Scott Woodward:
In the last few years the finances of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have been in the media spotlight, and not always in positive ways. It’s no secret that the Church today has amassed an impressive financial reserve to ensure the accomplishment of its purposes. But it was not always so. There have been some narrow straits through which the church has had to pass to get where it is financially today. It’s quite compelling history, actually, which is why we wanted to dedicate a whole series to exploring this fascinating and important topic. In today’s episode of Church History Matters, Casey and I go back to the beginning of church finances to explore the undergirding principles in the original revelations that have gotten us to where we are today. And among them all, there is one particular principle that looms larger and is more responsible for the church’s financial success than any of the others, and that is consecration, a law shrouded with some degree of mystery and confusion in the minds of some. So in this episode, we want to at least begin dissecting what this law is and what it isn’t. So thanks for joining us. I’m Scott Woodward, a managing director at Scripture Central, and my co-host is Casey Griffiths, also a managing director at Scripture Central, and today, Casey and I dive into our first episode in this series about consecration and church finance. Now let’s get into it.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Hello, Scott.

Scott Woodward:
Hi, Casey. What’s going on, my friend?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Not much, just general excitement to talk about our subject. We’re starting a new series today.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. You always seem pretty excited for whatever we’re going to talk about. I get the sense that you’re a fan of church history, Casey.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And you as well, Scott, hence this podcast that we invest so much time and effort into. I don’t think we’d be doing this if we didn’t think this stuff was kind of fun or interesting or neat or anything like that.

Scott Woodward:
I think we think it’s neat, and we also think it’s important.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
So, yeah, this is fun.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But I’m up on a new level today because this is something I’ve wanted to talk about since we started doing the podcast.

Scott Woodward:
Oh, a new level of excitement.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Oh, if that’s possible. You know, I’m already super excited, but . . .

Scott Woodward:
Yes.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
What we’re going to start our new series on—the tentative title of the series is consecration and church finance, which I like to talk about, and in my classes, you know—maybe it’s because the university I teach at has big accounting and finance programs, but they’re excited to talk about it when it comes up, and I think it’s also—is it fair to say that church finance has become kind of controversial in the last few years, that there’s been a few things?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. This has become kind of a hot topic. You’re hearing more and more about church finance, and I’ve noticed more and more members of the church having more and more questions about this, and so I think this is timely. I think this is a great time to do a series on church finance. Absolutely.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And the reason why we titled it Consecration and Church Finance is because it’s really difficult to understand the current finances of the church and the way the church operates without understanding the history behind how the church developed.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The church was always a frontier church. The church was always more than a “go to church on Sunday” kind of church. They were involved in a lot of things and a lot of financial ventures.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And in order to understand why the church is so involved in those things, we kind of have to understand the law of consecration and how it’s been practiced throughout the history of the church as well.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. So it sounds like maybe we should start there. Let’s start with the Law of Consecration, because that was the very first financial commandment ever given to the church, correct?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, I mean, outside of general “remember the poor, and look after them” kind of commandments from the Lord, which are found through all the scriptures, you know? That’s one of the reasons why Christianity appeals to me is there’s this thread throughout the scriptures that the Lord was always kind of looking out for people that were on the fringes, people that were struggling, the widows and the fatherless in the Old Testament. And since the church is very, very much centered around the Bible and early church members are very involved in the Bible, we would be surprised if they didn’t pick up on some of these threads.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. So maybe we can call this the first really clear financial commandment to members of the church, like, to live as a whole.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Specifically given to the church outside the general principles of common Christian goodness and helping out the poor. But this is like, here’s how we raise money for church needs and to take care of the poor.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That’s fair to say. That’s fair to say.

Scott Woodward:
But Casey, do we still live the law of consecration today? I mean, is this even something that members of the church today need to be concerned about? Because didn’t that, like, go away, like, a long time ago? What’s the deal with consecration? Why is it relevant?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
What’s the deal with consecration? Well, Scott, I suspect you know the answer to that. You’re just . . .

Scott Woodward:
Stirring the pot a little bit. Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Stirring the pot a little bit. And, yeah, I mean, when it comes to do we still live the law of consecration, I mean, the obvious thing to point out is that if a person goes to the temple and goes through the endowment, one of the five covenants a person commits to live is the law of consecration. And so it drives me crazy when people say, “Well, we used to live the law of consecration, but it was too hard, so the Lord gave us a lesser law, but someday we’ll live it.” Because another covenant we make in the temple is the law of chastity. What if somebody said, “We used to live the law of chastity, but it was too hard, so the Lord gave us a lesser law. But someday, you know, we’ll get there. But it’s just not realistic right now for us to do that.” I don’t think there’s ever been a period in the history of the church when we’ve really backed off on consecration. It’s a thread that goes all the way through from the very early periods of the Restoration right down to the present, and like we said, it’s something that has to be understood in order to understand church finance.

Scott Woodward:
So the law of consecration isn’t just something in our church history, in the past, nor something to look forward to in the future maybe when we can get our act together and Jesus comes again, but this is something that from the very beginning has been there, never gone away, we’re still commanded to live it, and we expect to continue to live it for forever, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
But that confuses people, because we don’t always—I mean, some of the ways that church history stories are told about how consecration worked, like, doesn’t look anything like what we do today, so how could this be true? How could we still have to live the law of consecration? Are we going to talk about that?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I think so. And part of the misunderstanding is we obviously don’t live consecration the way they did in the early Restoration, but we don’t really do anything the way they did in the early Restoration except read the scriptures and pray. I mean, missionary work is totally different. The temple ceremonies—when the endowment was originally introduced in Nauvoo it was eight hours long, according to one source. Now we’ve got it down to two. And one thing to understand about the way the church operates is that practice is different than the principles that it’s based on. So how they lived consecration and the early Restoration is not the same. I mean, they didn’t have printed money. The government minted coins in the 1830s, but it didn’t print actual dollar bills, so obviously they’re on a different kind of financial system than us, and so we would expect that today we do things a little bit differently than they do. So I would argue that the doctrines and the principles of consecration have never been rescinded.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The practice, though, has changed quite a bit.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And if you trace it through the entire history of the Church, you could see that every era of church history has had some iteration of consecration, some more intense than others, but it’s something that we’ve never entirely given up on.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The best way to think of consecration, instead of thinking of the practice the way that the saints practiced it in 1831, is to think of it as this series of doctrines and principles that guide what our actions are supposed to be. But the way consecration was practiced in Kirtland in 1831 or in 1838 in Missouri, or in the 1870s in Utah, doesn’t necessarily represent the way it’s going to be practiced today, where we’re a global church operating with a whole different system of finance, if that makes sense.

