Scott C. Esplin:
There’s just all kinds of really interesting moves across scripture, and this is one of them.

Scott Woodward:
The Saints are to literally gather so that they can build the new Jerusalem, Zion. And at the center of that will be a temple. And all of this in preparation for the Second Coming of Jesus.

Scott C. Esplin:
The purpose for gathering is to get us to the house of the Lord because of what the house of the Lord will do for us. We receive the same ordinances, we enjoy the same blessings, we go into the house of the Lord together, and we are one.

Scott Woodward:
We’re not just going to do it to one city. We’re going take the Zion pattern out to the whole world.

Scott C. Esplin:
We don’t always know why things happen in our lives, but God certainly knows.

Casey Griffiths:
Hello, Scott. Nice to see you.

Scott Woodward:
Good to see you, too, man. And welcome to another one of our, what are we calling these? A bonus episode of Voices of the Restoration.

Casey Griffiths:
Just to set the table a little bit here, we’ve already covered Section 37 and 38, but there are places in the Doctrine and Covenants that warrant a deeper dive. And this is one of those ones because this is a huge shift, correct, Scott?

Scott Woodward:
Oh, man.

Casey Griffiths:
Like, this is a big deal when it comes to the history of the Church.

Casey Griffiths:
Yes. And, I mean, this is our very first gathering, right, as we talked about last episode. And it just so happens we have a mutual friend, someone we love and admire, and we’ve invited him on the show today, Brother Scott Esplin. Want to say hi, Scott?

Scott C. Esplin:
Hi, Scott. Hi, Casey. It’s great to be with you. I’ve, you know, taught with both of you and love being with you again. Thank you.

Casey Griffiths:
It’s good to have you with us. One of the reasons why we invited Scott to be here with us is because he wrote a great article called Why the Ohio. It’s available online for free. You can just Google it and it’ll come up. And it has a lot of great sources and stories about the sacrifices that the early Saints made to obey this command to gather. Scott, let me read your biography here, and then we’ll just dive right into things.

Scott C. Esplin:
Okay.

Casey Griffiths:
So Scott C. Esplin is the Dean of Religious Education and a Professor of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University. He’s a native of southern Utah, where he earned both a doctoral degree in 2006 and a master’s degree in 2001, in educational leadership and foundations from Brigham Young University. He joined the faculty of Religious Education in 2006 after teaching in seminary and institute in the Church educational system. His research and teaching interests include the doctrine and covenants, the history of Latter-day Saint education, and Church historic sites, and he is the author of numerous publications on these subjects, including an award-winning book on the restoration of Nauvoo. And he’s also married to Janice Garrett, and they are the parents of four children.

Casey Griffiths:
So, Scott, we’re really glad to have you with us. I know you spent part of your childhood in Ohio, correct?

Scott C. Esplin:
Yeah, that wasn’t included in the bio, but I lived there till I was a junior in high school, till I was 16. We joked about this as a family over the years, but when we moved away from Ohio, as often happens in a place like that, our family was invited to speak in sacrament meeting, kind of saying goodbye to the ward. The assigned topic was the Ohio revelations or something like that. And I thought, that’s an interesting topic to give for a sacrament meeting talk. I just loved the place ever since. I have a soft spot in my heart for Ohio, and I love the revelations that were given there and did live there till I was a junior in high school. But working on a project that explores faith relations in Kirtland between us and other restoration, Community of Christ and other groups, the acquisition of the Kirtland Temple and building of the Kirtland Temple, then subsequent history of that site, and of course, now the Church has stewardship of it certainly makes for an interesting topic.

Scott Woodward:
So in our last episode, Casey and I talked about the Lord’s commandment to the Saints in New York to gather to the Ohio. Talk to us a little bit about kind of the reaction of Church members in New York when Section 37 and 38 were given to that group, plenty of them had their roots, their parents, their grandparents had been in that New York area, and now the Lord is asking them to gather to the Ohio. What were some of the reactions? Were they all the same? Was there a mix? Were there people just that were all in? Were they hesitant? I mean, talk to us about what we know about those original folks who were invited by the Lord to make this initial sacrifice.

Scott C. Esplin:
The reaction was mixed, as you might imagine. I think the Lord, not too dissimilar from how others of God’s people have reacted to challenging invitations they’ve been given. Or even I like to compare this experience they had with other moves that people have made across time. Think about other famous moves that are described in scripture, you know, Lehi and his family leaving Jerusalem. There’s a mixed reaction to that command in that family. The children of Israel fleeing Egypt, there’s a mixed reaction to that command. At times they want to go back. At times they’re excited about going to the promised land, the Jaredites. There’s just all kinds of really interesting moves across scripture, and this is one of them. I think the reaction isn’t too dissimilar. I would also keep in mind, you did a good job, Scott, pointing out the depth of the roots for some of these people. Not all. Of course, some had moved before. The Smith family has already relocated once from New England to western New York. Their roots aren’t as deep in Palmyra as others might be. It’s not just the uprooting experience that they’re going through, but I think we ought to keep in mind they’re going to the frontier.

