Scott Woodward:
I think the Lord is cutting through all the noise right here. He’s telling us exactly how you know when it’s happened. There’s not a formula, but you know when it’s happened. The way you know is that word you’ve already used.

Casey Griffiths:
Hello, Scott.

Scott Woodward:
Hello, Casey. How are you, sir?

Casey Griffiths:
I am well. Here we are. We’re finishing off Sections 49 and 50.

Scott Woodward:
We just came off the Shakers, and now we’re in Section 50. It’s a little different context, isn’t it, Casey?

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah, so the Shakers are sort of an external thing that the Church is dealing with, they’re this other religious group in the area, and the message delivered to them is very direct. Here’s what’s right, here’s what’s wrong. This is more of an internal thing where there are struggles happening among members of the Church. And you’ll notice in this section, the Lord is less blunt than he was with the Shakers, with the Shakers just pretty much tells him what the deal is. This one, he’s going to sit down and reason together. It has to do with a thread that we’ve been following since Joseph Smith first arrived in Ohio, which is these people are new converts, and they’re very enthusiastic about the gospel, but they don’t quite know what’s okay and what’s not okay. For instance, John Whitmer, when he arrives from the east to Ohio, he notes, “The enemy of all righteousness had got hold of some of those who professed to be his followers because they had not sufficient knowledge to detect him in all his devices.” And what’s he talking about here? Well, he goes on to describe some of the unusual manifestations happening among Church members in Ohio.

Casey Griffiths:
He said this, “Some had visions and could not tell what they saw. Some would fancy themselves as if they had the sword of Laban and would wield it as expert as a light dragoon, and some would act like an Indian in the act of scalping. Some would slide or scoot on the floor with the rapidity of a serpent, which they term sailing the boat to the Lamanites, preaching the gospel. And many other vain and foolish maneuvers that are unseeming and unprofitable to mention. Thus, the devil blinded the eyes of some good and honest disciples.”

Scott Woodward:
So they’re wondering, is that from God or not from God? Is that how the Spirit falls upon people or is this not from God? I could see how that question would be raised by such activity.

Casey Griffiths:
This person is scooting on the floor and saying they’re sailing to the Lamanites. Is that the real Spirit working on them, or is this something else that’s kind of unusual? And by the way, John Whitmer is not the only one that notices this, too. Parley P. Pratt, who’s made it all the way to Missouri and is now coming back several months later, noted this as well. He says, “As I went forth among the different branches, some very strange spiritual operations were manifested, which were disgusting rather than edifying,” he says. “Some persons would seem to swoon away, make unseemly gestures, and be drawn or disfigured in their countenances. Others would fall into ecstasies and be drawn into contortions, cramps, fits, et cetera. Others would seem to have visions and revelations which were not edifying, which were not congenial to the doctrine and the spirit of the gospel. In short, a false and lying spirit seemed to be creeping into the Church.” So Parley comes back, and these are converts that he’s worked with already. I guess John Whitmer could have been assuming, people people in Ohio were just strange. But Parley, who is one of the missionaries that taught the colony that’s in Ohio, is noticing that it’s strange.

Casey Griffiths:
It also gets strange enough that other people start to notice, too. This is an article from the Painesville Telegraph that noted among the Saints, “a scene of the wildest enthusiasm was exhibited chiefly among the young people. They would fall as without strength, roll upon the floor, and so mad were they that even the females were seen in a cold winter day, lying under the bare canopy of heaven with no couch or pillow but the fleecy snow.” So this is starting to seem life-threatening, like they’re going out and laying down in the snow because they’re moved by the Spirit. The telegraph also notes these kind of speaking in tongues sort of things. It says, “Other times they are taken with a fit of jabbering, that which they neither understand themselves nor anybody else. This they call speaking foreign languages by divine inspiration. Again, the young men are seen running over the hills in pursuit. They say, Balls of fire, which they see flying through the air.” And this one leads to maybe the most famous story associated with this, which expresses that these aren’t just wacky things. They could be physically dangerous things happening to the Saints. An early African-American convert to the Church, who’s only known as Black Pete, and we’ve actually learned a little bit more about him, Peter Carruth, we think was his name.

Casey Griffiths:
He’s on the database for Century of Black Mormons. He was almost really seriously injured because of these spiritual manifestations. So this is what George A. Smith, who becomes the Church historian later on, remembers, he said, “Black Pete,” and by the way, “it was common in the parlance of the day to refer to someone who was Black by their racial identity. His name was Peter. “Black Pete got sight of those revelations carried by a Black angel. He started after it and ran off a steep wash bank 25 feet high, passed through a tree top into the Chagrin River beneath. He came out with a few scratches and his ardor somewhat cooled.” So now the spiritual manifestations aren’t just embarrassing. They’re starting to be dangerous. And this causes concern among Church leaders as well. They’re asking Joseph Smith for a revelation.

Scott Woodward:
I remember Levi Hancock talking about this, and he said that some young men would jump up and hold on to the rafters of a barn, and then they would smack their head so hard, it would knock them out, and they would fall to the ground. Then when they woke up, they would talk about the visions that they had. Levi Hancock says, I believed that all like a fool. I thought, Okay, I guess this is the Spirit of God. This is how young they are in the Church. This is how much they don’t get what is from God and what’s not of God. I think some people in their enthusiasm are genuine, and others seem to be jumping into this and are being deceptive as if the Spirit is working upon them, which we’ll learn more about that as we move on here. But this is wild, Casey.

Casey Griffiths:
Crazy stuff, right? Again, stuff that is starting to be embarrassing for the Church, other people are noticing, and stuff that’s starting to be dangerous. Two people record that they approach Joseph Smith. John Whitmer says, “These things grieved the servants of the Lord, and some conversed together on the subject and came in, and we were at Joseph Smith, Jr. the seer’s and made it a matter of consultation, for many would not turn from their folly unless God would give a revelation, therefore the Lord spake to Joseph.” Now, Parley P. Pratt’s there, too, and he says the same thing, “Feeling our weakness in experience, lest we should err in judgment concerning these spiritual phenomena, myself, John Murdock, and several other elders went to Joseph Smith to ask him to inquire of the Lord concerning these spirits or manifestations. After we joined in prayer in his translating room, he dictated in our presence the following revelation.” That’s Section 50. Another unique thing about this section is Parley is there. He writes down what it looks like for Joseph Smith to receive a revelation. We’ve quoted this earlier, but maybe it’s worth revisiting.