Scott Woodward:
I think that’s super important and helpful to point out, right? It’s—there’s these undergirding principles of consecration, undergirding doctrine about consecration, that are not going away, never gone away, but the way that it looks, the forms, the systems, those have changed quite a bit since Joseph Smith’s day, and we may continue to see them change.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And I expect there to be major changes in the future, moving forward, because circumstances change. And, I mean, the way that the church operates has always been kind of nimble when it comes to embracing new technology or new methodology. We’ve kind of always embraced change, and that’s part of it, too. This is a quote from Boyd K. Packer I share in my classes. He said, “Changes in organization or procedures are a testimony that revelation is ongoing. The doctrines will remain fixed, eternal. The organizations, programs, and procedures will be altered by Him whose church this is.” So the doctrines remain fixed.

Scott Woodward:
Organizations, programs, procedures, those are changeable.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, so so long, Boy Scouts, and here comes our new youth program.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
We would expect the same kind of dynamic approach to the way the church does its finances with the understanding that there are some laws, principles, and doctrines that are fixed, that don’t change.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But our understanding of those can alter and evolve as well. So let’s dive into the history a little bit. Like we said, Joseph Smith and the early members of the church are all familiar with the Bible. They know that the Lord wants them to take care of the poor and look after the needy, and “inasmuch as you’ve done it unto the least of these, my brethren, you’ve done it unto me,” but the thing that they’re also searching for is kind of a system, a systematized approach to this, a guideline way to do it. And what kind of leads them down this road towards wanting to live in a consecrated manner?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. I think we need to start way back in 1830, same year the church is organized. In the aftermath of the Lamanite mission in Ohio on their way to the Native Americans out on the outskirts of the United States and across the border there, they stopped in Kirtland, Ohio. There was massive conversions there. Maybe we need to do a whole series on just the Lamanite mission or missionary work in the church at some point, because there’s so much history here, but the upshot is there was this really important convert named Sidney Rigdon that joins the church in Kirtland. The church in Kirtland begins to swell and grow. Meanwhile, Sidney wants to meet Joseph Smith, and so he travels to New York, meets Joseph Smith, and shortly after they meet Doctrine and Covenants 35 is given, where the Lord basically connects Joseph and Sidney at the hip. He tells Sidney, among other things, that he should become Joseph’s scribe for the Bible translation project that Joseph was then beginning, kind of in the early stages of the JST. And so Sidney Rigdon becomes his scribe, stays in New York with Joseph for a few months, and shortly after they begin work together the Enoch revelation is given.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Ooh. The Enoch revelation. That sounds either inspirational or ominous. I can’t decide, but tell us a little bit about the Enoch revelation, what that was.

Scott Woodward:
The Enoch revelation. Yes. It’s actually so significant and foundational to the Restoration. It doesn’t get enough love, honestly. It sets things in motion in such a way as to really get us to where we’re at today in so many ways. So the Enoch revelation’s really Moses chapter 6 and 7 today in our Pearl of Great Price, and it adds 116 verses of detail to the Enoch story. It’s where we learn about the city of Enoch, that he established a city of holiness that was called Zion. It’s where we get the famous verse in chapter 7, verse 18, where the Lord called his people Zion because of four markers. Here they are: number one, they were of one heart. Number two, one mind. Number three, they dwelt in righteousness. Number four, there was no poor among them. And those four cornerstones of the Zion community are super significant, and they become very impactful moving forward here. The people of the city become so righteous, we learn, that they eventually walk with God, God comes and dwells in the midst of Zion, and then eventually God receives the entire city of Zion up unto himself. They’re literally taken up into heaven, the account says. They are preserved to return to this earth together with the Lord during the Second Coming at the beginning of his millennial reign. So, like, big business here.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right.

Scott Woodward:
And the way this impacts church history is that right after, okay, right after the Enoch revelation is given, the Lord tells Joseph and Sidney in D&C 37, okay, stop the translation project. Tell the New York Saints to gather to the Ohio. When Joseph makes that announcement, January 1831, the New York Saints—I can imagine them kind of blinking a little bit, looking at each other side-eyed, and then some brave soul raises their hand and says, Brother Joseph, could you tell us why we need to uproot from New York and move to Ohio? And Joseph says something like, I’m actually not sure. And then he actually prays right there in that conference, and John Whitmer gives us the account here, and he says that Joseph, right in front of everybody, asked the Lord, why do you want us to move to the Ohio? And that’s how we get Doctrine and Covenants 38 received right in front of the congregation there, wherein the Lord explains that he, and he calls himself the God of Enoch. The God of Enoch is asking you to move to the Ohio for a few reasons, among which, he outlines, are to help you increase in righteousness, help you become one, and help you to learn how to eliminate poverty from among you. It’s like, okay, I see what he’s doing here, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right.