Scott C. Esplin:
For them, Ohio is It’s certainly not as developed as New York and New England are. Ohio is a brand new state. Early in the 1800s, it’s not one of the original 13 states, original 13 colonies. It’s new and it’s undergoing significant growth. My article talks about the dramatic growth that Ohio underwent during this time period. Roughly three decades before the Church is commanded to move there, population in Ohio increased by tenfold. I mean, that’s a massive increase. They go from having 72,000 residents in 1800 to over 800,000 residents in the state just before the Saints arrived. In the roughly decade that we’re there, we’re headquartered there for seven years, in the 10-year period from 1830 to 1840, population increases another 600,000. You’re just nearly doubling the size of a state. In the time period we’re here, Ohio is booming. And so we’re being commanded to relocate to the booming frontier of the United States. Of course, the US has continued to expand west from here. But at the time we end our period in Ohio, Ohio is the third largest state in the country. And that’s dramatic.

Scott Woodward:
What was so appealing about Ohio?

Scott C. Esplin:
The availability of cheap land, so great farmland. As population grows in the east, people are looking, families are looking for places where their children and grandchildren can farm. Farming is still the predominant economy in the United States in the 1830s. Availability of farmland is definitely a driving factor, but transportation as well. The growth of the Erie Canal in New York is going to open up the Great Lakes to Ohio. The ability for things to be grown in Ohio, transported acrost Lake Erie and then into the markets in the east. Ohio becomes kind of a bread basket for Eastern cities. So it’s part land, it’s part economy. It sits at the center of a growing nation. It’s kind of the crossroads. We don’t think about this as much in our modern airplane economy. We fly or drive places. But water was a big deal in the 1800s, and the ability to transport goods and services on canals, on rivers, in this case, on the Great Lakes. Ohio sits right at the crossroads of a number of important waterways, the Ohio River, Lake Erie. For Latter-day Saints, not just economically, it’s a great place for farming and other things, but it sits at the crossroads for missionary work, which Section 38 refers to.

Scott C. Esplin:
Section 38 talks about in one of its verses, When you have spread the gospel, and Ohio will be the place from which missionaries will go north into Canada, west to Missouri, down south. Then eventually, the overseas mission of the Church to the British Isles will originate here. It sits at the hub in the center of a growing country and a growing Church.

Casey Griffiths:
I never thought about that, but actually, most Church members that gather to Ohio sail down Lake Erie. It’s a hub. It’s going to turn into a place where a lot of people kind of converge, not just Latter-day Saints. There is logic to this, right?

Scott C. Esplin:
Very much. The Lord knows what he’s doing when he brings them to Ohio. Fairport Harbor, just north of Kirtland, Lake Erie is a stone’s throw from Kirtland. It’s not hard to get people by water, by ship to Kirtland. In some ways, it’s going to be easier to get people to Kirtland than it will be to Nauvoo or to western Missouri. Ohio is a good place. It’s a good central location. Joseph will spend more of his adult life in Kirtland than anywhere else in Church history. Of course, we think of Nauvoo as the city of Joseph, but he’s in Kirtland longer than he’s in Nauvoo. I point this out to my students. A couple of things President Ballard has referred to, we may yet discover that Kirtland is our most important historic site. The revelations that are given here, the first temple here, the Church growth and formation that occurs here. But even Joseph’s last day on earth, he records in his journal on June 27, 1844, I dreamed I was on my farm. I dreamed I was back in Kirtland. I don’t think Joseph ever leaves this place. I mean, he leaves it physically, but emotionally, spiritually, Kirtland is on his mind the last day he is on the earth.

Scott Woodward:
As you talk about the centrality of Ohio, it made verse 33 of Section 38 pop a little bit more for me. I just went and reviewed that again where the Lord says, “And from thence,” from Ohio, “whosoever I will shall go forth among all nations, and it shall be told them what they shall do.” It’s like this great center place. Like you said, the transportation and the waterways in that area were advantageous to getting missionaries to head out from there.

Scott C. Esplin:
We think about Ohio, and then we moved to Missouri, and then we moved to Illinois, but the Saints are still going through Ohio. There’s plenty of experiences where Latter-day Saints, missionaries, leaders of the Church, are going back through Kirtland again in the 1840s, stopping at the temple. They don’t leave Kirtland entirely. You might also look at verse 32, “Wherefore for this cause I gave unto you the commandment that ye shall go to the Ohio, and there I will give you my law.” Section 42 is given there. The law of consecration begins here. “There you shall be endowed with power from on high.” We talk about the endowment of power that’s given in Kirtland, and then they go forth among all nations. We still follow that pattern today. In our modern missionary work, we endow young men and young women with power from on high before we send them out among nations, before we send them out to preach the gospel. Kirtland becomes then the pattern for how we do missionary work.

Scott Woodward:
And you just hit on the Lord’s reason as to why Ohio. I mean, nationally, there’s this great boom happening in Ohio. There’s this great land effect. I remember hearing a quote from George Washington where he said, If I was a young man starting all over again, I’d start in Ohio. There’s something about this appeal of Ohio. It’s all these people are moving there. They have great influx. But then the Lord gives verse 32, like you said, that I want you to go to the Ohio so I can give you my law and endow you with power.

Scott C. Esplin:
You could also look down in a few verses ahead, verse 39, “If you seek the riches which is the will the Father to give it to you, you shall be the richest of all people. You shall have the riches of eternity.” We’ve talked about the reasons people are going there are economic, but the Lord has different riches for them, and hints of that in the section as well.

Scott Woodward:
A lot of Saints, you point this out in your article, they had to sacrifice a great deal financially to move from New York to the Ohio. Do you want to talk about any of those in particular or speak about that generally?