Scott Woodward:
Is it fair to say this is one of the most descriptive accounts we have of what it looked like to watch Joseph Smith receive a revelation?

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah, he records in a lot of detail what it looks like to see Joseph Smith receive. Then you can flip your Doctrine and Covenants right open to Section 50 and read the text that was received the way Parley saw it. Here’s what Parley describes seeing. He said, “Each sentence was uttered slowly and very distinctly, and with a pause between each, sufficiently long for it to be recorded by an ordinary writer in longhand. This was the manner in which all his written revelations were dictated and written. There was never any hesitation, reviewing, or reading back in order to keep the run of the subject. Neither did any of these communications undergo revisions, interlinings, or corrections. As he dictated them, so they stood, so far as I have witnessed, and I was present to witness the dictation of several communications of several pages each.” It’s pretty remarkable when you look at the text, how coherent it is as Parley is describing just Joseph dictating one sentence and then waiting for it to be recorded and dictating the next. I don’t think I could do that for sure and produce something that’s as coherent as Section 50 is.

Scott Woodward:
And Parley says he would just do it in one draft and then he’s done. We know, Casey, we’ve talked about how when Joseph is getting ready to publish these revelations, to make them public. He will go through them, and he’ll make some inspired changes and adjustments and additions. But I don’t think that in any way negates anything what part of you are saying here. It was this stream of beautiful revelation, and when it was done, it was done. That’s how it stood until Joseph went to print them, and he’ll do a little bit of modifying. But I don’t know that Section 50 got much modification in the printing. I think this one basically is as it stood. I haven’t looked at that, have you?

Casey Griffiths:
I have looked at it, and it seems like the earliest copy we have is the Manuscript Revelation books. That means John Whitmer copied it probably from the original into there. It doesn’t seem like this one did undergo a lot of modification. Again, as coherent and beautiful as it is, it’s a miracle that somebody could just sit and dictate like that.

Scott Woodward:
Okay, let’s jump into the content. “Hearken, O ye elders of my church,” the Lord begins, “and give ear to the voice of the living God, and attend to the words of wisdom them which shall be given unto you, according as you have asked and are agreed as touching the Church and the spirits which have gone abroad in the earth. Behold, verily, I say unto you that there are many spirits which are false spirits, which have gone forth in the earth deceiving the world. And also Satan has sought to deceive you, that he might overthrow you.” All in context of what’s just been happening here in the early Church. These weird spiritual manifestations, he’s saying a lot of that’s from Satan. “Behold, I, the Lord, have looked upon you and have seen abominations in the church that profess my name. But blessed are they who are faithful and endure, whether in life or in death, for they shall inherit eternal life.” Now, the events here in Kirtland in the spring of 1831 show, I think, that during times of great spiritual progress, the adversary often will take advantage of the overzealous, and he’ll lead them into wayward paths.

Scott Woodward:
Satan will use whatever tactic works, different tool for different times. His will to deceive us remains constant. In fact, more than a decade after Doctrine and Covenants 50 was received in an editorial that Joseph Smith oversaw in the Times and Seasons in Nauvoo called “Try the Spirits.” He talked about some of the things that Satan had done to deceive in the past and makes them really interesting and, I think, insightful comments. He said, quote, “Recent occurrences that have transpired amongst us, render it an imperative duty devolving upon me to say something in relation to the spirits by which men are actuated. It is evident from the apostle’s writings in the scriptures that many false spirits existed in their day and had gone forth into the world, and that it needed intelligence which God alone could impart to detect false spirits and to prove what spirits were of God.” What’s happening in Kirtland, that was not a new phenomenon. This happened anciently, he says. Then he cites a few scriptural examples of evil spirits that seem maybe legit or authentic. For instance, he says, quote, “The Egyptians were not able to discover the difference between the miracles of Moses and those of the magicians until they came to be tested together.

Scott Woodward:
“And if Moses had not appeared in their midst, they would unquestionably have thought that the miracles of the magicians were performed through the mighty power of God, for they were great miracles that were performed by them. A supernatural agency was developed and great power manifested. When you compare the deceptive thing to the authentic thing, that’s where you will be able to tell the inspired from the uninspired. And there’s a phrase that John in the New Testament uses to pit the fake against the real. He calls it, Trying the spirits, which Joseph says, “You must try the spirit. The learned, the eloquent, the philosopher, the sage, the divine, all are ignorant, but no one can try his own.” And what’s the reason? Because they don’t have “the key to unlock, no rule wherewith to measure, and no criterion whereby they can test it. For as no man knows the things of God, but by the Spirit of God, so no man knows the spirit of the devil and his power and influence, but by possessing intelligence which is more than human. Satan and his servants are well practiced in carrying out deception.” However, the prophet teaches that “through the priesthood, the influence of the Holy Ghost, and the knowledge of the laws of God, we can identify and counter the deceptions of the adversary.” Close quote.

Scott Woodward:
That’s pretty good. Through the influence of the priesthood, the Holy Ghost, and the knowledge of the laws of God, we can counter the deceptions of the adversary.

Casey Griffiths:
That editorial ends with him kind of summarizing, “It requires the Spirit of God to know the things of God, and the spirit of the devil can only be unmasked that medium.” It seems like he’s presenting a couple of things here. A compelling example is the magicians in the court of Pharaoh, that they do carry out genuine miracles. The other guy, the bad guy, the adversary, is capable of doing miraculous things, but we have to be cautious and make sure that those things are of God.

Scott Woodward:
I love the point that he’s pointing out that it’s going to take the Spirit of God to detect the spirit of the devil. The imitation is detected by the genuine. Let’s keep that in mind as we go through this.