Scott Woodward:
The God of Enoch, in the immediate aftermath of the Enoch revelation, seeing a picture of the kind of ideal society, one heart, one mind, dwelling in righteousness, no poor among them, the Lord immediately pumps the brakes on the JST and says, all right. Okay, team, you had the vision? All right, now move to the Ohio, where we’re going to teach you how to do this. His exact words were, “If you will go to the Ohio, there I will give unto you my law, and I will endow you with power from on high.” That’s the promise that he gives them: I will give unto you my law, and there you shall be endowed with power from on high. This law, we find out later, has everything to do with learning how to become a Zion people. So what Joseph and Sidney first learn about there in the Enoch revelation about how God, through Enoch, gathered a people out from among the wicked to one city, where the Lord eventually came and dwelt among them because of how they lived, we start to see that God wants to bring that pattern back and implement it in the latter days. The God of Enoch, he announces in D&C 38, is now calling this little group of saints to gather out from among their enemies, he says, to learn how to live his law so that they can qualify for the King of Zion to come and dwell among them. Like, history is repeating itself here, right? And that’s the impetus for why the saints in New York gather to the Ohio. And then once they get to the Ohio, the Lord is very quick in fulfilling His promise to give them the law. And that’s where we find the law of consecration.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Nice setup. You teed us up here. The Law of Consecration is sort of spread throughout the entire Doctrine and Covenants. However, if you wanted, like, a quick primer on it, section 42 is where you’re going to go to.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And that—section 38, you laid it out perfectly. Section 37 is so short.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It’s just a couple verses that says, gather to the Ohio.

Scott Woodward:
No explanation.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. No explanation. Just do it. Then section 38 is much longer, and it kind of has these two things: if you go to the Ohio, you’ll receive my law, and I will give you an endowment with power, which, again, shows that this idea of a temple and consecration are linked to each other intrinsically from the beginning.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, and I always ask my students to look in D&C 42, which is the law that was received, look in D&C 42 through the lens of Moses 7:18. One heart, one mind, dwelling in righteousness and eliminating poverty. See if you look through those lenses, what do you see in D&C 42? And it’s remarkable how much of this pops, what the Lord is trying to do is all of those things.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Right? He teaches them the laws of morality in verses, like, 18 to 29, and then he teaches them the laws of consecration of property in verses 30 to 39. Like, how do you eliminate poverty? Let me tell you, right? Other laws of personal conduct related to consecration in the subsequent verses. But D&C 42, when seen in light of the Enoch revelation, takes on whole new life. And it’s actually pretty powerful to see what these laws are calculated to do. But we want to focus in on the law of consecration specifically, but I just wanted to paint that bigger context of, like, God’s trying to help create a new, like, type of Enoch community that is ready, a group of people ready for the Messiah to come and rule and reign in their midst in the Millennium, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right. And this plays into larger concepts like the city of Zion, which is also very, very linked to the law of consecration, too. Let me paint a little more context as well.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The missionaries are so successful in Kirtland, Ohio, that after about two months there’s more members of the church there than there is back in all the branches in New York and Pennsylvania. So this is also a smart move. Let’s get everybody together.

Scott Woodward:
Isn’t it, like, three to one?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Something like that.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. It’s, like, 300 in Kirtland to 100 in New York or something like that.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, so this is a smart move generally, just to bring the strength together. The other thing is the members of the church in Kirtland also have some great resources. The main store in Kirtland, Ohio, which is still there today, it’s a church historic site, is the Newell K. Whitney store. Newell K. and Ann Whitney, Elizabeth Ann Whitney, his wife, were early converts to the church. And Joseph Smith immediately obeys the commandment, starts preparing to move his family to Kirtland. There’s this classic story where Newell K. Whitney’s working in his store. He said that a sleigh pulled up and a man jumped out and walked in and said, “Newell K. Whitney, thou art the man.” And Newell K. Whitney—this is all according to Ann Whitney, she’s the one that tells the story—said, “Sir, you have the advantage of me. I could not call you by name as you have me.” And the man says, “I am Joseph the prophet. You prayed me here. Now, what would you have with me?”

Scott Woodward:
So great.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
In the Kirtland community already, there’s a group of committed Christians who are already trying to live the law of consecration. Mark Staker’s done some great work that show that as early as 1829 there were already efforts in Kirtland to live some form of consecration. These people obviously weren’t inspired by the Restoration, they’re reading the Bible. They’re reading passages like Acts 5, where it said the disciples had all things in common. And when the missionaries come and bring the Book of Mormon, you’ve got passages like 4 Nephi, which says the disciples had all things in common, and they believe that this is the right way to go. But it seems like there was a ton of good intentions—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—and not a lot of good structure among the way they were living. In fact, a lot of the efforts to live consecration are linked to a man named Isaac Morley, one of the great men of the early church. Isaac and Lucy Morley, who—Isaac is this veteran of the War of 1812. He has a prosperous farm on the outskirts of Kirtland. And this is the way one non-Latter-day Saint history from the time describes it: they wrote, “Isaac Morley had contended that in order to restore the ancient order of things in the Church of Christ, it was necessary that there should be a community of goods among the brethren. And accordingly, a number of them removed to his house and farm and built houses and worked and lived together and composed what is here called the big family—”

Scott Woodward:
The big family.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
“—which at that time consisted of fifty or sixty old and young.” So the big family. And that seems to describe the extent that they tend to organize. Isaac Morley and Lucy Morley are just real generous, like, hey, come and live on our farm, and we’ll act as a family. But this sort of unstructured form of consecration causes major struggles.

Scott Woodward:
And they’re not the only ones trying to do a communal living type of a thing during this time, right? Like, there’s other groups that are out there, other—typically Christians. There’s a group of Shakers, there’s groups of people who, some of them are called the Owenites, following this guy named Robert Owen and his efforts to reform and to live communally in preparation for a millennial era. I mean, like, this stuff is kind of in the air, and Isaac Morley thinks it’s beautiful, and they’re trying to live it on his farm when the Book of Mormon shows up in Kirtland, Ohio.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Just down the road in Shaker Heights are the Shakers, who are living a form of communalism.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so it’s a thing that’s happening, but like we said, it seems like it was troubled. For instance, when the New York members of the church start to show up, they’re not too keen on this idea. John Whitmer, who later is appointed as the church historian, described it this way in his history: he said, “The disciples had all things in common and were going to destruction very fast as to temporal things, therefore they would take each other’s clothes and other property and use it without leave, which brought on confusion. And so it’s not structured, right? And . . .