Scott C. Esplin:
I think one thing to keep in mind is the date of these revelations. Section 37 is given in December of 1830. Section 38 is given in January of 1831 at a conference of the Church. For those who have lived in the Midwest or in the Great Lakes region, that’s a difficult time to move, a difficult time to sell a farm. In this time of year, snow is a significant obstacle. As it says in Section 38:37, “They that have farms that cannot be sold, let them be left or rented as seemeth them good.” There’s an urgency to this. It’s not just move to the Ohio, move now. If you can’t sell your farm, leave your farm or rent it. That comes at great sacrifice. I look at a few of those prominent farms, the Whitmer Farm. It does sell twice, interestingly. The person who bought it sold it again at a more than 10% profit. It makes me wonder if the Whitmers had to really get out of town and get out of town quickly, and they had to sacrifice the proceeds of their farm to do so. The Knight Farm is another prominent farm in the area.

Scott C. Esplin:
There’s an ad in the local paper, it’s called the Broome County Republican, that says, Farm formerly occupied by Joseph Knight, available for very liberal terms. Contact Mr. Waterman. The Knight family just up and left their farm, just like the verse says. Joseph does the same. He has a farm, a small farm down in Harmony. He leaves his farm. He rents it out. It’s not for three years or so till Joseph successfully sells his farm in Harmony. The Saints did what these verses describe. The Lord commanded them to move in the middle of winter and to leave their farms if needed, and some of them did.

Casey Griffiths:
And let me just center this geographically a little bit. Scott, you shared with me once something that really helped simplify this period in Church history, that the Church in New York and Pennsylvania was sort of organized around these three families that we’ve been talking about, the Whitmers that are in Fayette and the Knights that are in Colesville, and then the Smiths in Manchester or Palmyra. And each one of them is making huge sacrifices, giving up sometimes farms that they’ve been taking care of for quite a while to leave and go to the Ohio.

Scott C. Esplin:
There isn’t a central location. We talk about the New York, Pennsylvania time period in Church history. I don’t know that I would classify any of them as the headquarters of the Church. Joseph lives in Harmony, but there’s no members in Harmony. It’s just he and Emma. They’re the only ones there. There’s no branch that regularly meets in Harmony. Joseph will spend time with the Saints in Fayette, especially when the Church is organized at the Whitmer Home in 1830. He’ll visit the Saints in Colesville. That’s the closest congregation to Harmony. His brother, Hyrum Smith, has some presiding responsibilities there. The Knights are also there. But you have these three disparate branches. They’ve never come together in one location until, as Scott mentioned in Section 37, there’s a command to gather to the Ohio against the time that my servant Oliver Calvary returns unto you. That’s, of course, a reference to what you’ve already talked about in previous episodes, the Lamanite Mission, where a group of four elders have gone to the borders by the Lamanites in far western Missouri. And along the way, they had this remarkable missionary experience in and around Kirtland. They baptized nearly 130 people in one month.

Scott C. Esplin:
That’s not a bad month of missionary work. I don’t know what your missions were like, but the four elders and 130 people, that’s a good month. And then they leave, and within a month, that number has doubled. Word gets back to Joseph Smith, that Joseph about the great success. This is November of 1830. By the time he’s able to send John Whitmer there to help preside over these new Saints, the number has doubled. It’s far and away the biggest congregation among any of these. When the Lord commands the three branches of New York and Pennsylvania to relocate, they’re joining a large congregation.

Scott Woodward:
The center of gravity shifts to Ohio, partly because of numbers. The Church was triple the size there, and the Lord says, Let’s gather there. But he also points out, because of the enemy, you need to leave New York because of the enemy and for your sakes. Anything you can tell us about the persecutions that were going on in New York? What’s going on there that makes it a good time to get out of New York?

Scott C. Esplin:
Yeah, that’s a good question, Scott. Opposition has increased when the Church has been organized. Emma Smith’s baptism has been broken up. I think you probably talked about that in Section 25. So Sections 24, 25, 26, the Section heading to 23 and 24 talk about the opposition the Church is facing. We don’t know exactly what this refers to. The Lord says, “The enemy in secret chambers seeketh your life.” This is verse 13, “I show you a mystery, a thing which has had in secret chambers to bring you pass even your destruction in process of time, and you knew it not.” Verse 31, “That you may escape the power of the enemy, and be gathered unto me a righteous people without spot and blameless.” When Joseph relocates to Ohio, he leaves in late January of 1831, within only a matter of weeks of the receipt of this section. He is accompanied by the Knight family and Sidney Rigdon, who has come from Ohio to meet Joseph. He sends a letter back to his family, and he says, The Lord has commanded me to have Father and Hyrum come immediately to this place. Don’t come through Buffalo, he says, for they lie in wait with you.

Scott C. Esplin:
I am your brother Joseph. We don’t know what the danger was, but Joseph said something will lie in wait for them in Buffalo. There are some attempts, creditors or others that tried to stop the Smith family from leaving New York. At this point, they’ve already lost their farm because of the financial difficulties they faced in and around Palmyra. There are people who are trying to stop them financially from relocating. But Joseph sends this letter saying, Whatever you do, don’t come through Buffalo. There’s people lying in wait for you. Lucy Mack Smith will lead a group of Saints from the Manchester area on the Erie Canal to Buffalo. When she gets there, she meets up with Thomas Marsh and others who are already there. Thomas says to her, Whatever you do, don’t preach the gospel here. People don’t like us. Lucy, in her traditional, typical fiery way, says, I’m going to preach the gospel. How dare you keep this message silent? We have something to share with these people, and she does. She, up and down the streets from the canal is sharing the gospel. That’s, if you know that great story where the ice parts and her boat is able to get out while the others are stuck in the harbor longer.

