Scott Woodward:
Welcome to Church History Matters. Today, I have some good news and some sad news. Sad news is, Casey Griffiths is not with us today. He is over on Hank and John’s podcast called Follow Him. So if you’re wanting to fill your Casey calories this week, you want to go get some Casey, go over to Follow Him. And instead of Casey, now I’m transitioning to the good news here, I have with me today, my good friend, Anthony Sweat. Anthony, welcome to the show, man.

Anthony Sweat:
I’m so excited I’m glad to be with you, Scott. And some of your listeners just went, That was bad news and worse news. Not bad news and good news. But I cannot replace the great Casey Griffiths.

Scott Woodward:
Casey is irreplaceable.

Anthony Sweat:
He is.

Scott Woodward:
But…

Anthony Sweat:
I got better jokes, though. I got better jokes.

Scott Woodward:
You do. And I hope, I hope that comes out today. And feel free just to let it fly here on Church History Matters.

Anthony Sweat:
I’ll try to do my best.

Scott Woodward:
I don’t think our listeners will be disappointed. By the end of this, you’ll understand why I invited Anthony onto the show today. He is an expert in the Doctrine and Covenants, all things Church history. He is a professor of religion at BYU Provo in the Church History and Doctrine department. And I’m not going to give a big old long bio, Tony, but let’s just get in it. Let’s have fun, but…

Anthony Sweat:
I love the Doctrine and Covenants. I love to teach it. I love the marvelous revelations. We’re not holding back. This is going to be awesome.

Scott Woodward:
Awesome. So today is Doctrine and Covenants 20 through 22. That’s what we’re studying this week for Come, Follow Me. And man, is there a lot of material to cover today, Tony?

Anthony Sweat:
Yeah. Big sections, big major sections, particularly Section 20 as we’ll talk about this founding constitutional section, and 21, and even 22, even though it’s just a short little guy, it’s not one whit behind in its potency. So I’m excited to dive into these.

Scott Woodward:
Shorty but goody.

Anthony Sweat:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
All right, so let’s drop into our first C for Section 20, the context. Anthony, you want to take it away?

Anthony Sweat:
Sure. Love to.

Scott Woodward:
Okay.

Anthony Sweat:
The context of Section 20 has a fun story behind it because it’s one of those unique revelations where you’re not getting the first-person voice of the Lord. You’re getting almost a third-person approach where we’re talking like, we as a people, we as a Church. This is what we… And it’s a document that has a history behind it that’s evident, and also there’s parts of it where we don’t know how it’s being put together. The context behind this is when they finish translating the Book of Mormon and back in Section 18 of the Doctrine and Covenants that you guys have already studied, the Lord gives a revelation to David Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery. And in one of the verses, this is Section 18, verse 3 and 4, the Lord says, “I give unto you a commandment that you rely upon the things which are written.” Now, in context, that’s the Book of Mormon. “For in them,” in the pages of the Book of Mormon, “are all things written concerning the foundation of my church, my gospel, and my rock.” And so Oliver Cowdery is going to take the manuscript of the Book of Mormon, and over the next number of months, he is going to pull together from the Book of Mormon what he sees as foundational practices and ordinances and offices, and put it together into a document that is known as the Articles of the Church of Christ.

Anthony Sweat:
And over half of Doctrine and Covenants 20, it seems, or is reported to be a quotation of Oliver Cowdery’s original articles. In fact, when they’re organizing the Church on April 6, 1830, what they’re going to use to file with the state of New York is Oliver’s articles, because that’s what’s been being used as kind of like their founding document, their founding beliefs. Now, Joseph, by prophetic authority and revelation, he is going to then start to expand on Oliver’s articles. In Joseph’s own history, he says, “In this manner did the Lord continue to give us instructions from time to time concerning the duties which now devolved upon us, and among many other things of the kind, we obtained of him the following”, that is the Articles and Covenants or the constitution, Section 20, “by the spirit of prophecy and revelation, which not only gave us much information, but also pointed out to us the precise day upon which, according to his will and commandment, we should proceed to organize his Church once again here upon the earth.” Now, Joseph’s writing that later in 1838, 39 for his history. So Joseph is going to then, by the spirit of prophecy and revelation, his own words, expand upon Oliver’s original articles, and the result will be Section 20, the Doctrine and Covenants.

Scott Woodward:
And so does he, does Joseph consider this document finished, done, definitive, or is this more of an open document to be added upon?

Anthony Sweat:
Well, like most of his revelations, I’m not sure if Joseph ever sees any of them as finished and done and definitive. Language is too interpretive. Like for example, in Section 20 of the Doctrine and Covenants, it originally said that priesthood holders are to, quote, “administer the flesh and blood of Christ.” End of quote. Now, obviously, we hear that as sacrament, but in a later edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, Joseph will amend it to say that elders are to, quote, “administer bread and wine, the emblems of the flesh and blood of Christ.” He’s clarifying there what he means by that. I don’t know his motive behind making that clarification. But clearly, like other documents, if Joseph feels a need to clarify or add to, he does that even with Section 20, this constitutional document.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. In fact, in an early edition of this document, it has written on it. It says, “Thus far, the Church articles and covenant,” suggesting this ongoing nature of the Church’s development, like you’re saying. Joseph will add as additional revelation comes, he’s going to continue to add to this document, which is great.