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, there’s that story of Levi Hancock in the winter of 1831. He comes to Kirtland with the saints, and he says, “While I was in the room at Father Morley’s, as we called him, Herman Bassett came to me and took my watch out of my pocket, and he walked off as though it was his. I thought he would bring it back soon, but I was disappointed, as he sold it. I asked him what he meant by selling my watch. ‘Oh,’ said he, ‘I thought it was all in the family.’ I told him I did not like such family doings, and I would not bear it.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Man, and it’s on point that years later he’s naming the person by name and saying, this guy, Heman Bassett, he’s the worst.

Scott Woodward:
The worst.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I mean, the example I use is when my roommates and I first came to BYU in the fall of 1996. We tried to live the Law of Consecration. We were like, hey, we’re all good people. So, you, if you want to drink my milk, drink my milk. If you want to eat my ramen, eat my ramen.

Scott Woodward:
Mi ramen es su ramen.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, that broke down after about a week. Because, you know, you have that one roommate that stays home and never goes to class, and they’re eating all the ramen. And you have another roommate who never pitches in when you’re buying food. And I remember after just a couple days, someone had labeled their milk, and thinking, man, we couldn’t even make it two weeks living the Law of Consecration, but it was because we misunderstood what consecration was to begin with, and we had no structure.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So when Joseph arrives in Kirtland, he receives Section 42, which provides structure to the Law of Consecration. So let’s take your good intentions, and now let’s come up with a system to sort of channel those good intentions in a way that’s fair and equitable for everybody that’s involved. And so Joseph gets Section 42, which the early saints called the Law. And at the heart of the law is the law of consecration.

Scott Woodward:
And Joseph says in his history, “The plan of common stock, which had existed in what was called the family, whose members generally had embraced the everlasting gospel, was readily abandoned for the more perfect law of the Lord.” Like you’re saying, the structure of D&C 42, particularly as it has to do with consecration of property, super helpful.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And they readily abandoned their non-structural mess on the Morley farm for this “more perfect law of the Lord,” as Joseph says.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And the law in section 42 really is a series of laws. The earliest manuscripts of the Revelation show that they were asking questions. So they’re asking questions like, hey, should we all gather here right now? Or what should we teach? Or what are the laws of the church? And then they do ask about consecration. So the law of consecration in section 42 is basically verses . . . Start around verse 30, and it goes up to about verse 42. And this is, again, kind of the basics of consecration. They’re going to have more principles put upon them, but you can argue that in these twelve verses the basic principles of consecration that we still follow today are contained therein.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And if that’s the law, then the heart of the law is verse 30, which says this: it says, “Behold, thou shalt consecrate all thy properties, that which thou hast, unto me, with a covenant and a deed which cannot be broken, and they shall be laid before the bishop of the church.”

Scott Woodward:
That’s not what my verse 30 says.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I’m reading the early, earliest version of the revelation. So, let me—let me actually—I was about—I was about to talk about this. Scott thought I was revising the Doctrine and Covenants.

Scott Woodward:
I was like, Casey, what are you—what version do you have? Okay. I was trying to follow along.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Well, and you are great at, like, picking out little words and things, too, and so let me explain, all right? The earliest manuscripts of section 42, the wording is, “Thou shalt consecrate all thy properties, that which thou hast, unto me with a covenant deed which cannot be broken,” and the inclusion of the word “all” sort of leads you to believe that every single item of property possessed by an individual would be submitted to priests and leaders. Now, in 1835, when the Doctrine and Covenants was published, they clarified this so that instead of “consecrate all thy properties,” it’s “consecrate of thy properties.”

Scott Woodward:
Oh. Okay. So now it says—let me read what it says now. Now it says, “Behold, thou wilt remember the poor and consecrate of thy properties for their support, that which thou hast to impart unto them with a covenant and a deed which cannot be broken.” Okay, so yeah, “of thy properties” rather than “all thy property.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Big difference between the two, right? And I think you could argue that they both say the same thing.

Scott Woodward:
Sure.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But there’s a little bit more flexibility. And this just kind of shows, I mean, this is how the sausage is made, right? They go through and publish this version, this is what the earliest revelation says and what the Book of Commandments says also, but then in 1835 they clarify “of,” which allows a little bit more mental flexibility.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The connotation here is that consecration denotes a sacrifice of resources to benefit the poor.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But leads away from a completely communal interpretation of the law, which would require all property to be given to the church.

Scott Woodward:
Which would be very easy for them to misinterpret given the spirit of the times with communal living happening, you know, in various places throughout the U. S. and then even right there in Ohio.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. So this isn’t kind of a, “Hey, we’re just going to throw everything into a common collection and anybody can take anything they want,” but it’s also more intense than just a, “Hey, generally be kind to the poor and share with them when you can.” It says that there’s going to be a covenant and a deed that a person enters into. It’s going to be structured.

Scott Woodward:
And that covenant and a deed is, like, really strong. It’s a legally binding deed, right? You’re actually legally giving your property to the church.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
They would write these out, right? There’s examples we can see of—there’s, like, forms they would fill out to consecrate, right? Kind of fill-in-the-blank forms, you know, “Be it known that I,” fill in your name, “hereby consecrate of my property the following items to the bishop of the church,” da da da da, and then they would list their items, and this was, like, a legal deed that basically made it so that they no longer owned that property, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And that’s—well, it’s complicated. Let me offer a couple of clarifications.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The next verse says, “Inasmuch as ye impart of your substance unto the poor, ye will do it unto me, and they shall be laid before the bishop of my church and his counselors. Two of the elders are high priests, such as ye shall appoint, or has appointed, or set apart for that purpose.” So you did go to the bishop, and on these early forms that we can see you would consecrate what you had to the bishop. So the way these forms look is, I’ve got Levi Jackman, so you just brought him up, but I’ve got Levi Jackman’s form of consecration before me.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And the form has certain parts that are—

Scott Woodward:
You actually have his form in front of you, right there?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I’m looking at it right now.