Scott C. Esplin:
There’s some sense of danger, sense of risk, sense of threats that they’re facing. Joseph certainly worries about it and writes word back to the Saints in New York, warning them about Buffalo.

Scott Woodward:
I don’t know that a lot of our listeners know the story of the breaking of the ice. Do you want to briefly talk about that story? Lake Erie is frozen at this time, right? We’re in like, what’s the month? Like March or something like that?

Scott C. Esplin:
It’s the spring. It’s much later than when Joseph and Emma have left.

Scott Woodward:
The boats are there in the Erie Canal, waiting for the ice to break up so the parts can now go through the…

Scott C. Esplin:
I would say the mouth of the harbor, but in case he could probably do this better than I could. But Casey is a much better storyteller than I am. But the mouth of the harbor there, the way the water flows and the wind blows, it’s going to push the ice up against the harbor of Buffalo. It’s just packed with ice. The boats are waiting for the ice to thaw for the year so they can get out and start shipping and traversing the Lake Erie. They’re trying to find a place to stay, a place to stay in Buffalo, and they secure berth on a boat, on a barge, waiting for this ice to clear. Lucy apparently charges the Saints to pray. God is a God of miracles. He parted the Red Sea once before. Can’t he answer our prayers and part this ice for us? Then they unite their faith in prayer. There’s apparently, even a friendly or not so friendly wager between her and Thomas Marsh’s group of who’s going to get to Kirtland first. This is the group that’s been telling them, Don’t say anything about who you are because people won’t like you.

Scott C. Esplin:
I’m going to get to Kirtland before you are. She’s fiery and they united in prayer. According to her telling of the story, this is in history of Joseph Smith by his mother. There’s a loud crack and the ice parts and wide enough for a ship to get out. The ship captain, who isn’t Latter-day Saint, yells to the people on the ship, We’re going to try it. We’re going to try to split the gap. We want to get out of here. They do. Then the ice starts to close, according to Lucy Mack Smith’s account, so tight that some of the buckets on the sides of the paddle wheels get crushed by the ice, get knocked off. Their boat gets through, and then the ice comes crashing to a close again, and everyone else is stuck in the harbor for weeks again. No one knows that their boat has gotten through. There is a newspaper account that says that this ship full of Latter-day Saints was crushed to death by the ice. From Buffalo’s perspective, they thought the ice had closed and they had been killed. Lucy arrives in Kirtland, and she said, I had the unique experience of reading about my own death in the newspaper.

Scott C. Esplin:
Thomas Marsh and his group were stuck in Buffalo longer.

Casey Griffiths:
I’ll note for our listeners, there’s a wonderful book called At the Pulpit that’s female discourses within the Church. It’s in your gospel library, and the very first recorded discourse is Lucy Mack Smith’s speech that she gives on the docks at Buffalo. I’m just going to read an excerpt, but imagine Lucy Mack, who I’ve seen pictures of, and she seems like a small little lady, but she stands up and says, “Where is your confidence in God? Do you know that all things are in his hands? He made all things and still rules over them. And how easy a thing it would be with God if every Saint here would just lift their desires to him in prayer, that the way might be open before us. How easy would it be for God to cause the ice to break away? And in a moment’s time, we could be off on our journey. But how can you expect the Lord to prosper you when you are continually murmuring against him?” And then when she’s done with the discourse, she said, Yeah, the ice cracked open and they speed out of the harbor. I didn’t know the part that they had been told that they had been killed or something like that.

Scott C. Esplin:
Yeah, we read the account of our own death in the newspaper.

Casey Griffiths:
She’s a spitfire for sure. She’s kind of leading the Manchester Branch, right?

Scott C. Esplin:
Yeah. Joseph Smith, Sr., I think, has gone up ahead early after that letter from Joseph. Joseph Smith, Sr. is not with her at the time, nor is Hyrum, who is, I think he’s leading the Colesville Saints. They’ve moved to Waterton, I think is the name of the town.

Casey Griffiths:
Waterloo. Yeah,

Scott C. Esplin:
Waterloo. That’s it. Thank you. Waterloo. Because they’ve lost the farm, they’re moving around from place to place. But it’s those Saints that are in and around the Palmyra area is who she’s leading.

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah. In her telling, two men were asked to lead the company, and they both sort of demured. She was like, Well, if nobody else is going to do it, then I’m going to do it. That’s why she’s speechifying on the docks in Buffalo.

Scott C. Esplin:
One of the great women of the Restoration.

Scott Woodward:
I have a daughter named Lucy after this woman. I just love her faith, and I love her spunk, and she’s awesome. I remember she was up on the boat at this time, and someone down from the dock, yells out like, What about the Book of Mormon? She turns to him and she’s like, The Book of Mormon is the word of God. She just starts testifying with her whole soul. It’s just this woman who’s just fearless. She’s like, what, five foot nothing and just full of faith and spiritual spunk.