Anthony Sweat:
Yeah. He doesn’t add this in, but even in Section 33 of the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord gives a revelatory clarification about confirmation. Section 20 brushes on, you know, Here you baptize, and here’s some things of confirmation. Section 33 adds a little bit more, so. And clearly, as priesthood offices and other things come and develop. For example, another obvious addition that will come later is in verse 66 to 67. He says, “But the presiding elders, traveling bishops, high counselors, high priests and elders have the privilege of ordaining.” Now, when the Church is organized in April 6th of 1830, the only priest offices are elder, priest, teacher, deacon. And so high priest, bishop, high council, that doesn’t come until the years following between 1830 and 1835. So it’s obvious that by the time the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants comes, verses like that are later amendments by Joseph.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. He’s going back as additional revelations been received to kind of update that in terms of this operating document for the Church. Good. What else do we need to know about the context there? Anything else?

Anthony Sweat:
I think context. Just understand upfront how important this document was. It will be the first revelation to be printed in the Church’s official newspaper called the Evening and Morning Star. Back then, particularly because we won’t get a real edition printed of Joseph’s revelations until 1835, Doctrine and Covenants. A lot of people, the way they got the revelations were through the newspaper. That’s how most people got their first exposure and had a printed copy. So the fact that this is the first one printed shows like, Hey, Section 20 is primo important. And then another maybe contextual thing to show its importance is in the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, it is the first section to come only after the preface. So it’s like, preface, Section 20.

Scott Woodward:
Boom.

Anthony Sweat:
Boom, yeah. And it’s almost like this section should be given preeminence among the Saints for us to know and to study. I’ve said to my students before, Section 20 to you and I is like the Constitution is to somebody who studies American government. We should know Section 20 really well. It was the original handbook of instruction, so to speak, it’s the original guiding document for the Church.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. In fact, only two months after the Church was organized on the 9th of June, 1830, Joseph will present Section 20 at that conference for, like, Church-sustaining approval.

Anthony Sweat:
Yep.

Scott Woodward:
And this is the only section of the Doctrine and Covenants to be sustained like that in Joseph’s day.

Anthony Sweat:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And so, again, that just underscores what you’re saying about, like, this was meant to be binding, guiding, like the document that the Church would run off of, and he wanted the Latter-day Saints to sustain it as such.

Anthony Sweat:
Even today in the Church, you know, maybe I won’t jump ahead on your four Cs, but in consequences, even today, if somebody finds that they don’t have their phone with them, and somehow they need to say the sacrament, or there’s not a little card printed and laminated. You open up to Section 20, and there’s our sacrament prayers. You open up to Section 20, and there’s our baptismal prayer. So it is this founding document, even for us today.

Scott Woodward:
It’s funny you mentioned that because I’ve recently been called into a bishopric, and our bishop was gone. I’m his first counselor, last week, and the priest knelt down and started saying the prayer, and I realized, I’m the guy. I’m supposed to be checking and making sure he’s saying the prayer right. And so hastily, I was like, boom. My mind went, turn to Section 20. It’s in Section 20. Or 76. I check it up. So in five seconds, I was like, and I was following along, and he nailed it. Except on the water, he said, or on the wine, he said water.

Anthony Sweat:
He said water. So did you call him out? Did you tell him to stop?

Scott Woodward:
It’s wine. It says it right here. I did not. No. But you’re right. My instinct was not to look for a card. Where’s a card that has the prayers? It was like, go to Section 20. And, and we should mention that Section 20 is drawing heavily from the Book of Mormon, because actually that’s where the prayer originally is, right, in Moroni.

Anthony Sweat:
If anybody’s ever like, why is it involved? Getting back to the context, that’s evidence of Oliver going into the Book of Mormon, pulling it into the articles, which becomes in the Section 20, the constitution.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, Casey and I, when we were covering Section 18, we talked about how Book of Mormon-based our Church is. It’s really, especially in these founding years, the doctrine, the structure, the liturgy of the sacrament, baptism, we are pulling it directly from the Book of Mormon.

Anthony Sweat:
Yep.

Scott Woodward:
And I don’t know if we emphasize that enough. I mean, this is a Book of Mormon-based Church. Section 18, and now Section 20 is the best evidence for that.

Anthony Sweat:
Amen. Like they say in Section 20, do the whole thing. Amen.

Scott Woodward:
Totally. All right. So there’s the context. All right, so content of Section 20. What do we need to know about this section? What’s so important? Let’s dive in.

Anthony Sweat:
Okay. Preamble with foundational events, like, what led up to this Church? Then second part, foundational doctrines or teachings. Like, what really is our most foundational doctrine that we teach. And then last part, then what’s our practices? What are we going to do that’s growing out of this foundational events and doctrines.