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah, and keeping with that theme of genuine versus imitation, the next thing he addresses is hypocrisy. Verse 6, “Wo one to them that are deceivers and hypocrites, for, thus sayeth the Lord, I will bring them to judgment, and verily I say unto you, there are hypocrites among you.” And verse 8, “The hypocrites shall be detected and cut off, either in life or in death.” Now, that is one form of deception, hypocrisy. The word hypocrisy invokes a mask, basically, that comes on and comes off. Someone pretending to be righteous, and it seems like this is something that the Savior was really, really tuned into during his ministry. He will sit and eat dinner with publicans and sinners and prostitutes, but he can’t stand being around people who uphold themselves as righteous, but inwardly are not righteous. He calls them phrases like “whited walls,” which means like a really disgusting wall that’s just been painted over, but all the decay and destruction is still there. “Empty sepulchers,” which, again, suggests this idea of something that’s beautiful on the outside, but on the inside, contains bones and ruin and destruction. He doesn’t like hypocrisy. And undoubtedly, there’s still some hypocrisy that exists in the Church today.

Casey Griffiths:
One of the things that appeals to me about Church leaders is it doesn’t seem like they pretend to be more righteous than they are. I was thinking of the general leadership of the Church, like President Nelson and things like that, where they don’t hold themselves up as being better than other people. In fact, one of the things that I really love about our Church is the idea that leadership seems to come to people that don’t overtly seek it out. When a person gets position of leadership, it seems more often than that that they’re scared and they’re not aspiring towards those positions. It seems like sometimes spiritual aspiring is a mask for hypocrisy, where you just want the attention or you want the notoriety. I’ll say from the highest levels of the Church to the local levels. I’m just going to compliment my own ward leaders here. They all seem to be really humble people that struggle but are open about it.

Scott Woodward:
There’s this great quote from Joseph Smith. It’s from an 1843 discourse that he gave where I think it reflects what you’re talking about here, Casey. He said, “I do not think there have been many good men on the earth since the days of Adam, but there was one good man, and his name was Jesus. Many persons think a prophet must be a great deal better than anybody else.” He says, “Suppose I would condescend. Yes, I’ll call it condescend to be a great deal better than any of you. I would be raised up to the highest heaven, and who should I have to accompany me? If I’m so much better than you, then I’m going to be lonely in eternity.” We’re on the same level. We’re all just trying. Then he says this, one of my favorite lines. He says, “I love that man better who swears a stream as long as my arm, yet deals justice to his neighbors and mercifully deals his substance to the poor, than the long, smooth-faced hypocrite. I don’t want you to think I’m very righteous, for I am not. God judges men according to the use they make of the light which he gives them.” Close quote.

Scott Woodward:
I just want to highlight, to me, the theme here is hypocrisy versus weakness. Jesus doesn’t seem to be able to abide very calmly hypocrisy, pretending, deception, deliberately deceiving people. But I feel like he has infinite patience for weakness and people who are just trying to be better and do better. We slip up, we fall, we get back up, and we go to the sacrament table again, and we try again, and we do it for another week, and we slip up, and we fall. Like Joseph Smith, how many times in the Doctrine and Covenants does the Lord say, I forgive you, Joseph. I forgive you. I forgive you. Just do a little search sometime, listeners, and just check out how many times does Joseph Smith get forgiven. I mean, that tells you a lot about how he was weak. He was prone to the same kind of sins that we all are. And yet one thing that set him apart was he fearlessly, consistently repented. I think that’s a great example. So hypocrisy versus weakness, I think, is a really big deal. In Kirtland, we’ve got hypocrisy happening here, and the Lord’s like, I don’t like this. Some of you are deceiving, some of you are pretending, and we got to get rid of that.

Casey Griffiths:
I get the feeling that what was going on in Kirtland was not just hypocrisy. He says, I’m going to cut off the hypocrites from the Church. They’ll be revealed. An interesting phrase he uses, by the way, is “either in life or in death.” Some people, we don’t find out they’re hypocrites until they’re dead. But he does also change tone here. Maybe because these two revelations are right next to each other, I always compare this with the Shakers, where he’s blunt with them. Hey, the Second Coming is not going to look like this. And marriage is actually a good thing. But then look at the tone he uses. Instead of just blunt facts, do better, he takes on this reasoning tone, which sounds more like when he’s speaking to Nicodemus or one of the other people who come to him who might be off track, but they’re sincere, like they’re genuinely trying to do better. Let’s start in verse 10, “And now, saith the Lord, by the Spirit, unto the elders of his church, let us reason together, that ye may understand. Let us reason, even as a man reasoneth one with another, face to face.

Casey Griffiths:
“Now, when a man reasoneth, he is understood of man, because he reasoneth as a man; even so will I, the Lord, reason with you, that you may understand.” So he’s sitting down and saying, Let’s talk this through. It’s less of a blunt, you’re wrong kind of conversation and more of a, Hey, let’s work this out together. I would suggest the Savior is presenting a good model here for how we deal with challenges within the Church. There are times when you’re dealing with a group like the Shakers and you just have to say, No, this is the way it actually is. That’s being kind. Then there are times when you need to walk a person through things and explain what’s going on and why what they’re doing might not be appropriate. In this particular situation, I think the Lord recognized that there was a lot of zeal and enthusiasm, just not a lot of understanding here, that they weren’t guilty of really serious sins or misunderstandings. They needed a correction.

Scott Woodward:
This is a perfect example of the two different groups we were talking about. There’s the hypocrites, and Jesus says, I see you. I’m warning you. You need to change. You need to repent. You will be revealed if you don’t change. Then he switches to the weak, to those who are like, Is this from the Spirit? Is this real? What do we do with all this phenomena? Now he’s so gentle to weakness. He’s like, Come now, let us reason together. Let me ask you a couple of questions to think about. You just see that tone difference between hypocrisy and weakness. It’s so hopeful for the weak amongst us, me being the chief cornerstone.