Scott C. Esplin:
We should keep in mind the Church is young still. We’re not even a year old when this command is given. The Church is nine months old when they’re commanded to move to Ohio. These people are relocating shortly after the one year anniversary of the Church. I’ve asked my students before, imagine if President Nelson were to stand up in General Conference and were to announce that we were to relocate, this is roughly 250 miles, we’re going to move the headquarters of the Church 250 miles west from Salt Lake City. Can you imagine the buzz that would go through the conference center of General Conference? That’s what Section 38 is. They’re gathered for a conference of the Church, and you can imagine what they’re talking about. They’re all wondering about the command that had been given just days before for the Church to move to Ohio. If you look at the end of 37, the Lord does have this important phrase, verse 4, “Behold, here is wisdom. Let every man choose for himself until I come, even so, Amen.” God’s going to honor agency in this command. He honors agency in all of our commands. We’re invited to obey and we’ll be blessed if we do.

Scott C. Esplin:
But agency is an eternal principle, and that’s highlighted in this episode as well.

Scott Woodward:
It seems that there’s a pretty strong connection between the doctrine of gathering and the concept of temple building. Joseph Smith in Nauvoo will say that why does the Lord gather his people in any age? It’s to build a temple so God can reveal the ordinances to them. There’s this really strong strand in these sections and then further as it develops, that what we’re doing is we’re gathering Israel into one place so that we can build the literal New Jerusalem or the city of Zion, as described by Jesus in 3 Nephi or in Moses 7, that had just been translated in that December of 1830, or D&C 28, we’ve covered Section 29. We’re going to talk about a couple coming up here, Section 42, 45, 57, 84. This is going to be a major theme that the Saints are to literally gather so that they can build the New Jerusalem, Zion. At the center of that will be a temple. All of this in preparation for the Second Coming of Jesus. Today, I just want to kind of make a comparison and get your thoughts on this. Today, we don’t seem to quite talk like this or to see the gathering in quite the same way as they did.

Scott Woodward:
I think today when we speak of gathering, we don’t talk about it as literally packing up and moving to join other Saints in building the the literal city of the New Jerusalem or the city of Zion. But more as when we talk about it, we talk about helping people, both living and dead, to receive ordinances and make covenants. I can hear President Nelson in my mind. Every time you help someone take a step toward making and keeping a covenant, you’re gathering Israel, right? Can you help us understand what happened between these two points? What can you tell us about how the doctrine of gathering has developed through the history of the Church from then to now as we try to situate ourselves in these revelations?

Scott C. Esplin:
They growing line upon line and developing in their understanding. I think you captured it well. I might add another term to their understanding at this point. You mentioned the New Jerusalem. I would add the term Zion as well. They’re thinking about establishing Zion. Early in the Doctrine and Covenants, this is Section 6, Section 11, Section 12, I think all three of them, the Lord says, Seek to establish and bring forth the cause of Zion. Zion starts out in the Doctrine and Covenants as a cause. It shifts in Section 25, I believe. Emma Smith is told, If you’re faithful and walk in the paths of virtue, you shall receive an inheritance in Zion. We don’t typically get an inheritance in a cause. Something is shifting between a cause to a physical location. Then, as you mentioned, Section 29, or Section 28, the missionaries to the Lamanites are called, and they’re told that the city Jerusalem is not yet revealed, but it shall be revealed thereafter. It’s on the borders by the Lamanites. Then later revelations, Section 45, will equate Zion and the New Jerusalem. In their lifetimes, certainly in this era, they’re thinking about a physical location.

Scott C. Esplin:
Section 45 describes it as a city, a place “of peace, a place of refuge, a place of safety for the saints of the Most High,” is what he says in Section 45. They’re thinking a physical location, a city, as you pointed out so well. Joseph’s working on the translation of the Bible, and so he’s learning about the city of Zion, Enoch’s city, the New Jerusalem. Then this New Jerusalem, the Book of Ether describes the New Jerusalem on this continent. They’re thinking in terms of physical location. Ohio is a step closer to the borders by the Lamanites, a step closer to Missouri for them, although it isn’t the location, obviously, of the center place of Zion. I think Joseph learns that in Section 57. But Ohio is closer. That’s part of it. You’re right, the temple is at the core. But I think the section I might point to as Section 101 as a reframing section on this.

Scott Woodward:
After the loss of the land of Zion, right?

Scott C. Esplin:
Exactly. We’re driven out of Jackson County in 1833. Joseph, back in Kirtland, has this question, Well, what about the New Jerusalem? I thought we were going to be in the center. I thought the center place was on the western part of Missouri. And in Section 101, the Lord says this, verse 16, “Therefore, let your hearts be comforted concerning Zion, for all flesh is in my hands. Be still and know that I am God.” God is still going to establish Zion. Be still, know that I’m in control. He continues, “Zion shall not be moved out of her place, notwithstanding her children are scattered. They that remain and are pure and heart shall return and come to their inheritance as they and their children, with songs of everlasting joy, to build up the waste places of Zion, and all these things that the prophets might be fulfilled.” I don’t think Joseph or the Lord gives up on the dream of a center place of a New Jerusalem, of a Zion. But then he adds this verse, verse 20, “Behold, there is none other place than that which I have appointed, neither shall there be any place than that which I have appointed for the work of the gathering of my saints.”