Scott Woodward:
Perfect. So the three-part division of Section 20. Let’s get into that first part then, the preamble. I think that would be what verses one through four is kind of the announcement of the Church’s legitimacy, right. This states that the Church of Christ was legally organized and established because of the will and commandments of God. I’m quoting right here on April 6, 1830. This Church exists because God gave commandments concerning its establishment to Joseph Smith, Jr. “who was called of God and ordained an apostle of Jesus Christ to be the first elder of this church, and Oliver Cowdery, who was also called of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ, the second elder of the church. And this, according to the grace of our Lord and Savior.” So in other words, this Church exists because God commanded to authorize the apostles to establish it. That’s pretty solid beginning.

Anthony Sweat:
That’s a great beginning. At the end of verse four, where it gives our first Amen, I give an Amen to that.

Scott Woodward:
Amen. So that’s the authority of the Church. That’s the legitimacy of the Church.

Anthony Sweat:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Perfect. So then verses 5 through 10, kind of give like you’re saying a brief overview of some of the foundational historical narrative of the Church.

Anthony Sweat:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Right, it begins at the moment when this first elder, Joseph Smith, had it truly manifested unto him that he had received a remission of his sins. This seems to be an oblique little reference to the First Vision.

Anthony Sweat:
Yeah, sometimes you’ll hear people say, you know, Joseph has four accounts of the First Vision, 1832, 35, 38, and 42.

Scott Woodward:
Totally.

Anthony Sweat:
And sometimes people will say, Well, he didn’t record the his vision until 1832. Now, that’s true. He didn’t record the details.

Scott Woodward:
Yep.

Anthony Sweat:
But if you know the 1832 account in particular, where it centers in on Joseph receiving a remission of his sins.

Scott Woodward:
Yes.

Anthony Sweat:
He even says the first thing that the Lord said to him was, Joseph, my son, thy sins are forgiven thee. If you know that, then when you read verse 5, you go, after it was manifest unto Joseph Smith that he had received remission of his sins, he entangled again in the vanities of the world. And you were like, oh, that… Actually, the first reference to the First Vision is in April of 1830 in Section 20 of the Doctrine and Covenants. So that’s our first public reference that I know of.

Scott Woodward:
It’s oblique. You’ve got to know the 1832 account to be able to catch it, but it’s there.

Anthony Sweat:
Yep.

Scott Woodward:
And I know, you know, Casey and I have talked, and other scholars have talked about how it seems like Joseph early on did not see the institutional relevance of his own personal First Vision.

Anthony Sweat:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
But it’s only over time that it that seems to dawn on him, especially as others give him feedback. Like, that’s significant, Joseph. Like we should talk more about that. That he really starts to make it more public and so. For him, this is a very personal experience where he sought God and sought forgiveness of sins, and it came. And that’s deeply personal. I’m just going to brush over here in verse 5, and I’m just going to keep going with the story. And it’s just so indicative of Joseph’s typical downplaying of the First Vision in those first years.

Anthony Sweat:
Yeah. But I wouldn’t give the critic the credence that Joseph doesn’t see its significance, because even when he starts his 1832 journal history, he even says, I’m going to write down all the marvelous things that have happened to me. And the first thing he writes down is the First Vision in 1832. I just don’t know, like you’re saying, I don’t know if he sees it as the impetus for the Restoration. It’s not until later, as you’re saying, that it will be like, no, this really does provide the foundational narrative for the Restored Church. Orson Pratt will be one of those who really starts to see and use it.And i It has become so foundational for us today.

Scott Woodward:
Exactly. Yeah. So personally significant? No question. Institutionally significant? That seems to grow in time over that first decade. And it was, it was Orson Pratt, wasn’t it? Who first had Joseph tell him a story, and then Orson wrote it in a pamphlet that he used as a missionary in 1842. Super cool. That’s verse 5. So we got First Vision. And then he’s entangled again in the vanities of the world, it says. That’s in between First Vision and second vision with Moroni, where his history talks about falling into many foolish errors, the foibles of human nature, the weakness of youth.

Anthony Sweat:
That’s what you wrote in your journal, right? As a teenager, my foibles of youth.

Scott Woodward:
My foibles. I have many foibles of the youth that I did not write down in my journal. But we know the story. He goes on, “After repenting and humbling himself sincerely through faith, God ministered unto him by a holy angel,” a reference to angel Moroni’s visits, who gave Joseph commandments, which inspired him, and power from on high through the means which were before prepared,” a reference to the Urim and Thummim, “to translate the Book of Mormon, which contains the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Anthony Sweat:
Beautiful.

Scott Woodward:
So now we got Moroni, we’ve got the coming forth, the Book of Mormon. Now the next verse goes right into the Three Witnesses. This inspired book, the Book of Mormon was confirmed but “to others by the ministering of angels.” Right, there’s the reference to David, Martin, Oliver, “and is declared unto the world by them,” by these three, by their united statement. It’s appended to every copy of the Book of Mormon. Those are the foundational historical moments as Joseph sees it here in this section. Right, so we’ve got First Vision, appearances of Moroni, the miraculous translation of the Book of Mormon, and the Three Witnesses themselves. And these, he says, have this collective effect.

Scott Woodward:
I I think it’s really important to connect this history to the point he’s making here.

Anthony Sweat:
Yeah, the why.