Casey Griffiths:
We need to keep in mind here, too, that the Savior could just offer corrections by decree, but he employs reasoning. He is going to ask some inspired questions rather than just providing the answers. Like most inspired teachers, the Savior models good teaching here by asking the disciples to consider what they’re ordained to.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, I just love his tone here. He’s trying to ping their intellect just to get them thinking a little bit. He says, quote, “Wherefore I, the Lord, ask you this question – unto what were ye ordained?” Remember that his audience in verse one is the elders of the Church. Unto what were you ordained? What are you called to do? Then he answers his own question in verse 14, “To preach my gospel by the Spirit, even the Comforter, which was sent forth to teach the truth.” It’s about teaching and teaching by the Spirit. I can see the elders nodding their head here like, okay. Maybe some of them are thinking about young men going up and holding onto the rafters and smacking their head and falling down. Is that what you were called to do? Are you called to do that? No. You’re called to teach the gospel by the power of the Spirit. This sounds a lot less flashy and a lot more simple. A manifestation of the Spirit being teaching, really gently.

Casey Griffiths:
The manifestations among the members of the Church in Kirtland seem really strange to us, but it comes back to this tendency the Church members have to look for huge outward signs and sort of to avoid the more simple truth of the gospel. For instance, sometimes when we’re teaching or we’re trying to engage an audience, we tend to go for flashier things. Instead of focusing on what the Savior says, it’s just, I asked you to teach the gospel. Basically it. I remember this quote from Jeffrey R. Holland. He kind of called out teachers for seeking flashier things, bolder experiences, and rather than just teaching the gospel, he said this, “When crises come in our lives, and they will, the philosophies of men, interlaced with a few scriptures and poems, just won’t do. Are we really nurturing our youth and our new members in a way that will sustain them when the stresses of life appear? Or are we giving them a theological Twinkie, spiritually empty calories? President John Taylor once called such teaching fried froth, the thing you can eat all day and yet finish feeling totally unsatisfied.” That might be what they were experiencing here. They’re having these massive spiritual experiences, but one, they’re embarrassing to the Church, two, they’re dangerous, and three, they’re spiritually empty calories.

Casey Griffiths:
Like, scoot around on the floor, pretending like you’re wielding the sword of Laban, hanging from the rafters, aren’t things that actually feed people. A lot of times, I remember as a seminary teacher seeing somebody do an object lesson that would last for 15 or 20 minutes. It would take them so long to get to the scriptures and the actual teaching of the gospel that we were basically feeding them empty calories. It’s like eating candy. It was a lot of fun, but at the end of the day, you weren’t really nourished. It seems like that’s what the Savior is leading them towards here to say, Hey, I ordained you to preach the gospel. Is scooting around on the floor or wielding the sword of Laban teaching the gospel?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, I love that. In verse 14, he tells them what he called them to do, but then he talks about the diversion that just happened, verse 15, “And then received ye spirits which he could not understand, and received them to be of God; and in this are ye justified? Behold, ye shall answer this question yourselves; nevertheless, I will be merciful unto you; he that is weak among you hereafter shall be made strong.” The Lord is merciful to weakness. It’s so beautiful. Verse 17, “Verily I say unto you, he that is ordained of me and sent forth to preach the word of truth by the Comforter, in the Spirit of truth, doth he preach it by the Spirit of truth or some other way? And if it be by some other way, it is not of God.” On the flip side, from the student perspective, he says here, “He that receiveth the word of truth, doth he receive it by the Spirit of truth or some other way? If it be some other way it is not of God.” And so now he’s going to highlight another pair of spiritual gifts. We talked last week in Section 46, when we’re talking about the spiritual gifts, we saw all these different pairs that go together.

Scott Woodward:
I think Section 46, verse 13 and 14 showed us that one person has a gift to know that Jesus is the Christ, and others have the gift to believe on their testimony. Those go together. Or the gift of healing and being healed, the gift of tongues and interpretation of tongues, the gift of knowledge and wisdom, the gifts of differences of administration and diversities of operations. This is pairs, right? Here’s another pair, just to put in your cap. Just think about this. He says, verse 21, “Therefore, why is it that he cannot understand and know that he that receiveth the word by the Spirit of truth receiveth it as it is preached by the Spirit of truth? Wherefore, he that preacheth and he that receiveth, understand one another, and both are edified and rejoiced together.” So two spiritual gifts in operation here, right? Those who are preaching and those who are receiving. If the preaching is done by the Spirit and the teaching is received by the Spirit, How do you know that’s happened? Edification will occur and you will rejoice together. Verse 22 says. Another powerful pairing of spiritual gifts there, of teaching by the Spirit and receiving by the Spirit, which in the context of this Kirtland phenomenon, the question is starting to be asked, Was there anything edifying about what you’re seeing when you’re seeing people do that weird stuff?

Scott Woodward:
Was the gospel conveyed? No. Was it edifying? No. Did you rejoice? Was there understanding? Did you really get each other? No. It’s like, you see? You see where this is going? He’s being really, I think, gentle and careful, but super clear here.

Casey Griffiths:
It kind of speaks to this idea of the key between knowing a genuine spiritual communication, maybe a false one, is edification. It’s not a word we use very much in common speech anymore, but to edify literally just means to build, meaning there’s going to be something that builds you, that makes you better, that improves you, specifically. It makes me think of Brigham Young’s conversion story. Around the time Section 50 is being received, Brigham Young is back home in New York.

Scott Woodward:
Not a member of the Church yet, right?

Casey Griffiths:
Not a member of the Church. He sort of describes this phenomenon where someone is really eloquent, and then someone just teaches the gospel. They’re maybe not eloquent. In fact, there’s a wonderful video about this that is one of my favorites. You can find it on YouTube. But here’s the discourse he gives in 1852 where he describes his conversion. He says, “If all the talent, tact, wisdom, and refinement of the world had been sent to me with the Book of Mormon and had declared in the most exalted of earthly eloquence the truth of it, undertaking to prove it by learning and worldly wisdom, they would have been to me like the smoke which arises only to vanish away.” He’s hitting a major point here, which is you could be very persuasive and have evidence and back everything up, but it might not have that big of an impact. Then he says this, “But when I saw a man without eloquence or talents for public speaking who could only say, I know by the power of the Holy Ghost that the Book of Mormon is true, that Joseph Smith is a prophet of the Lord. The Holy Ghost proceeded from that individual, illuminated my understanding, and light and glory and immortality were before me.