Scott C. Esplin:
There’s the word you’ve used, the gathering. “Until the day cometh when there is found no more room for them. And then I have other places,” plural, “which I shall appoint it to them they, and shall be called stakes for the curtains or the strength of Zion. It’s will that they should gather together and stand in holy places,” plural. We make this shift to stakes, and then eventually, we will still have a headquarters. We’ll have a headquarters in Kirtland for a season, Far West for a season, Nauvoo for a season, obviously, Salt Lake for a lengthy season. But Casey could fill us in better than I certainly could with his expertise in international church. I think this pivots in the late 19th, early 20th century. We move from inviting everyone to come to Zion, come to Zion, ere his floods of anger flow. We’re having all the converts from Europe and all the converts from the Pacific and elsewhere, come to the tops of the mountains, come to Utah, the Wasatch Front or the Pioneer Corridor. The late 19th century, early 20th century, that pivots, that changes. Church leaders like Lorenzo Snow, Joseph F. Smith, encouraged Latter-day Saints to stay and build their local stakes.

Scott C. Esplin:
Casey, you could probably talk about that if you want to.

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah, it seems like a landmark moment in that is when the first temple is built outside the United States in Laie, Hawaii, a lovely little temple that a lot of people have visited, but signals and sends a definite message of the temples are going to come to the people now instead of the people coming to the temples. And that becomes our signature thing moving forward. I think gathering is still vital to Latter-day Saints. It’s just not gathering to one location, though we do still emphasize headquarters, General Conference, stuff like that. Spencer W. Kimball kind of captured this, so I’m going to share a little quote from him. He said, “In the early days of the Church, we used to preach for the people to come to Utah as the gathering process largely because that was the only place in the whole world where there was a temple. Now it’s no longer necessary that we bring all the people to Salt Lake City, and so the gathering is taking place. Korea is the gathering place for the Koreans, Australia for the Australians, Brazil for the Brazilians, England for the English.” As a descendant of people that gathered, my ancestors were Welsh.

Casey Griffiths:
I’m also really glad at this shift because of the cultural preservation that happens, that it allows Australian Latter-day Saints to be a little different than American Latter-day Saints and Korean Latter-day Saints to be a little different from Taiwanese Latter-day Saints, that everybody still gathers and becomes part of this wonderful culture of Christ. But there’s also little features, and you can see this in the way we build temples, too, that have to do with the local culture and its preservation. Instead of being a melting pot, the Church started to become like a wonderful tossed salad, I guess you’d say, where the individual elements retain their unique nature and flavor, but we all come together to worship Christ.

Scott C. Esplin:
I think that’s well said, Casey. We could then point back to Section 38 again. Scott, this was the revelation that commanded them to gather, like you said so very well, eventually to build the first temple in this dispensation. But the section also highlights why we gather, not only for a temple. I think we gather to the temple for the things the temple can do for us, the ordinances, the covenants, the exaltation that comes through the ordinances of the house of the Lord. I think the Lord points at some of the purposes for gathering in Section 38 as well. If you go to verse 24, 25, 26, 27, he says these things, “Let every man esteem his brother as himself and practice virtue and holiness before me. Again, I say unto you, let every man esteem his brother as himself.” We gather together because of what it helps us learn about each other, the ability to learn from each other to become brothers and sisters in Christ. We learn to esteem each other as ourselves, to treat them as I want to be treated. The gathering is intended to help build us as a people and unite us as one.

Scott C. Esplin:
He continues with a parable in verse 26, and then he gives the lesson from that parable in 27. “Behold this I give unto you as a parable. It is even as I am. I say unto you, be one. If you are not one, you are not mine. We can esteem our brothers as ourselves.” There’s a lot more uniformity in the house of the Lord. We don’t have divisions based on ranks, divisions based on clothing and dress and wealth. Everyone dresses in white. You’ve had this experience, I’m sure, but I’ve gone to the house of the Lord in countries that certainly aren’t nearly as affluent as the country where I live. I enter the house of the Lord, and I’m one with those people. I’m in a place where no longer are there those who have more and those who have less. We dress the same. We receive the same ordinances. We enjoy the same blessings. We go into the house of the Lord together, and we are one. If I want to be the Lord’s, I have to be one. The house of the Lord accomplishes that in its ordinances, in its worship functions, in the ways that it’s set up, in the ways that we dress.

Scott C. Esplin:
We esteem each other as brothers, and we become one. I think that still happens, Scott. As Casey said, now we take the temples to the people. But a purpose of those temples, uniting us as one, still occurs.

Casey Griffiths:
Well said.

Scott Woodward:
If I understand what you’re saying, The original function of temples was, as we start to see hints of right here in Section 38, these themes of unity and bringing the Saints together, as well as, I think we could look at verse 32, to give the Saints his law, to endow them with power. Those are some overt temple themes. To help prepare God’s covenant people for the Second Coming of the Lord when the Saints inherit the earth, as he goes on to say, verse 39 and others, that hasn’t changed.

Scott C. Esplin:
I think we got to the point where the Church was strong enough that we could take the temples to the people or allow the people to stay where they are and build their own temples. We, of course, the Lord’s servants bring the keys necessary to function in those temples. But I would acknowledge the Saints over many years who have, at great sacrifice, built the houses of the Lord in their local areas, the temples acrost Europe and the Pacific who were built by local Latter-day Saint sacrifice. Of course, the keys and power to function in those temples are brought by those who hold those keys. But the Church was strong enough that people could stay in their local areas and build the temples and help them become one. I do like what you referenced preparing for the Savior’s return. I think that’s hinted out also in Section 38. If you go back to the very beginning part of the section, the Lord starts the section really addressing… They’ve wondered, why are we going to Ohio? Why in the middle of winter? The Lord starts in verse one, “Thus sayeth the Lord your God, even Jesus Christ, the great I am, Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the same which looketh upon the wide expanse of eternity and all the seraphic hosts of heaven before the world was made.”