Scott Woodward:
These have the collective effect of, quote, “proving to the world that the Holy scriptures are true,” meaning the Holy Bible, “and that God does inspire men and call them to his holy work, as he’s always done, thereby showing that he,” God, “is the same God yesterday, today, and forever.” So in other words, if these four historical events are true, then it follows that the Bible is true and that God still inspires and calls people to his work.

Anthony Sweat:
That’s awesome. I sometimes have students, when I say to them, Okay, list the first few events of the Restoration off the top of your head. And they say, First Vision, Moroni, and the translation of the Book of Mormon, and Peter, James, and John, or John the Baptist, because they want to get authority in there. Now, we’ve already brushed on authority at the beginning, but Joseph isn’t laying out a case for it necessarily, baptism or priesthood authority here. He’s laying out a case that we do every day with our missionaries or with anybody else when we say, Hey, if you want to know if Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, and we hand them the Book of Mormon, and we say, Read this text, study this text. Let God manifest to you that this text is true. And if you do, with sincere faith, you’ll get the truth of it. Thereby, you will know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. He seems to be following that logic from the very beginning there. That’s why he says, First Vision, Moroni, Book of Mormon, and the Three Witnesses. That’s how you know he’s called us to do this work.

Scott Woodward:
I think that’s a pretty tight logical case. Like, if Joseph was really called by God and there really was an angel who led him to a book that was translated by the gift and power of God and angels ministered to three men to bear witness of that fact, then we know that the Bible is true and that God still inspires and calls people to this work.

Anthony Sweat:
I love when Elder Ballard calls the Book of Mormon tangible evidence of Joseph Smith’s prophetic ministry. Anybody can claim that they’ve seen God. Anybody can claim that God’s talked to him, but not anybody can say, And here is a book or a record or evidence, a witness to prove it. And that’s what the Lord gave Joseph. What a, what a marvelous tool.

Scott Woodward:
And verses 13 through 16 say, like, the stakes are pretty high for Earth, for the inhabitants of Earth. You will be judged, these verses say, by how you respond to these great witnesses of this work of God in our day. If you receive them in faith and you work righteousness, you will receive a crown of eternal life. But if you harden your hearts in unbelief and reject these things, it will turn to your own condemnation, he says, like so. This isn’t just interesting historical tidbits. This is… The Earth is going to be held accountable for the witnesses of these men. And what are you going to do about it? So that’s a strong beginning.

Anthony Sweat:
That’s a strong beginning. Verse 16, “For the Lord God hath spoken it.”

Scott Woodward:
Okay, so now we’re switching to kind of this second segment of Section 20, which is you called it laying out the doctrine or the theology.

Scott Woodward:
Do you want to walk us through this Tony, I know I’ve heard you in the past, and I think this will be good for our listeners to hear. You’ve talked about the inseparable nature and the relationship between our founding history and our founding theology. Like you can’t really fully pull apart our theology from our history.

Anthony Sweat:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
I think that’s the case that’s being made here in this section. Do you want to talk about that and walk through these verses?

Anthony Sweat:
You know, he says, If these events are true, the next line in 17 is, By these things, we know that… Now, these things or these historical events. If these historical events really happened, then we do know that… And he starts to list it. And so that’s the connection. We can’t separate our history from our doctrine, our doctrine of apostasy and restoration. Apostasy is a historical event. Restoration is a historical event. Apostasy of loss of priesthood, a restoration of priesthood. That’s kind of the logic of the shift here. If you really know that these things really did happen, then you will know this. This doctrine is true. Sometimes I say, Okay, what would you lay down as our founding doctrines then? What is it? And have them list them off the top of their head. And it’s really interesting to compare, even right now, as people are listening, as they’re driving or working out or what whatever they’re doing. In your own mind, list, if you’re like, if I had to list a half a dozen, you know, 5-10 founding doctrines, foundational, what would they be? And then to compare it to this list that you’re about to give. It’s a fun exercise.

Scott Woodward:
That is a fun exercise. And, and try to connect it to those founding events. If we know for sure the First Vision, translation of the Book of Mormon, Three Witnesses, Angel Moroni, if that’s true, then what doctrines do we know? Listeners, if you want to pause and make your list, go for it, because we’re about to go through what Section 20 says, and you can make that comparison. That’s a fun exercise. Anthony, I like that. First, he says, You know that there is a God in heaven. That’s a great spot to start.

Anthony Sweat:
Foundational doctrine number one, there’s a God.

Scott Woodward:
There’s a God.

Anthony Sweat:
Who rules and reigns. Yeah. It was unchangeable.

Scott Woodward:
Framer of heaven and earth. Number two, “he created man, male and female, after his own image, and he gave them commandments that they should love and serve him and worship him and him only.” Third, “by the transgression of these holy laws, man became sensual and devilish and became fallen man.” I think this is interesting that he’s not just saying that if there was an angel that appeared to Joseph Smith, then the Fall is true. He saying, if the Book of Mormon is legit, then let’s dig into the Book of Mormon, right? Because the Book of Mormon proclaims very clearly the reality of the fallen condition of mankind.

Anthony Sweat:
Yes.

Scott Woodward:
And so if the Book of Mormon is true, then what do we know?