Casey Griffiths:
“I was encircled by them I filled with them, and I knew for myself that the testimony of the man was true.” In fact, when he’s giving this discourse, the person he’s talking about is present in the audience. In fact, he pauses. He says, “My own judgment, natural endowments and educations bow to this simple but mighty testimony. There sits the man who baptized me.” Eleazer Miller was his name, and he’s in the audience, and Brigham Young calls him out and says, “It filled my system with light and my soul with joy. The world, with all its wisdom and power, and with all the glory and gilded show of its king’s or potentates, sinks into perfect insignificance compared with the simple unadorned testimony of a servant of God.” And then he adds, “Sermonizing, dividing, and subdividing subjects, building up a fine superstructure, a fanciful and aerial building calculated to fascinate the mind, coupled with the choicest eloquence in the world will do no good to them. The sentiments of my mind, in the manner of my life are to obtain knowledge by the power of the Holy Ghost.” Just a beautiful account where he tells Eleazer Miller, You weren’t the most eloquent missionary.

Casey Griffiths:
I know that you maybe didn’t have the fanciest presentation, but the Spirit was there. When the Spirit’s there, it’s edifying. Like Brigham says, it fills your soul with light and brings joy to you. It’s one of those things that can look totally different from other people. Like, Scott, you are great at building up a superstructure and making your point, but it’s that added element. It’s that special magic that we’ve all felt when the Spirit has been present. That’s just so hard to communicate to other people. I can watch some teachers and say, Oh, that guy’s skilled. But a teacher with the Spirit, that catches you. There’s nothing like it. It’s the most edifying thing in the world.

Scott Woodward:
This is something that you and I, Casey, being professional educators in the Church, we have thought about this for decades. We have sat in a lot of in-service meetings. We’ve gone through a lot of people trying to parse out exactly how do you teach by the Spirit. I think the Lord is cutting through all the noise right here. He’s telling us exactly how you know when it’s happened. There’s not a formula, but you know when it’s happened. The way you know is that word you’ve already used. You will both be edified and rejoiced together. Verse 23, he adds, “And that which doth not edify is not of God, and is darkness.” Whether or not it’s super interesting, fascinating, whatever. But if you walk away not feeling built up, if the result of your lesson that you’re teaching that group of 14-year-olds or that family home evening you’re having, or as a missionary, teaching an investigator, all the different ways we teach in the Church. If the end result of that is not that the person who received was built up, was edified, and that you don’t feel built up and edified, then it didn’t happen.

Scott Woodward:
So there’s not a formula. If you just do these things, ask questions like this, pause for five seconds before you talk, make sure all the things we sometimes talk about with teachers, he just says, Here’s how you know. You’ll be edified, and you’ll both want to rejoice together. And so pray for that, seek for that, be humble, don’t be a hypocrite, don’t be deceptive. It’s okay to be a weak person. Sometimes we feel like, Oh, I’m so hypocritical because I’m not perfect and I’m trying to help other people understand the gospel, but I’m not even living it perfectly. That’s not the kind of hypocrisy he’s talking about. The bad kind is the deceptive kind. Weakness, no problem. Let me, let’s work with you all day long. As a gospel teacher, we are all inadequate, but we can edify. We can be instruments in the hands of God to edify. We know because we both want to rejoice and both feel built up. It’s light, like you said, it’s light. We know what that feels like.

Casey Griffiths:
The word edify is also used in edifice, which sometimes we do use the word edifice, but it refers to a sacred structure or a temple. A true communication from God is edifying. They communicate light, they build you up. It seems like this is what Section 50 is going for, is if you’re in convulsions on the ground, is that edifying? Is that building you? Joseph Smith addresses this in another editorial that shows up in a Church periodical. He was talking about some of the dramatic spiritual displays that were common among Christian denominations of his time. Here’s what he writes. He said, “Others frequently possess a spirit which will cause them to lay down. During its operation, animation is frequently entirely suspended. They consider it to be the power of God, a glorious manifestation from God, a manifestation of what,” is what he asked. “Is there any intelligence communicated? Are the curtains of heaven withdrawn or the purposes of God developed? Have they seen and conversed with an angel or had the glories of futurity burst upon their view?” So Joseph Smith, again, is asking the same question. Okay, you fell down, you collapsed on the ground, you’re convulsing.

Casey Griffiths:
Is there anything being communicated here? Because in the Book of Mormon, Scott, sometimes they do fall down, and sometimes they do convulse, and sometimes they are put in spiritual comas. But when they wake up, they always express that while they were in that state, something has been communicated. They were edified. I guess convulsing or speaking in tongues can be a manifestation of the Spirit, but the ultimate test would be, did you learn something? Did it build you in some way?

Scott Woodward:
That’s so powerful. I love that quote. In fact, at the end of that quote, he says, “Oftentimes, all they’ll do when they wake up is they’ll just shout, glory and Hallelujah, and some other incoherent expression.” We got two words now from Joseph Smith in this revelation. We got one is edify, and the other is intelligence. He says, Is there any intelligence communicated?

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah, which is as good a test as any. Is there any intelligence communicated? If so, it’s a spiritual manifestation. And from God.

Scott Woodward:
Verse 24, along that line says, “That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light and continueth in God receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day.” In fact, another word that’s going to come into the vocabulary later on in Section 93 is this word intelligence, which he defines as light and truth. We’re going to get, is there light? Is there truth? Is there edification? Why is he explaining this? Verse 25, “Again, verily I say unto you, and I say it unto you that you may know the truth, that you may chase darkness from among you.” This is the point. I’m trying to chase darkness from among you. So principles locked in here. Edification, intelligence communicated, light and truth. This is what you’re looking for. This is what you’re tasting in the air. Like, is this doing anything to build us up spiritually? Great test.

