans, and we have ours.

Sometimes we may feel anger or a desire for vengeance or justice against someone or some organization that has harmed us or someone we car about, or has been complicit in harm. But God in this book invites Jonah (dove) to call the people of Ninevah to repentance, which they do. Jonah struggles with this, seemingly thinking that the Ninevahites should pay for what they've done. Jonah seems to demand justice most of all, and really struggles when God forgives instead of when he punishes. Do we struggle when we see God's judgments (or what appear to be God's judgments)? Are there those we strive to punish, and who we refuse to accept unless they are punished?

Reflections on Alma 2

At a surface level, Alma 2 is a chapter about a sizeable military conflict, effectively a civil war where Amlici and his followers, who want Amlici as king, anoint Amlici as the king and then go to war against the Nephites, who just recently had done away with the kingship and had a chief judge instead.

Both the Nephites and Amlicites have a organizational structure (captains and chief captains), and a variety of weapons.

At their first engagement, the Amlicites fought "with great strength", resulting in many Nephite casualties.

But the Lord strengthened the Nephites and they began to gain the upper hand, making the Amlicites flee.

That night, Nephite spies found that the Amlicites were teaming up with the Lamanites, greatly increasing the risks and costs of a military conflict.

The words of the Nephite spies were, "They are upon our brethren in that land; and they are fleeing....towards our city; and except we make haste they obtain possession of our city, and our fathers, and our wives, and our children be slain."

The next day, the Nephites were strengthened by the Lord after praying mightily to be delivered from the hands of their enemies.

Alma fought Amlici, the leader of the Amlicites and killed him.

Alma chased down the king of the Lamanites, who fled, though Alma and his guards fought with the king's guard.

Let me stop here and go back and revisit some aspects of this tale and suggest applications that may apply to us today.

1. Note that both the Nephites and the Amlicites had an organizational structure. Both had the same sorts of weapons. And both were fighting for causes they thought were just. What was the main difference that we read in this account? It was that God strengthened the Nephites. Consider yourself: how much different would my marriage be, would my family life be, would my profession or church service be, if God never strengthened me?  How would I struggle? What would I lack? In other words, I would like all of us to consider how God strengthens us today in each of those venues, and I'd encourage you ask yourself if there is something you can do today which will unlock greater spiritual power, a greater dose of God's help for you? Maybe there's a family member to forgive. Member there's a sin to be repented of. Maybe there's a sacrifice that needs to be made, or some time that we need to spend with our wives, or our kids, or with the Lord in prayer. Whatever it is, I'd encourage you to think about God's strengthening, how that has blessed you, how it blesses you today, and how it can bless you in the future.
2. This story records that the Nephites needed to pray mightily, powerfully in order to receive this strength from the Lord. Again, it wasn't enough that they were organized, or that they thought they were in the right, or that they had done their homework. They needed to pour out their hearts to God, to pray mightily. In the scriptures, wonderful miracles and visions and blessings are often preceded by someone pouring out their heart to God. When was the last time that you poured out your heart to God? When was the last time that one of your prayers could be considered mighty or powerful? When was the last time that, as the Primary song says, you felt heaven close around you as you prayed? If it has been a long time, consider this a suggestion, even an invitation, to make the time and the effort necessary to pray mightily, to pray powerfully to God. We all have the energy and the capacity to serve God with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength, and one way we show this is through fervent prayer.
3. Once Alma and the Nephites were strengthened, their troubles did not immediately stop. God did not magically transport the Lamanites and Amlicites back to their lands, nor did he make the weapons disappear. A war still had to be fought. Lives still had to be lost. A titanic struggle still ensued. Sometimes in the middle of a struggle we may not realize that God has strengthened us, but that does not mean that trials and difficulties go away. God's grace strengthens us to face them. Consider Nephi's account of their wanderings in the wilderness, when he recounts the great blessings that God has given them, "[T]hat while we did live upon raw ceat in the wilderness, our women did give plenty of suck for their children, and were strong, yea, even like unto the men; and they began to bear their journeyings without murmurings." The blessings that Nephi saw as miraculous was not that they had plenty of delicious food to eat. It was that their wives could provide plenty of milk for nursing infants. It was not that the women had no burdens, it was that they were strong. It wasn't even that they weren't complaining, it was that they began to bear their journeyings without murmurings. In other words, they murmured less. A cynic or skeptic could look at any one of these and discount that God had anything to do with it. Sometimes we can be a little skeptical or maybe even unbelieving about God working in our life. If you can't see God in your life, I'd invite you to step back and try to see things as Nephi did. Prayerfully and honestly look at how God is strengthening you or someone close to you. If we pray to ask God to show us His hand in our life, it is my conviction that God answers those prayers by opening eyes to see the blessings He gives us. Seeing a blessing like that is a great reason to be grateful and to rejoice.
4. Alma's struggle has effectively two parts: in one, he kills Amlici. In the other, he chases away the Lamanite king. The Lamanite king may return, and in fact did with a large army shortly after the Nephite victory. We can see that the problems we face are a little like Nephi's problems: some of them may go away, effectively be destroyed. When we have a difficulty or a challenge, this is how we want it to end. And some do end this way. Others, however, may only be able to be pushed away or fought away for a time, but they come again. So don't be discouraged if you find yourself struggling with something again and again. Sometimes the struggle that we live in requires fighting the same sorts of battles repeatedly, as the Nephites did. This is not a clear and obvious sign of failure. People doing everything that they can do may still struggle with something over and over again, perhaps throughout their entire life.

As we struggle, may we see that God is on our right hand and on our left, and that He has powers and resources and abilities that can strengthen and bless us as we fight our own battles, whether against physical health, mental illness, family challenges, employment difficulties, personal weaknesses, or many other obstacles or problems that get in the way, that act effectively as enemies to our progress, to our happiness, to our potential. God's grace is sufficient, meaning that He has enough. He doesn't run out!

Lynn G. Robbins on Mistakes

One way of understanding Mormonism is that it pertains to eternal progression: growth that is on-going and everlasting and never stopping. It is difficult to conceive of this idea of eternal progression that pertains to us mortals that does not involve lots of mistakes. How do we deal with these? How should we feel about mistakes?

Elder Robbins helpful talk can present a useful paradigm towards those that believe in a Gospel of perfectionism, the idea that God expects me today to be completely perfect (as I understand it) in every area of my life. There is no room for mistakes, for slip-ups, for sins, for weakness. I need to be perfect. That's what God expects of me.

The ideas in this talk, however, while not downplaying the great expectations and long-term perspective of our eternal growth and exaltation, point to the not just inevitability of mistakes, but the idea that this is part of God's plan.

One implication is that these ideas, if embraced, help to remove shame and guilt associated with mistakes, with slip-ups. It helps put our weaknesses and short-comings in the proper perspective, and realize that God does not expect us to avoid all mistakes from this time henceforth and forever.