Anthony Sweat:
And you’ll know the next doctrine as well, because this as Bruce R. McConkie called them, those three pillars of eternity. If there’s a God, and he created us, and gave us commandments to follow him, and we have fallen short of that, Creation, Fall, every listener knows what comes next. The great third pillar is Atonement. This is fundamental, back to your comment, of how we are a Church deriving out of the Book of Mormon. This is Oliver or Joseph or the Lord by revelation reiterating that foundational Creation-Fall-Atonement doctrine in the next ones you’re going to get ready to read.

Scott Woodward:
Yes, that Jesus “suffered temptations but gave no heed to them,” but “was crucified, died, rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven to reign with almighty power according to the will of the Father.” And he did this so that, the next verses to say, Fifth, “as many as would believe and be baptized in his holy name and endure in faith to the end should be saved.” This includes both those from the beginning who lived before he came and those who believed in the words of the holy prophets then, as well as those who came after he came to the Earth and who would believe by the Holy Ghost, which bears a record of the Father and the Son. So Christ is the Savior of those who came before him and after him. Because of our fallen condition, we needed a Savior, and he delivered on that. Sixth, the “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one God, infinite and eternal.” And boy, that’s proclaimed throughout the Book of Mormon, multiple times, multiple places, especially when Jesus comes down and visits, he says, Me and the Father and the Holy Ghost are one God. Seventh, we also know from these things that “all men must repent and believe on the name of Jesus Christ and worship the Father in his name and endure in faith on his name to the end.

Scott Woodward:
Otherwise, we cannot be saved in the kingdom of God.” That’s the requirements. That’s the gospel we need to subscribe to.

Anthony Sweat:
You see the logic here of God, Creation, Fall, Atonement, redemption of mankind. But how do you access that redemption? You must live the gospel. You must repent and be baptized and receive the Holy Ghost. Like, there’s this just logic from the verses you’ve read here, which if you repent and are baptized and we receive the gospel, then it’s going to lead to these doctrine.

Scott Woodward:
Yes. And receiving the Holy Ghost then leads to the eighth point. He says here, eighth. “We know that justification through the grace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ is just and true.” Meaning that through the goodness of Jesus Christ, we can be absolved of our indebtedness to the justice of broken law, something like that. We can be declared innocent again, thanks to the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Anthony Sweat:
Yeah. We don’t use that word justification a lot in the modern Church, but it’s a really important scriptural word, and it’s an important word in Christianity. And I think it would be important for our members to know that word and as you just said, it’s like maybe typing on your computer on a word document. You can highlight the text, and then you can left or center or right to justify it. It means you can move it. And so if you and I have gotten out of the and we’re fallen, which we all are, through receiving the gospel, we can be made right or moved back into alignment with God so that we’re in harmony, we’re in good standing with him, we’re in good grace with him, and we can live in a state of being justified in harmony, in alignment with God.

Scott Woodward:
Wow. I love the word processor analogy there, man. That actually worked for my brain. That was perfect. Left justified, right justified, center justified, or for us, it’s about being God justified, reconciled.

Anthony Sweat:
It’s God justified.

Anthony Sweat:
But it’s a fun thought to think of Jesus grabbing us out of alignment and putting us in alignment with God through his gospel.

Scott Woodward:
Brought into alignment. Love that. And then he introduces another word, the ninth point here. “We know also that sanctification through the grace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ is just and true.” Now, sanctification is a little different than being brought into alignment. Sanctification, I think I would add, is to be purified from the effects of sin, meaning you’re not just brought into alignment, but you’re also being purified in your intentions, your motivations, the effects, the pull, the grab of sin on us is becoming disconnected. It’s… we’re becoming more like God.

Anthony Sweat:
Justification is being made good with God, sanctification is being made more like God.

Scott Woodward:
Perfect.

Anthony Sweat:
So brought into alignment, maybe left to right, and sanctification brought up to be more like.

Scott Woodward:
Yes. Because we all know like the beautiful hymn that’s now back in our hymn book, Come Thou Fount, that line that says, Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. We all feel our tendency to wander away from being justified, and then we wander again and go do stupid stuff because of our carnal, sensual, devilish natures. Whereas sanctification is going to help us to not even desire to sin. Right, it’s going to help us slowly. I mean, this is not something that happens overnight, but helps us to have no more disposition to do evil, to use a scriptural phrase.

Anthony Sweat:
Or to shake at the appearance of sin, to use a Nephi phrase.

Scott Woodward:
Perfect.

Anthony Sweat:
Or to use a President Nelson phrase to be a sin-resistant generation, you know, or soul.

Scott Woodward:
And how do you develop that? This verse continues on. It says, This is for “those who love and serve God with all their mights, minds, and strength.” There’s something in that muscle group of loving God and serving him with all your might, mind, and strength that helps you become sanctified, that helps you develop Godlike reflexes and tendencies and outlooks on life and the ways you want to treat people and the things you want to do with your time. As you dedicate yourself to serving God, your nature starts to shift and change to become more Godlike.

Anthony Sweat:
That’s awesome. That’s a good summary.