Casey Griffiths:
Brigham Young has an experience that maybe illustrates this. He talks about how for the first time, September 1832, he travels to Kirtland and he visits Joseph Smith. In fact, he writes, he’s traveling with his friend, Heber C. Kimball. He says, “We visited many friends on the way in some branches of the Church. We exhorted them and prayed with them, and I spoke in tongues. Some pronounced it genuine from the Lord and others pronounced it of the devil.” So Brigham Young is is having this gift of the Spirit. He’s speaking in tongues, and some people are saying, Oh, well, he’s the real deal. Others are saying, No, the devil is giving him that power. They get to Kirtland, and he talks about they found Joseph Smith chopping and hauling wood. He shakes hand with Joseph Smith and says, “Here my joy was full with the privilege of shaking the hand of the prophet of God and received the sure testimony by the spirit of prophecy that he was all that any man could.” Joseph Smith invites them to come to a testimony meeting that night. According Brigham Young, at the meeting, he was asked to pray, and during the prayer, he speaks in tongues.

Casey Griffiths:
Again, this is one of the spiritual gifts that was manifested in Brigham Young. As soon as the prayer ended, according to Brigham Young, everybody looked at Joseph Smith to see what his reaction was. And Brigham Young later recalled, he said, “He told them it was the pure Adamic language. Some said to him that he expected he would condemn the gift Brother Brigham had. But he said, No, it is of God, and the time will come when Brother Brigham will preside over for this Church.” Wow. I mean, it was an unknown tongue, but was it edifying for someone? Yes. It seems like it was edifying for Joseph Smith because it was manifested to him that Brigham Young would one day lead the Church. Now, Brigham Young does note that the last part of that conversation took place in his absence. He told people that privately, Joseph Smith, that Brigham Young didn’t know, but eventually found out. In this instance, someone’s edified. He’s speaking in an unknown tongue, and maybe Brigham Young doesn’t know the meaning, but Joseph Smith was edified and understood the meaning, which is another one of those twists when it comes to spiritual gifts.

Scott Woodward:
I love that you brought up our last week, Section 46, when we talked about this, there were some other words there that were helpful to recognize if it’s a genuine spiritual gift being manifested or if it’s just of the devil, or if it’s of man. One of those words was benefit. Does it benefit anybody? One of them was profit. Is anyone profited by the gift? Now we got a little cluster of words, don’t we? We got benefit, profit, edify, light, truth, intelligence. What a great cluster of discerning words. At this point, though, a modern reader or listener to this podcast might have a question, something like, That’s neat, but I’ve never seen anyone fall on the ground and convulse and say it’s of God or anyone like, scoot on the ground or try to follow a ball of fire through the sky. That kind of stuff isn’t happening anymore. I’m not sure Section 50 is really that relevant. Maybe the context that brought this revelation about is nothing like anything that we’re experiencing today. So kind of a neat historical tidbit, but what’s the relevance to me today?

Casey Griffiths:
First of all, I think those things are more common than maybe we think they are. Second, people claiming to have genuine communication from God and receiving spiritual messages are still pretty common. The tests are, is it edifying? Does it communicate intelligence? Then circling back to that idea hypocrisy at the first of this section, take a look in verse 26. This is one of my favorite passages from the entire Doctrine and Covenants. “He that is ordained of God and sent forth, the same is appointed to be the greatest, notwithstanding he is the least and the servant of all.” Another thing that you see when a person genuinely has the Spirit, it’s not this attitude of, Hey, everybody, look at me. I’m amazing, but how could I use this to help other people? The Savior’s leadership model isn’t that the greatest person is on top, but the greatest person is on a lower level, and all things kind of flow down to them. You do see, I’ll say, among the leadership of the Church, this genuine humility where they’re not seeking to be the flashiest person or the best speaker or the most popular preacher or anything like that. There’s just this genuine, I want to serve and I want to help you, and I’m going to do the best that I can with the gifts that I’ve been given, attitude that they have that to me is really edifying, too.

Casey Griffiths:
I love to see genuine, sincere people that are leading in that spirit, not follow me because I’m the best, but I’m going to do the best I can to serve and take care of you.

Scott Woodward:
That’s the Christ spirit, isn’t it? The greatest became the servant of all. Sometimes I go back to verse 23, and I know it wasn’t originally intended for this, Casey, where it says, “That which does not edify is not of God ad is darkness.” I know he was talking in this context about weird spiritual manifestations or questionable spiritual manifestations. But sometimes I’ll think of that verse when I’m thinking about a particular media choice. I know that’s not the original context, but I do think today that another medium that Satan is using to deceive and to bring people down is some of the stuff that’s portrayed so intriguingly in various media. I think some of it’s of man, and some of it’s of the devil, and some of it’s of God. The question is, how can you tell? We can rely on rating systems. Those are helpful to a point. One application for me, and you can tell me if I’m way off base here, but I think of this section, I think the edification test, the intelligence test, the benefit test, that all still seems to apply really, really well when I’m kind of thinking about, is this a show I should watch?

Scott Woodward:
Is this a concert I should attend? It’s like, I don’t know. Is it going to be a benefit at all? Will it edify? If not, if it’s going to tear you down or if it’s going to put inappropriate kinds of ideas into your mind, it’s going to eventually chase away the light from your life. That’s not of me. You can choose however you want, but come now and let us reason together.

Casey Griffiths:
Honestly, the edification test is just as good as any I can think of when it comes to what you consume. Before you watch a movie or listen to a song, is it edifying? Is this going to build me up and make me better? When you were talking, I was sitting there thinking, if somebody scrolling through social media for 4 or 5 hours, and then I imagine Joseph Smith saying, Was there any intelligence communicated? I was guilty of this as anybody, but no. I mean, sometimes there is and sometimes there isn’t. Any one of those mediums, film, television, music, social media, can convey intelligence. There have been genuine times when I have learned a ton from reading a thread on Reddit or something like that. But a lot of times there’s no intelligence communicated. Maybe that’s a sign that it’s not necessarily communication from God, or there’s something I could be doing a little bit better with my time.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, it’s not so much about, is it rated PG, PG 13? Is it rated E? Does it edify? Is it rated I? Is there any intelligence? Is it rated B? Does it benefit anybody? Is there any goodness in this? Any light? Any truth? Any substance here? I have scrolled Instagram, and then an hour of your life goes by like that, and you’re like, What benefit did that do me? Nothing, really. There was no benefit. I know I just diverged from the original context of the revelation, Casey, but thank you for that conversation. I thought it was edifying. I appreciate indulging me in this modern application of this section.