Scott C. Esplin:
Christ reveals he’s got a plan. He’s seen all things from the beginning. He’s in this. Then he says about himself in verse two, “The same which knoweth all things, for all things are present before mine eyes.” He knows why they’re going to Ohio. They may not know it. We don’t always know why things happen in our lives, but God certainly knows. Then if you jump over to verse seven, this is maybe my favorite verse in the entire section. The Lord says, “But behold, verily, verily, I say unto you, mine eyes are upon you, I am in your midst and ye cannot see me. But the day soon cometh that you shall see me and know that I am.” You mentioned the Second Coming. The day will come when we will see him, when the veil will be rent, as it says in verse 8, and we will see him. But I think that also happens in our personal lives. There’s times when I don’t see what God’s doing. I don’t see the why periods in my life of why is this happening? Why am I going to Ohio? Why in the middle of winter? I have why questions, and I just have to trust that God knows all things, that he’s in my midst, and the day will come that I will see.

Scott C. Esplin:
That happens in Kirtland, back to the temple. He literally appears in the house of the Lord there. The veil is rent, and he is seen in Kirtland. He’s seen in the house of the Lord. Likewise, he’ll be seen in my in this life or the next. I’ll see what he was doing, that he knew all things, that it worked out for my good.

Scott Woodward:
That’s a great perspective. I love that a lot. You took us back to those first verses in section 38 where the Lord is introducing himself. My eye is always drawn to verse 4, where he says, “I am the same which have taken the Zion of Enoch into my own bosom.” Now, that would have made no sense a month earlier, but what we just got done with at the end of December was Moses 7. Joseph and Sidney had just finished the translation of Moses 7. This is hot off the press, not even to the press yet. It’s inked on some parchment somewhere, right? They had just learned about this. Now God says in Section 37, All right, stop the translation. You got the framework. You got the story, the Zion story with Enoch. You got the framework. There was, Enoch gathered his people out from among their enemies to a city of righteousness, where the Lord eventually came and dwelt among them. You got the frame? Then in Section 38, he says, Now, I am the God of Enoch. I’m the one who did that. I’m asking you to gather to the Ohio where I can give you my law and endow you with power from on high.

Scott Woodward:
It’s like the Lord is saying, Let’s do it again. Let’s do the Enoch thing again. The God of Enoch is now asking this group to gather out from among their enemies to one place to prepare to qualify for the King of Zion to come and dwell in their midst. It seems like this is on purpose, Scott. It seems like this is an intentional framing of the gathering of the Saints to this idea of kind of Zion 2.0. We’re going to do it again. But as you mentioned, that as as time goes on in Church history, we’re not just going to do it to one city. We’re going to take the Zion pattern out to the whole world. Everywhere there’s a sufficient critical mass of Saints to gather, we’re going to take the Zion pattern there. We’re going to put a temple in your midst. We’re going to help you prepare for the Second Coming of Jesus to rule and reign with him when he comes again. Like, this is the pattern. Am I reading way too much into this? Tell me, but is this the pattern that’s being laid out here?

Scott C. Esplin:
Yeah. In fact, we still use that term regarding our stakes. They are the stakes of Zion. I live in the Lindon, Utah Stake of Zion. Here on this campus at BYU, we have the Provo, Utah 17th Stake of Zion, the 13th Stake of Zion. You mentioned Enoch and Moses 7 and what they’ve learned. Joseph learned in that revelation, and the Lord called his people Zion because they were of one heart, one mind, they dwelt in righteousness, there were no poor among them. I think you’ll find every one of those elements in Section 38. There’s a reference to becoming one. There’s a reference to being righteous, and there’s a reference to caring for the poor. The Lord is doing just what you described. You’ve learned how Enoch’s city became Zion. I’m going to do the same thing in Kirtland. I’m going to try to make you into a Zion-like people. Therefore, you have to become one. You’ve got to become righteous, and you’ve got to care for the poor and needy among you. Those are still things we’re trying to do as a Church today.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. As soon as they get to the Ohio and the Lord gives them the law, guess what’s in there? The laws of how to help them become righteous, right, to dwell in righteousness, one heart, one mind. And he institutes a financial law to help them eliminate poverty. It seems calculated to bring about the Zion fruits again that Enoch and his people experience. And that doesn’t seem to be. You cross your eyes and it’s kind of there. It seems like it’s there. This is actually what the Lord is up to. And I always smile when I see there’s sometimes in Joseph Smith’s financial records where he felt it prudent to use a code name for himself. We see that in a couple of the financial revelations later on. But one of Joseph’s favorite code names for himself was Enoch. There’s a great affinity to the man and the project. Joseph saw himself, I think, as implementing that same pattern again. Like you said, I don’t know if Joseph could have even known where this was going. The Lord does in Section 38. He says, I know the end from the beginning. As you mentioned, Section 101 starts moving a shift not to one place, but places, not just Zion, but stakes of Zion.

Scott Woodward:
Now, in our day, we see how big this network has spread and the Zion project continues in full thrust.