Scott Woodward:
Okay, then 10th. We’re just cruising here. Verse 32. It warns that “there is a possibility that man may fall from grace and depart from the living God.” Now, this seems to be a comment that’s responding in part to Christian theological debate that was then current in the 1800s about whether or not, you know, once people received Christ and were justified and sanctified by him, like, could they ever fall again from his favor? And verse 32 says, yes.

Anthony Sweat:
Yes.

Scott Woodward:
It is possible.

Anthony Sweat:
It’s a continued debate, obviously, in Christianity as well. I once… Just a little quick story. I did a research study where I partnered up with some evangelical… An evangelical scholar up in Canada. And we did a study where we were comparing spiritual experiences between Latter-day Saints and evangelicals. And when we published this study, he and I, I’ll never forget it, we were working over Zoom and talking with each other, and we were talking about grace. He was like, I think we need to contextualize how both of our faiths view grace. So we started talking back and forth. Because, by the way, I wouldn’t overlook that, again, just like the Book of Mormon, foundational doctrine here is grace. We know by the grace, we are justified. We know by grace, we are sanctified. And I showed him those verses, and I said, then I showed him verse 32 and said, But we do think you can fall from grace. And he couldn’t believe. I still remember, he jumped back in his chair and he was like, really? He’s like, you really believe you can fall from grace once you’ve accepted the grace of Christ? And I remember I said to him, I can leave Christ and fall out of love with him in the same way I can leave my wife and fall out of love with her if I don’t be loyal and faithful and true.

Anthony Sweat:
And we had the most fascinating discussion back and forth about our views of falling from grace. It was so significant, by the way, that we added it to our paper. And we… I quoted Section 20 of the Doctrine and Covenants in that academic paper of our foundational view that you can depart from the grace of Christ if we don’t remain loyal and true and faithful and dedicated.

Scott Woodward:
Wow, I love that. Is this a paper that is accessible if people want to go check it out?

Anthony Sweat:
It is. It’s called… I think it’s called Pedagogy of the Spirit, Comparing Latter-day Saint and Evangelical Views of the Holy Ghost or something. That title alone, if you read it, if you have insomnia, it’ll put you right to bed. Yeah, but it was fascinating.

Scott Woodward:
Got to be in just the right mood if you want to read this paper.

Anthony Sweat:
Don’t read that at 10:30 at night. You won’t make it past the first paragraph.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. No, that’s so cool. To that point of staying in love with your spouse, right. We all know, those of us who are married, you got to nurture it. You got to do the things that got you in love in the first place and continue to do those things. And that’s where verse 33 goes. He says, “Therefore,” right, because you can fall from grace, “therefore, let the church take heed and pray always.” Continue to nurture that relationship with God, that reliance on God, the thing that probably got you convicted in the first place. Right, that as you pray to know if these things are true, if you prayed to know if God was even there for you, if you prayed to have answers to your own personal needs, like, that’s how you began that relationship with God. This is how it continues. “Pray always,” he says, “lest you fall into temptation.” And then he says, “Yea, and even let those who are sanctified take heed also.”

Anthony Sweat:
Yeah, even if you’re good, even if you’re a real holy soul, you still got to watch and be ready and take heed so that you’re not deceived because the very elect can be deceived.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, 100%. You know, sometimes, you know, if you say to someone who’s starting to maybe have doubts or maybe they’re quite a ways down the road of doubt, and you said to them, like, Are you praying? That comes across really hollow-sounding and really superficial. It’s like, Don’t talk to me about prayer. Like I’m going through some serious struggles right now, you know. You could talk to a married couple who is maybe struggling, and you could say, Are you still doing date nights? Are you doing the small things that nurtured your relationship in the first place? It’s actually a valid question, though it might sound hollow in the moment for someone who’s in the throes of a difficulty. I just love that in the midst of all this, verse 33 is saying, Keep praying. This is how you maintain that connection, that relationship.

Anthony Sweat:
Keep that relationship nurturing and growing and close through some of these basic practices.

Scott Woodward:
“We know all of these things are true,” verse 35 concludes. And as John says at the end of the Bible, I like that Joseph put this in here, None of these 10 truths that we just outlined adds to nor diminishes from the prophecy of John the Revelator’s book or the Holy Bible or any of the revelations of God. People are always accusing this additional scripture and additional prophets and witnesses as if it somehow is contradicting the Book of Revelation. And Joseph wants to nip that right here. Verse 35. This is not contradicting, it’s not adding to or taking away. It’s only reinforcing. It’s reinforcing these truths, right, that are solidly biblical. Just note how these foundational theological The truths are growing directly out of the foundational historical events. I just think that’s a really strong point that’s being made here, and it’s so powerful.

Anthony Sweat:
Then as you notice, you see the shift again, too, at the end of verse 36, you get that other Amen. I just like these Amens in section 20. It’s a great way to kind of going to see the breaks in what we’re talking about here.

Scott Woodward:
So that’s the theology.

Anthony Sweat:
There’s the orthodoxy. Now, let’s get to the orthopraxy, the right belief and the right practice. So now we’re going to get some right practice or orthopraxy here.

Scott Woodward:
Orthopraxy is going to grow directly out of the orthodoxy, isn’t it?

Anthony Sweat:
That’s right.