Scott Woodward:
Holy smoke.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
“Be it known that I, Levi Jackman of Jackson County, State of Missouri, having become a member of the Church of Christ organized according to the law established by the revelations of the Lord, on the sixth day of April 1830 do, of my own free will and accord, having first paid my just debts, grant and hereby give unto Edward Partridge,” Edward Partridge is the first bishop of the church. He’s actually called in section 41, the revelation right before the law is given. “Said church the following described property,” and then it’s not going to take long to read Levi Jackman’s property.

Scott Woodward:
Why is that?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Because he wrote—this is where the printed form ends, and then Levi’s own writing: “Sundry articles of furniture valued at 37 dollars, and also two beds, bedding and feathers valued at 44 dollars and 50 cents, and also three axes and other tools valued at 11 dollars and 25 cents,” and that is the end of the list for Levi Jackman. So this guy doesn’t have a ton of stuff, right?

Scott Woodward:
Not much.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But to his credit, he consecrates all that he has to the church. And at that point, once the bishop had basically made a catalog of what you were consecrating, they would be given a stewardship. So now go down, in section 42, to verse 32, and he says, “Every man shall be made accountable unto me, a steward over his own property, or that which he has received by consecration as much as is sufficient for himself and family.” And so there was private property under the law of consecration. It wasn’t like the big family, where Heman Bassett comes in and takes Levi’s watch and walks out. Once a person had been given a stewardship, they owned that stewardship. Person couldn’t come into your house and take your goods or materials, because it was your stewardship. You owned it, essentially.

Scott Woodward:
But wasn’t it more like a legal deed of lease rather than ownership? Because I think the church still owned the property.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And leased it back to you. It was, like, a legal deed of lease. As we look at those leases that we have, that we still have in our possession—I have Titus Billings’s here, for instance. This is the deed back: it says, “Be it known that I, Edward Partridge of Jackson County, State of Missouri, Bishop of the Church, organized according to the law, have leased and by these presents do lease unto Titus Billings of Jackson County and State of Missouri, a member of said church, the following described piece or parcel of land,” and then various sundry articles of personal property that Titus Billings had just consecrated to the church. The language of the deed back is that he has leased it and that he has loaned the following described property. So actually the church continues to own the property, but it has been given to you as—the language of the revelation is, as a stewardship, which we would say today in legalese, a lease or a loan of land and property. So this is a pretty faith-demanding exercise, to legally deed all of your property to the church and then receive it back through a lease or a loan. In addition to more property, typically speaking—like, Titus Billings here deeds a bunch of property to the church, and then he receives all that property back as a loan, plus 32 acres of land. So he actually comes out on top on this deal because he gets 27 acres of land back, that he did not consecrate, as a lease. And so that spells a very strong faith-based exchange between church member and the bishop in terms of consecrating your property. So you’re actually relinquishing your legal right to the property, which might sound like holy cow, but today the same thing happens as we pay tithing or give anything else to the church. Like, once you give it, once you donate it, it’s no longer yours. You can’t get it back. You know, you can’t say, “Uh, actually, I changed my mind.” You know. Like, you are legally giving your property away. When you understand it in that light, like, this requires real faith. It would actually purify the heart deeply.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
At the same time, too, I would emphasize it wasn’t as loosey goosey as the big family appears to have been.

Scott Woodward:
Not at all, yeah. It was very legal and structured.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
A stewardship was treated as private property, even if it was an official lease from the church. You couldn’t have someone come up and just take your horse, if it was part of your stewardship, because you were the steward over that.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And it was your job to work it out. And the text of the revelation actually does basically say that there was a little give and take. For instance, go down to verse 33: “If there shall be properties in the hands of the church, or any individuals of it, more than is necessary for their support, after their first consecration, which is a residue to be consecrated unto the bishop, it shall be kept to administer to those who have not, from time to time, that every man who has need may be amply supplied and receive according to his wants.” And so this seems to suggest that the basic aim of the consecration was to meet needs, that you would take care of a person’s basic needs. Let’s make sure everybody’s got food, clothing, shelter. Let’s make sure that nobody’s starving to death. But at the end of that, he also says, if there’s residue left over, we can take care of a person’s wants, which seems to suggest that it’s not just about bare-level subsistence either: that if everybody’s taken care of, then we can reassess, and sort of say, hey, we have all your needs taken care of, now what do you want? And from that, we could deal with that.