Scott C. Esplin:
I think you’ve identified its principles. If you go back to Section 105, this is one you’ll study in the future, but this is when they weren’t able to build Zion in Missouri. The Lord explains why they didn’t succeed at the time. If you look in verses three, four, and five, “They have not learned to be obedient to the things which I’ve required of their hand. They’re full of all manner of evil.” That’s the opposite of righteousness. “They do not impart of their substances to become the Saints to the poor and the afflicted among them.” That’s not caring for the poor and needy. And then verse four, “And are not united according to the union required by the law of the celestial kingdom.” They’re not united. They’re not one. And then he says this phrase, “Zion cannot be built up unless it is by the principles of the law of the celestial kingdom.” These are some of those principles. Becoming one, being righteous, caring for the poor and the needy. And the Lord called his people Zion. Because they were of one heart, one mind, they dwelt in righteousness. There were no poor among them. And the house of the Lord helps us do that.

Scott C. Esplin:
The ordinances, gathering places, stakes, being with people, all those things. I think about moves in my life. You mentioned or we mentioned earlier that I had moved from Ohio when I was in high school. I look at the moves my family made as a kid. I didn’t like them at the time. It’s never fun to get uprooted and have to make new friends. But it caused us as a family to become one. Every time we’d move, I had to become one with my brothers again. They were the only friends I had. Then I’d make other friends, or I would separate from my brothers, and God would have us move again. There’s something about becoming one as a people. If you are not one, you are not mine. Why periods like this move from Ohio have a way of bringing people together as one? I look at young married couples teaching here on campus, BYU students or others who get married, and they go off to grad school, they go off to their first job, and there’s something valuable in becoming one as a couple, leaving behind father and mother and cleaving unto your spouse. Again, it’s a move, but that move away from mom and dad that helps a couple become a unit of one, a oneness.

Scott C. Esplin:
There’s value in that. They’re creating their own little community of Zion, their own little family, and they’re trying to become one, and that sometimes requires a move.

Scott Woodward:
Love that. The principles of these sections are the things that have not changed, although we’ve seen some really interesting shifts historically on how they’re implemented from one city to multiple. But the principle is it’s about how to live in righteousness. It’s about how to live in unity and to help eliminate poverty, literally, not spiritually, not metaphorically, but actually to help alleviate poverty and help everybody thrive together. I think there was a moment that clicked for me. It was back in 2012 when Elder Holland gave a talk called Israel, Israel, God is Calling. Maybe you remember this great talk? He talked about us being kicked out of place after place after place. The goalposts of Zion seemed to be moving. It was frustrating for Saints. I know it was frustrating for Joseph to lose Missouri. I mean, he seemed to go through quite the ringer in Illinois, just struggling to understand, how could we lose Missouri? In Section 124, the Lord gives some comforting words, but Elder Holland said this, “Zion, the Promised Land, the New Jerusalem. Where is it? Well, we’re not sure, but we’ll find it. In these last days, in this our dispensation, we would become mature enough to stop running.

Scott Woodward:
“We would become mature enough to plant our feet and our families and our foundations in every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, permanently. Zion would be everywhere, wherever the Church is. And with that change, one of the mighty changes of the last days, we no longer think of Zion as where we are going to live. We think of it as how we are going to live.” So good. So good.

Scott C. Esplin:
That’s a great quote. I think Elder Christofferson has taught this, too. Zion is both a people and a place. In this period of Church history, they’re probably thinking in terms of place. But embedded in the revelation are the principles of what the people have to live to.

Scott Woodward:
How would you counsel somebody today as we talk about the gathering? President Nelson, he just keeps his foot on that gas pedal of gathering, gathering, gathering. He continues to talk about it on both sides of the veil. He’s not talking about going to Ohio. He’s talking about this, this concept of helping people take steps to receiving, making and keeping covenants. How would you want to connect that vision to what we’re learning in these foundational revelations? I mean, maybe we’ve already talked about, is there anything else you want to do to add a cherry on top of that with the modern rhetoric around gathering and helping us all rally around President Nelson’s clarion call today?

Scott C. Esplin:
I had one of our faculty members point this out to me. Every talk President Nelson has given since becoming President of the Church, it contains a blessing that will come into our lives for temple worship. We’ve talked about gathering and building and gathering Zion. But back to your quote, you quoted from Joseph, The purpose for the gathering is to bring us to the house of the Lord. President Nelson has been very, very clear in what those blessings are that that await us as we come to the house of the Lord as we build our foundation there. I would always point to what President Nelson has said about the blessings for going to the house of the Lord. They’re remarkable, and they’re in every one of his talks as Church president. I think it’s always helpful. I love the Ohio revelations. I love the period of Ohio Church history. More than half of the Doctrine and Covenants is given in this place, the first temple. We may yet discover that this is our most important Church history site because of what happens here. I think President Nelson is pointing us to the same blessings. I think of his references and others, Elder Cook and others, pointing to the Kirtland temple dedicatory prayer, inviting us to study Section 109, because the blessings that are outlined there are still resting on God’s Saints today.

Scott C. Esplin:
The purpose for gathering is to get us to the house of the Lord because of what the house of the Lord will for us. I’m just grateful for that invitation.

Scott Woodward:
Tremendous. Well, thank you so much.

Scott C. Esplin:
Thanks for all that you do. I hope this is helpful for those that are looking or wanting to know why the Ohio, why things happen in our lives.

Scott Woodward:
Why the Ohio, and why anything in my life, which is such a great subtitle there. Great supplemental material for this Voices of the Restoration bonus episode.

Casey Griffiths:
Scott, thank you for being with us. This has been a pleasure. We hope everybody will take a look at your article and some of your great research on these historic sites. So thank you.

Scott C. Esplin:
Thank you for having me be here today. I love being with both of you. Thanks for all the good that you do. Thank you.