Scott Woodward:
So if there is such a thing as baptism, right, if there is a need for baptism, if there is a need for you to come to Jesus in that way, then what’s the correct practice for baptism, for instance, right it’s like?

Anthony Sweat:
How do you baptize? And if you do need authority, who gets it? How do we confer it? To know it.

Scott Woodward:
Do you want to walk us through the orthopraxy real quick?

Anthony Sweat:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
What are kind of the key practices that are outlined in the remaining verses, verses 37 to 84?

Anthony Sweat:
The first one is “by way of commandment to the church concerning the manner of baptism.”

Anthony Sweat:
So who are we going to baptize and what are the qualifications for baptism? And it says, “All those who humble themselves before God and desire to be baptized and come forth with broken hearts and contrite spirits and witness before the church that they have truly repented of all their sins and are willing to take upon them the name of Jesus Christ, having a determination to serve him to the end and truly manifest by their works that they have received of the Spirit of Christ unto the remission of their sins, shall be received by baptism into his church.” Verse 37, by the way, is still quoted in Preach My Gospel. Back to how foundational this text is, this section, Preach My Gospel quotes Section 20 verse 37 as, and it lists bullet points, those same things that were just listed there for the missionaries of, this is who you, how you know who you can baptize. The First Presidency and the Quorum of the 12th add some other, by revelation, modern day, they’ve added some other requirements on there, like living principles of moral worthiness, and that they’re willing to live the Word of Wisdom, et cetera. But they’re still using that verse as the basis.

Anthony Sweat:
Now, by the way, notice how there is nothing about confirmation and conferral of the Holy Ghost, because 38 is going to move to the duty of the elders, and the priests, and the teachers, and the deacons. So…

Scott Woodward:
Why is that, do you think?

Anthony Sweat:
I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s just a slight oversight. If you go to verse 68, I’m going a little out of order, though. It says, “The duty of the members after they are received by baptism.” So there’s almost a jump here, almost like baptism, and let’s talk about who has authority, then they come back to this. “The elders or priests are to have sufficient time to expound all things concerning the Church of Christ to their understanding.” There, that pronoun is those that have been baptized. “Previous to their partaking of the sacrament and being confirmed by the laying on of hands of the elders so that all things may be done in order.” There was a practice in the early Church that they did not confirm people and confer the Holy Ghost right after their baptism. They waited sometimes months. You’ll even see this in upcoming sections with Emma Smith. Emma Smith will be baptized in Section 25. And then when you come to Section 27, a month or so later, they’re doing what is known as a confirmation meeting. So in the early Church, there was a practice of baptize them, but don’t confirm them members yet until they show this godly walk and conversation and that they understand their duties.

Anthony Sweat:
Then you can confirm them. So that might be why it doesn’t list it right away.

Scott Woodward:
That’s a good thought.

Anthony Sweat:
Jumping back to verse 38, the duty of the elders, priests, teachers, deacons, and members of the Church of Christ. You can see, by the way, in 38, those were the original four offices. And the Church was organized in April of 1830. And it’s going to start to lay these out. “An apostle is an elder, and it’s his calling to baptize.” So it lists out, and just remember, they did not have the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles at this time. They called Joseph and Oliver, and eventually, they also call David Whitmer as apostles, meaning they are leaders of the Church, they are authorized, they are the heads. But the quorum hasn’t been organized yet. “To administer the bread and wine, the emblems of the flesh and blood of Christ.” We already talked about that verse a little bit, “to confirm those who are baptized into the church, to teach, expound, exhort,” verse 42, verse 43, “to confirm the church by the laying on of hands and giving the gift of the Holy Ghost”. You see it mentioned there. “To take the lead of all meetings.” They’re to conduct the meetings as they’re led by the Holy Ghost. So that’s the elders duty.

Anthony Sweat:
And now, originally, when the Church was small, you could have Joseph and Oliver and David Whitmer and other leading elders to do that. It will not take long before that model is not functioning very well. There are additional priesthood offices of high priest and the high priesthood and a First Presidency that gets organized.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. So clearly, we can see the need for Section 20 to be adapted as the needs of the Church change and grow. This is laying down foundational principles, but it’s not closed and locked in.

Anthony Sweat:
I don’t think Joseph liked things that confined or said, Don’t set up stakes that say, hither to shalt thou come and no further, is what Joseph said one time.

Scott Woodward:
It feels so good to be untrammeled, he says, right.

Anthony Sweat:
46, we get the priest’s duty, “preach, teach, expound, exhort, baptize, administer the sacrament.” That’s the root of the priest’s duty that we still follow, and to visit the house of each member and exhort them to pray vocally and in secret, and attend to all family duties. That’s the root of the ministering program, or formerly known as home teaching. That’s the key to your difficulties with ministering right there. And “ordain other priests, teachers, and deacons, and take the lead if there’s no elder present.” Now, I’m going to say this before we read the duties of teachers. It’s not going to be until the early 1900s that there’s a shift to start ordaining young men, teenagers, to these priesthood offices. Now, some were ordained when they were younger in all times of the Church, but there’s a coordinated effort to say, let’s use the Aaronic Priesthood as a preparatory priesthood to get young men trained in their priesthood duties But in 1830, right now, when we’re reading about priests, teachers, and deacons, these were adult men of the Church for the most part.