Casey Griffiths:
One other piece, let’s jump down to verse 29, is personal worthiness as well. An element of spiritual communication is that we’re more likely to receive communication if we’re personally worthy. Verse 29, “If ye are purified and cleansed from all sin, ye shall ask whatsoever you will in the name of Jesus, and it shall be done. But know this, it shall be given unto you what you shall ask; and as ye are appointed to the head, the spirits shall be subject unto you. Wherefore, it shall come to pass that if you behold a spirit manifested that you cannot understand, and you receive not that spirit, you shall ask of the Father in the name of Jesus. If he give not unto you that spirit, then you may know that it is not of God.” So another element here is personal purity and worthiness. There’s a story that I read in Bruce R. McConkie’s biography once where he took his sons up to a television broadcast facility. This is when he was on a mission in Australia. When they got back to the valley below, he turned on their television set and he’s tuning it in. The analogy he uses here is that it’s kind of like a radio, like you turn on a radio, you hear static.

Casey Griffiths:
Then he tunes it, and all of a sudden a voice comes in. The analogy he used to his sons was to basically say, When there was static, did that mean that there wasn’t a signal broadcasting? No, we just weren’t in tune. He says, Likewise, the Spirit is constantly speaking to us, and God is always giving us directions, but sometimes we’re just not in tune. We’re not on the right frequency, I guess you’d say, to get the guidance that we need in order to receive the spiritual communication that God has in store for us.

Scott Woodward:
Which is an analogy that’s going to be lost on a lot of the rising generation who’ve never turned a radio and heard the static. Now it’s just you go to Apple Music and you push play. Have you ever been in a place where there’s no WiFi signal? Adapt it for your audience, if need be. If any of you guys are going to use that analogy to teach, know who you’re teaching. A little bit of an interesting thing in verse 31 that you just read is that he’s talking about those who are at the head, verse 30. So like the leader of a congregation, for instance, like a bishop or the prophet, if you’re in a meeting and you’re presiding and you see something, some weird stuff happening, I’m talking about the original context here. Notice that the Lord says, I will give you to understand whether that’s of God or not. If you receive that same spirit, then you know it’s of God. But if you don’t, then you know it’s not. But then he tells them what to do if you receive this strong confirmation, this is not of God, verse 32. “It shall be given you, power over that spirit, and you shall proclaim against that spirit with a loud voice that it is not of God – not with railing accusation that ye be not overcome, neither with boasting nor rejoicing, lest you be seized therewith.”

Scott Woodward:
It’s interesting. Be bold, but don’t be railing, and don’t rejoice that you now have one up on the devil or whatever. Again, I’ve never seen these verses be applied in this context in modern day. I’m thinking about parenting right now, Casey, and thinking about when your kids are maybe getting involved in something that they don’t perceive has darkness in it, but you can perceive there is darkness in it. How do you go about conveying that to them? Not with railing accusation, that’s going to create an enemy, not with rejoicing or boasting that you’re right, they’re wrong, or whatever. It’s not going to work. So again, there’s a way to challenge darkness that doesn’t need to play by the rules of darkness. It doesn’t spell out exactly what to do here, but he’s telling us what not to do. Remember that light will chase away the darkness. Proclaim against that spirit, he says, just don’t do it in a way that’s going to stir up more darkness, I guess, is how I’d summarize that.

Casey Griffiths:
I can’t remember if I’ve told this story before, but one of my old mission prep teachers shared a story about that. Same thing that you brought up where if someone’s in darkness, how do you bring them into the light? Because a lot of times, if you walk in and say, Hey, you’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing, you’re kind of met with aggression and anger. He told this story where he was out, and Randy Bott was his name, by the way. He was playing football with his friends, and it’s getting dark, but when you’re outside and it starts to get dark, gradually, you don’t notice sometimes. He said he was running back for a pass and he didn’t see this tree branch and it just clocked him and totally knocked him out. He went into the house and got a bandaid and got cleaned up. He came back out and realized it was pitch black. He yelled to his friends like, Hey, it’s too dark to play. Somebody’s going to get hurt. All of them say, No, it’s fine. It’s totally fine. Instead of saying, You guys are going to get hurt, he said, Well, let’s take a time out.

Casey Griffiths:
Everybody come in, get a drink. Everybody paused, came in, got a drink. When they came back out of the house, they realized how dark it was, and the game ended on its own. The moral of the story as he shared it, was that sometimes what a person needs is to just be brought into the light. You manifest the light to them, and then they’ll realize that they were in darkness, and they’ll make corrections accordingly. I try to do things with my own family where we read the scriptures or we pray, or we demonstrate edifying activity or show love. A lot of times, those things will make them see the counterfeits out there for what they really are, that they’re not the sort of things that can make somebody happy, that they’re, in fact, darkness, that they’re not the light that comes from God.

Scott Woodward:
I love that. Rather than railing against the imitation, bring them into the light of the genuine thing, and then in light of the genuine, they’ll be able to detect the imitation themselves. That’s good, Casey. One last verse I want to just read is his gentle ending here. A couple of verses, verse 40, “Behold, ye are little children, and ye cannot bear all things now. Ye must grow in grace and in the knowledge of the truth. Fear not, little children, for you are mine, and I have overcome the world, and you are of them that my Father hath given me, and none of them that my Father hath given me shall be lost. Wherefore, I am in your midst, and I am the good shepherd, and the stone of Israel. He that buildeth upon this rock shall never fall.” Again, no condemning tone in his voice. They’ve just been falling prey to some honestly, kind of silly deceptions, but he calls them little children. He’s like, That’s okay. I work with people like you all the time. You stay close to me, build on this rock, and you are not going to fall. Keep growing in grace.

Scott Woodward:
Keep growing in a knowledge of truth. I don’t condemn you. You are wonderful. I love you. So good. Okay, so, Casey, let me ask you a controversial question from Section 50. We talked about in this section, learning by the Spirit, receiving by the Spirit, as well as teaching by the Spirit. We talk mostly about teaching by the Spirit, but not so much about receiving. Sometimes people say that different people feel the Spirit differently, and I want to know your thoughts on that. It’s kind of controversial in my mind because would that be true? Would the Spirit operate differently with different people, or do you think there is one way that the Spirit works, and that’s how you can tell that it’s working?