Scott Woodward:
I like the phrase there in verse 33, “that every man who has need may be amply supplied.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Right? This is a law of abundance, not a law of scarcity.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Right? This isn’t people standing in long lines, waiting for watered down soup, right? This is, if everyone lives this and consecrates, then everyone’s needs are going to be amply supplied and will also be able to receive according to his wants, which may mean things that you want. It could also mean things that you lack, depending on how that word is used, but the point is amply supplied, not barely supplied, not scarcely supplied. Like, this is a law of abundance.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Correct. Correct. And the documents we have suggest there was a high degree of sensitivity as to a person’s needs. For instance, this is a letter Joseph Smith wrote to Bishop Partridge. Edward Partridge, the first bishop, is going to administer this in Kirtland. Joseph wrote, “The matter of consecration must be done by the mutual consent of both parties.” So it wasn’t the bishop saying, this is how it’s going to be, buddy. The bishop worked to achieve mutual consent. He says, “For to give the bishop power to say how much every man shall have, and he be obliged to comply with the bishop’s judgment, is giving the bishop more power than a king has. And upon the other hand, to let every man say how much he needs, and the bishop be obliged to comply with his judgment, is to throw Zion into confusion and make a slave of the bishop. The fact is there must be a balance or equilibrium of power between the bishop and the people, and thus harmony and goodwill may be preserved among you.” So his advice to Bishop Partridge is to say mutual consent, balance or equilibrium of power.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It wasn’t a one size fits all, “you have a family of four, so you get this much stuff” kind of situation. Bishop Partridge had to put in a ton of work to find out what the different needs and wants were of each family and then figure out how to move forward from there.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, that’s huge. Agency must prevail on both sides. And if we pick it up in verse 34, we start to see a nice summary of the principles of consecration here. I see three or four principles here. Verse 34 says this: “Therefore the residue,” or, you know, what’s left over of your surplus, “shall be kept in my storehouse to administer to the poor and the needy.” Okay? There’s point number one, principle number one of the law of consecration, to administer to the poor and the needy, “as shall be appointed by the high council of the church and the bishop and his council.” Verse 35: “And for the purpose of purchasing lands for the public benefit of the church,” that’d be purpose number two, “and building houses of worship,” number three, “and building up the new Jerusalem, which is hereafter to be revealed,” number four, “that my covenant people may be gathered in one in that day when I shall come to my temple, and this I do for the salvation of my people.” Wow. So there you go. A few purposes, right? Maybe we could consolidate on number two and three, but to say the purpose number one was to take care of the poor and eliminate poverty. Number two, purchase lands, build houses of worship, and to build up the new Jerusalem for God’s people to gather. And then another one we could go grab in verses 71-73 talks about that these funds can also be used to support full-time general authorities and their families as needed. So Bishop Partridge would be a good example of a full-time general authority. Section 41 calls him to be a bishop full time and even explicitly asks him to leave his employ, to leave his career and become fully dedicated. Full-time general authority, right? How’s he supposed to take care of his family in full-time employ? So verses 71 through 73 also make allowance for general authorities of the church to be supported from that if need be. Those are kind of some principles and purposes behind the law of consecration of property here. Right? We need to take care of the physical needs of the poor, eliminate poverty. We also want to purchase property and grow the church and get houses of worship and land and eventually build up the New Jerusalem because the Enoch prophecy says, now we’re back to the Enoch prophecy, the Enoch prophecy says that the New Jerusalem will be built and the saints will be gathered to it, the elect will be gathered to the New Jerusalem, and then Christ will come down in their midst. And so that’s always on the back of mind now. Going forward, the Enoch prophecy is going to motivate a lot of what happens going forward, and the Lord is saying, yes, let’s bring that about. And these are some of the practical principles by which that prophecy will come to pass.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
I need you to consecrate. We need your property, and we need your heart.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And this is going to work if we can do it. One heart, one mind, working together, we can make this happen.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And let me point out a couple more principles that are found in the revelation here.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, please.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Verse 34, “the residue shall be kept in my storehouse.” So from the beginning there was going to be some kind of way to share goods to help people. This is still something we do, right?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, we still have a bishop’s storehouse, don’t we?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
We still have a bishop’s storehouse. Wherever we can build one, wherever we have sufficient membership and resources, we try and put a bishop’s storehouse so that if a member’s in trouble, they go to the Bishop’s storehouse. Now, again, how this has worked has evolved over time. Today an integral part of the process is a Relief Society President.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Generally the Relief Society president visits the individual or family and says, hey, what do you need? And if they’re in need, the Relief Society president fills out a form, it’s electronic now, sends it to the bishop, the bishop approves it, then the family goes to the storehouse and gets food. Another storehouse that we have is Deseret Industries, which you might not think of it that way, but a lot of the reason why the DI exists is so a family can go in and get a bed or a couch. Go shop. Get clothes if they need to.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Just to cite an example, a family moved into my ward. Relief Society president and I went over to see them, and they had a mattress and an Xbox.

Scott Woodward:
The essentials.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That was what they had. They were going through a divorce. There was some legal entanglements, but six kids, mattress, Xbox.

Scott Woodward:
Wow.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Within a couple days, we had beds for all the kids. We had a kitchen table. We had sofas. All that stuff came from the DI, and then their cupboards were full of food that came from the Bishop’s storehouse.

Scott Woodward:
Wow. That’s awesome.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Love that.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So a couple other principles: go down to verse 40, says, “Thou shalt not be proud in thy heart. Let all thy garments be plain and their beauty the beauty of the work of thine own hands. Let all things be done in cleanliness before me. Now this is, again, a place where there’s a principle. The practice is different. I’m not wearing a shirt that I made myself right now.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It’s from Costco. But he’s basically—he seems to be emphasizing here, you might not all be able to be rich. And that might be a provision, too, that you’re going to sacrifice financially for the greater good of the whole. You’re going to put the needs of the many ahead of the needs of the one, to quote Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. And then he also says, verse 42, “Thou shalt not be idle. He that is idle shall not eat the bread nor wear the garments of the laborer.” And so, an integral part of the program, too, is going to be work. If a person wants to receive welfare, we may ask for volunteer service. We may ask for them to help if they’re not laboring and they’re capable of doing so. There might be restrictions placed on how the laws live.

Scott Woodward:
So these are guiding principles which, as we began talking about at the beginning of this episode, continue to guide our efforts to eliminate poverty today, to help out the poor, also to buy property, to buy houses of worship, to build Zion, to support full-time general authorities or mission presidents or any full-time service that somebody is called out of their career—

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
—to accept a calling like that. If they need a stipend from the church, then these funds can also be accessed to help them out. Like, these principles still are exactly in place.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
The system looks different. Like, you continue to talk about the welfare, right? You keep saying welfare. Now, that wasn’t a term that Joseph Smith ever used, welfare.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
No.

Scott Woodward:
Not in that sense, right? So the systems are going to shift and change, as we mentioned. And yet the principles undergirding it all continue to abide, continue to be what drives every system that any president of the church has endorsed.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. The practice is different, but the principles can be applied widely. For instance, take a look at this quote from Thomas S. Monson. And boy, if there’s somebody that knows about church welfare and consecration, it was Thomas S. Monson, right? We’ll maybe get into his story a little bit, but he’s made a bishop when he’s 22 over a ward of a thousand people, a hundred widows.

Scott Woodward:
Wow.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
President Monson took the principle of a storehouse, and he said this: he said, “The Lord’s storehouse includes the time, talents, skills, compassion, consecrated material, and financial means of faithful church members. These resources are available to the bishop in assisting those in need. Our bishops have the responsibility to learn how to properly use these resources.” So President Monson is saying, hey, that building where we keep the food is the tip of the iceberg. The real storehouse is the resources that belong to church members who still consecrate what they have to God and can be called upon to help at any given moment.

Scott Woodward:
Love that.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so you’re assigned to minister to a family. One of my ministering families had a sick baby, and everybody else was sick. They called and said, can you get us some Pedialyte for the baby? I went to the store. I bought some Pedialyte. I dropped it off at their house. I didn’t ask for financial remuneration. I wouldn’t have accepted any if they’d given it to me. I’m the Lord’s storehouse right now, and that’s what they needed, and so I helped and took care of it, and I think most ministering brothers and sisters would have done the same.

Scott Woodward:
I love that. I have this from Wilford Woodruff, 1834. It’s in his handwriting, so I’m going to try to read this out. It says at the very top, “Clay County, Missouri, December 31st, 1834. Be it known that I, Wilford Woodruff, freely covenant with my God that I freely consecrate and dedicate myself, together with all my property and effects, unto the Lord, for the purpose of assisting in building up his kingdom, even Zion, on the earth, that I may keep his law and lay all things before the bishop of his church, that I may be a lawful heir to the kingdom of God, even the celestial kingdom.” That was Wilford Woodruff doing exactly, in 1834, what I just heard you tell me, Casey: that all that I have, all my property, anything that is needed, like, I freely consecrate it to building up the kingdom. Somebody needs me, you know, if the bishop has need of something from me, I hope he can know that he can count on me. I’d be happy to step up and help out, and that’s the undergirding principle here.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And the fact that that’s given in 1834, several years after the Law of Consecration was given, shows that this wasn’t a quick, flash-in-the-pan experiment that they abandoned really quickly. They were sincerely trying to live this during the entire Kirtland period, although there are bumps and ups and downs and problems along the way.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, which we’re going to talk about. We’ll get there.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
We’ll get there.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And so as these bumps and ups and downs come along the way, a couple other provisions are kind of put into place. For instance, person consecrates all that they have to the church, and then they’re given their stewardship back. What if a person no longer wants to participate in the law of consecration? D&C 51:5: “If he shall transgress and is not accounted worthy to belong to the church, he shall not have power to claim the portion which he has consecrated unto the bishop for the poor and needy of the church. Therefore, he shall not retain the gift, but only have claim on that portion which is deeded unto him.” So in practice, if a person chose to withdraw from consecration, church would hang on to what they consecrated, but the stewardship that was deeded to them, according to this verse, did remain in their hands.

Scott Woodward:
And that was your point earlier, right? That even though this is a lease and a loan, they could ultimately claim it as personal property—

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
—in this scenario.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
That’s important.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The example that gets used a lot to describe this is Leman Copley, and Leman’s a complicated guy, and I’m willing to go a little bit easier on Leman than I used to be—

Scott Woodward:
Okay.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—just because I went to Kirtland, and I talked to this dear man named Carl Ricks Anderson, who has done a lot of work on Leman Copley, and Carl and I had a big talk, and he said, hey, Leman’s not such a bad guy. Go easy on the guy. But the story is kind of dealt with in Doctrine and Covenants 54. So if you want to look in Doctrine and Covenants 54, I’ll give you the basics of the story. Church members had been commanded to gather to Ohio, and they gathered in groups. Branches traveled together. The Palmyra branch of the church was led by Lucy Mack Smith. The Fayette branch was led by David Whitmer. And then there’s the Colesville branch, which consists of the Knight family, some of Joseph’s earliest and most faithful friends. They’re led by Newell Knight, who brings his group to Kirtland, and when they get there, they’re assigned, under the law of consecration, to live on the property of Leman Copley. Leman Copley is this more well-off member of the church, but he also has a complex history where he was a shaker, so he was familiar with communalism, and Leman actually asked for a revelation about the Shakers. He and Sidney Rigdon and Parley P. Pratt, this is section 49, are asked to go and visit the Shakers and read the revelation. The Shakers completely reject it. The leader of the Shakers apparently really tore into Leman, and this kind of shook his faith.

Scott Woodward:
Ashbel Kitchell.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Ashbel Kit—what a great name, right?

Scott Woodward:
What a great name.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
If I have another son, his name will certainly be Ashbel Kitchell Griffiths, but—

Scott Woodward:
Nice.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—the bottom line is that Leman Copley starts to waffle a little bit, and the Colesville Saints, led by Newell Knight, are already living on his property and already making improvements, and Leman sort of starts to waver.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. It seemed like Ashbel Kitchell’s really lighting into Parley P. Pratt, and Leman watching that happen, and then when Ashbel turns on Leman himself and says, you should know better, right? And he really kind of lays into Leman, too. Then, at that point, you know, it seems like his faith is shaken to some degree in the whole Restoration project. And that’s when, yeah, he’s going to—I think you were about to say, but he’s going to kick these people off his farm, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And the Colesville branch, quite understandably, are not happy about this. I mean, they’ve already traveled all the way from New York. They’re really, really working hard to try and take care of the land and make sure that it’s improved. This is the way Joseph Knight, Jr. later said: “We had to leave Copley’s farm and pay 60 dollars damage for fitting up his houses and planting his ground.” So they’re mad. Newell K. Whitney says, “We commenced work in all good faith, thinking to obtain a living by the sweat of the brow. We had not lingered long before the above-named Copley broke the engagement which he made with us at this time I went to Kirtland to see Brother Joseph.” And that’s when they receive section 54 of the Doctrine and Covenants, which is kind of this case study of how you deal with a person who refuses to live consecration any longer. Now, the Lord has some pretty stern things to say to Leman Copley here. Verse 4, “The covenant which they have made unto me has been broken. It has become void and of none effect. And woe to him by whom this offense cometh, for it had been better for him that he had been drowned in the depth of the sea, but blessed are they who’ve kept the covenant and observed the commandment, for they shall obtain mercy.” And then he assigns the Colesville branch, says that they’re going to move on to Missouri. They’re going to move on to Missouri and help build the city of Zion, which they do. They run into more trouble there. The Colesville branch is amazing. We need to do a whole series just on them.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. They’re so good.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Leman goes back and forth in church membership over the next couple years. Again, I’m going to stick up for the guy and say he was a new convert. To have his former spiritual leader, Ashbel Kitchell, lay into him like that, shook him up, and it seems like he does repent to a certain degree, though he does end up outside the church. So it’s going to be a bumpy road to live consecration, right? The ideals of consecration, which are very, very much idyllic—they’re looking towards the best in people—are going to run into the fear and greed and sometimes selfishness that people can exhibit, too.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Leman Copley’s story shows us right there that when you’re not of one heart and one mind, that it’s hard to dwell together in righteousness and to not have any poor among you.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Right? Like it starts with that unity, peace, united in following the Lord and his prophet. And when that’s not in place, then the whole thing breaks down, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
That’s what this story shows us. It’s, like, crazy how all those cornerstones of Zion work together, and you can’t really do one without the others.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And honestly, I mean, it does kind of show, if I’m being frank here, a weakness of the Law of Consecration.