Casey Griffiths:
I would say yes and no. People do feel the Spirit differently. Some people get quiet, some people get loud, and honestly, it can be different on different occasions. Some people, when they feel the Spirit, their mind starts to work really, really quickly. Sometimes when people feel the Spirit, it slows down and they gain clarity. I don’t want to pigeonhole how the Spirit can function. I think that’s part of the purpose of the discourses in Doctrine and Covenants 46, and Moroni 10, and 1 Corinthians 12 and 13 is to say, Hey, there’s a lot of ways. In fact, it’s always struck me that right after in Moroni 10, Moroni says, Here’s how you know by the power of the Holy Ghost, you may know the truth of all things, then he lists off the Spirit. It seems to me like Moroni is deliberately saying, Don’t limit the ways that you can, though. But I think Section 50 gives us another key because we could just say, Well, any manifestation comes from God. Anytime you feel like good, it’s coming from God, is this idea of edification. That, again, it should be something that communicates intelligence, that edifies, and that builds you as a better person.

Casey Griffiths:
Because we can be subject to deception. I mean, for instance, if you think when I’m crying, I’m feeling the Spirit. Yes, that is the way the Spirit is manifest for a lot of people as they get emotional. But I can also emotionally manipulate you. I can get up and tell a story about how my dog died when I as a kid or something like that. There might be ulterior motives behind it, and there might be just some really good theatricality. Maybe I know how to modulate the tone of my voice and speak really softly in a way that arouses emotion. But at the end of the day, you have to back up and say, Well, did I get anything out of that? Was I edified? Was their intelligence communicated? And so, yes, the Spirit can manifest itself in a lot of different ways, but one key element of the Spirit will be that it builds you, not that it just stirs up the emotions within you or gets you to feel something. Sometimes we have to ask ourselves, All right, that was a lot of sound and a lot of fury, but did I actually get anything out of that?

Casey Griffiths:
And if so, it’s probably likely that you weren’t edified, and this section says that which doth not edify is not of God and is darkness.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, the fact that there are multiple spiritual gifts that come from one spirit is all the evidence we need that there are multiple ways people can experience the Spirit of God. However, the thing that it’s always going to have in common, tell me if I’m understanding you right, is that it will always edify. At the end of the day, if it’s really genuinely from God, it will benefit, edify, convey intelligence. That’s how you know. It’s not like whether you’re crying, whether you’re feeling a burning in your bosom, whether you feel like clapping your hands and shouting for joy, if you feel like just contemplate walking off into the woods and being quiet in your soul. What is the real test is the effect of that on you. Is that a fair summary of what you’re saying?

Casey Griffiths:
I think that’s fair to say, right? I think the Lord is also cautioning us. Again, he uses terms like false spirits, which seem unfamiliar and strange to us today. But I’m guessing if we were to modernize what he’s talking about here, we would say things that manipulate you, things that emotionally stir you to do certain things. There’s a lot of that that still goes on, that people feel moved to do certain things, but not always for the right reasons or the proper motives. We’ve got to ask ourselves if we’re carefully testing those whims that come along and finding out if they really are something that comes from God. All right, so, Scott, a lot to discuss in this section. What are the consequences? What are the takeaways here?

Scott Woodward:
So Doctrine and Covenants 50 has become something of a standard for how to teach and how to receive knowledge from God, not skills, but to remember the effect. It always needs to be edification. It shows that the Lord is willing to reason with his weak servants to help them understand principles of the gospel when they are confused. It’s cool to know that Parley P. Pratt, he took the words that he heard in this revelation to heart. After this revelation was received, he actually follows this counsel that was given. When he travels in company with a guy named Joseph Wakefield, we’ll talk more about next week, he visited several branches of the Church, and they start to apply this, and they see where some manifestations of the quote, unquote, spirit, the false spirits, started to raise their head. And as the presiding elders, they began to rebuke the wrong spirits which had crept in among them and started to set in order the things that were lacking, wanting, they said, ordaining elders and officers, baptizing such as believed and repenting of their sins, administering the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands. They start to regulate the Church.

Scott Woodward:
They tried to apply this like, Why did I call you again? I called you to teach the gospel. So do that. Set that in order in the Church and stamp out any of the unusual, weird spirits that are not edifying. Unusual and dramatic spiritual experiences can come from God. Those can be real, and they’re still experienced in the Church today. In Section 50, the Lord does not discount supernatural events. He’s just telling them how to discern the real ones from the false ones. In fact, only a few weeks after the revelation was given, Parley P. Pratt and Joseph Smith visit a young woman named Chloe Smith, who seemed at the point of death, they said. When Joseph and Parley arrived to visit that she was, quote, “lying very low with a lingering fever.” According to Parley, he said, quote, “We kneeled down and prayed vocally all around, each in turn, after which President Smith went to the bedside, took her by the hand, and said unto her with a low voice, In the name of Jesus Christ, arise and walk. She immediately arose and was dressed by a woman in attendance when she walked to a chair before the fire and was seated and joined us in singing a hymn.

Scott Woodward:
“From that moment, she was perfectly restored to health.” That’s a dramatic spiritual experience. Now, was that really of God or was that of the devil? Well, did it benefit anybody? Was there any intelligence communicated? Was there edification? Incredible. That’s an incredible example. In other words, these early converts are applying these things right away. The early leaders of the Church, the elders, are starting to pick up the lessons of Section 50 and apply them, and that’s a good thing. The final thing, I think, take away from Section 50 is our nice little edifying conversation in the middle of all this, Casey, that I think we can pull out principles from this today in the kinds of spirits we choose to expose ourselves to, right? What kinds of media, what kinds of people, what kinds of influences we allow into our lives.

Casey Griffiths:
This might seem removed from us, but this is one of the most relevant sections of the Doctrine and Covenants. There’s constantly messaging coming our way. If we can pause for a minute and ask and say, What is building me? What’s edifying me? It makes a huge difference in the choices that we make for what we view, see, and hear every single day. Well, thank you, Scott. This has been fun.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Thanks, Casey. Great times. We’ll see you next week..