Scott Woodward:
Uh-oh. What do you mean?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Well, it depends on the goodness of people. Like, it depends on a person honoring their covenants, and everything in the church does, to a certain degree, assume that a person’s going to make covenants and honor their covenants.

Scott Woodward:
Is that a weakness, or is that a strength?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I . . .

Scott Woodward:
Ooh.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I called it a weakness. Maybe I was wrong. Make your case . Why is it a strength? What do you think?

Scott Woodward:
Well, because it’s without compulsory means was the only thought.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Like, that seems to be a strength. If it’s not with compulsory means, then there’s that harmony of feeling. There’s a good spirit about it. There’s a power that comes into a group of people willing to work together, to sacrifice together, to help each other, and anytime it becomes compulsory, you know, it seems to lose that power and lose that feeling of unity and harmony that comes only from a willing sacrifice.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
When one of my kids does something nice, it fills my heart with, like, this sweet glow. When they’re forced to do something nice, that glow is not there. It is but darkness in my soul. Yeah, I could see how it could be seen as a weakness. Like, this only works if the people are willing to work it. On the other hand, that seems to be the strength of this. In the Lord’s way, the non-compulsory means that the Lord is all about, like, that’s the only way this can work, and maybe that’s a strength. I don’t know. I’m still thinking about that. What do you think?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I think you might have saved this story for me. Well done, Scott.

Scott Woodward:
I wasn’t trying to do that.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Because I guess the story of Leman Copley does illustrate exactly what you said, that consecration was never compulsory.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It was something that the Lord expected people to do out of righteousness. And, again, Leman had his ups and downs and his good days and his bad days, like we all do, but ultimately the story does illustrate that, like you said, consecration works when it is something that is freely entered into.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And freely carried out. And I still see that today, you know? In my own ward, in the places that I’ve served, so much goodness.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so much willingness to sacrifice. And that’s one of the things that really does kind of make this still a vital living principle in the church, is that there’s people out there that are doing good things and trying to make the world a better place. Consecration is a covenant that provides a framework for them to do that.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. I love that.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But I would also emphasize that we’re still talking about consecration in the early Restoration. What is revealed here is the beginning of the story, not the end of it. And as we’ve emphasized, one of the things that you’ll see throughout the Doctrine and Covenants is how flexible consecration was as well.

Scott Woodward:
That’s right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
By a conservative estimate, I believe about twenty-four revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants deal directly with consecration and how it works, and we’ve basically done three—four, if we count section 41, which we just barely touched upon, so . . .

Scott Woodward:
So 41, 42, 51, and 54 are the ones we’ve highlighted today.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. So even just dealing with the 14 years that Joseph Smith is president of the church, you’re going to see a lot of changes as to how consecration works because the saints are going through a lot of changes, some of their own choice, the church is growing, and some not of their own choice, the church is persecuted, and they have to sometimes adjust consecration to kind of meet those needs, if you will.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. So next time we’re going to continue the story, right? We’re going to look at the business side of the law of consecration, something called the United Firm, which we have several revelations about in the Doctrine and Covenants, which was codenamed the United Order. So a cool story there—

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
—that we’ll get into: the business side of things, which does have a lot of modern parallels to the church today. Some of the business practices of the church will be, I think, illuminated as we understand how this began in the early revelations, how it was implemented then, really helps us see how the church runs things today on the business side of things, which I think has been the point of much controversy, as we opened this episode up with, right? Some of the business success of the church, actually, has been a point of controversy. So we want to get into all of that. Today we outlined those basic principles of consecration, how it began. Next time, business side.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I’m looking forward to that next time. Yeah. And we’ll see you next time.

Scott Woodward:
Thank you for listening to this episode of Church History Matters. Next week Casey and I explore the history of the very first consecration-based business ventures of the church—the literary firm, and the United Firm, or United Order—and how the principles underlying these first ventures laid the foundation for the church’s very successful business ventures today. If you’re enjoying Church History Matters, we’d appreciate it if you could take a moment to subscribe, rate, review, and comment on the podcast. That makes us easier to find. Today’s episode was produced by Scott Woodward and edited by Nick Galieti and Scott Woodward, with show notes and transcript by Gabe Davis. Church History Matters is a podcast of Scripture Central, a nonprofit which exists to help build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by making Latter-day Saint scripture and church history accessible, comprehensible, and defensible to people everywhere. For more resources to enhance your gospel study, go to scripturecentral.org, where everything is available for free because of the generous donations of people like you. And while we try very hard to be historically and doctrinally accurate in what we say on this podcast, please remember that all views expressed in this and every episode are our views alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Scripture Central or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us.