Scott Woodward:
Which is hard for a lot of Church members today to kind of picture that we have a 35-year-old deacon.

Anthony Sweat:
That’s important to grasp. 53, “the teacher’s duty is to watch over the church and be with and strengthen them. See there’s no iniquity in the church nor hardness with each other, lying, backbiting, evil-speaking.” A joke, that’s all the teachers today do is they’re the ones who do all that. But remember early on, a teacher literally was a teacher. It was somebody who their calling in the priesthood was to teach. We would almost view this like a quorum or a Sunday instructor today. They’re called as a teacher, and they would… Including going to people’s home and to teach them to live the principles of the gospel. So that’s, by the way, also why teachers are part of ministering and home teaching. 57, he’s “to be assisted always in all of his duties in the church by the deacons, if occasion requires, that neither the teachers nor the deacons have authority to baptize, administer the sacrament or lay on hands.” So they’re clarifying here, only a priest can administer the sacrum and baptize. They are, however, to warn, expound, invite. And I would add too, it’ll come later, but remember a deacon, their original job was to prepare the physical space.

Anthony Sweat:
That’s mostly what deacon did. They were the ones who lit the stove and swept the floor and lit the candles and set up the chairs, dusted things off. They got the physical space prepared. That’s what a deacon did. We’ve lost that a little bit in how we used to practice it compared to today. But that originally is what a deacon did, and that’s what some of those grown men did as well. Sixty-five is where we get the foundational practice that “no person is to be ordained in any office of this church, where there’s a regularly ordained branch of the same without the vote of that church.” That is why continuing to this day, anybody who’s going to be ordained to an office, they are presented before that body that they’re going to serve, and it is known by the Church that they’ve been sustained and that they’re ordained. Seventy, “every member of the church having children is to bring them unto the elders before the church who are to lay their hands upon them in the name of Jesus Christ and bless them in his name.” That’s the foundational practice of blessing babies right there.

Scott Woodward:
Baby blessings. We can all picture that. This is where it began, okay?

Anthony Sweat:
Seventy-one, nobody’s going to get baptized until they’re at the years of accountability. Now, early on in the Church, they did not define that. It will not be until a later revelation, I believe at Section 68, where the Lord gives an exact age of eight years old. But early on, they just said they have to be accountable. Seventy-three, we get the baptismal prayer, which we still follow to this day. Seventy-four, the baptismal practice of immersion that we follow. Seventy-five, we should get together and take the sacrament. Seventy-seven, 79, sacrament prayers. Again, you see the foundational practices, all of these being followed today. Then 80, we get, if there’s any members who are in transgression, they’ll be dealt with as the scriptures, like, kind of ends like, What about problematic members?

Scott Woodward:
What about Church discipline?

Anthony Sweat:
What about Church discipline? And originally, send one or more of the teachers to them in 81.

Scott Woodward:
We should still do that today. We should just send the teachers. And just… we can, we can handle that?

Anthony Sweat:
82, there should be a regular list of all the names of the whole church that may be kept in a book by one of the elders with a list of names of those who have united with the church. And so this begins the process of a membership record number. Now, they didn’t give a number, but they’re saying, who’s members? We got to keep a track and keep a list. This begins the Church’s practice of record taking and record keeping. And then in 83, anybody who’s been cut off from the Church, their names will be blotted out. And so you also have the original practice of removing somebody’s membership record from the Church. Those were the early practices that the rest of the section lays out there.

Scott Woodward:
Wow. So that’s, kind of the, again, like we said at the beginning, this is the Church handbook of instructions on how to implement everything, especially those verses, these orthopraxy verses. How do we implement the mission? How do we run meetings? Who should do what? How do we strengthen the covenant community? And what do we do in the case of transgression, serious transgression? We should probably add here, too, that Section 22, which is part of this week’s reading, was oftentimes sort of added as an addendum to Section 20 to clarify another procedural thing, which was to clarify the need for those who had been previously baptized in other Christian branches who are now joining the Church. The question that came up was, Do we need to get re-baptized into this Church or will our baptism our previous church count? Because that was a thing. That was a common practice that if you were a Baptist and you switched to be a Methodist, you didn’t have to get re-baptized because you had already been baptized. So the question of many converts was, What’s the policy there? And Section 22 answers it, answers it really well. And so oftentimes the answer to that question was appended right here at the end of Section 20.

Anthony Sweat:
Yeah, I think that context is spot on. I think the content that stands out to me is I would highlight in 22 how many times the word covenant is mentioned. And in particular, he says, “All old covenants have I caused to be done away in this thing; and this is a new and an everlasting covenant.” That is really important doctrine. It’s almost kind of like the Lord saying, Hey, all the previous things that have been done in previous dispensations, generations, even from other faiths. That’s awesome. But from here forward, here forward, there is a new covenant. There is a new law. There’s a new authority. There’s a new code. The old code is outdated. The old standards are done. And from here forward, you must submit to this covenant, this authority, this Church. Really potent, powerful teaching. And then he even says, “For this cause,” verse 3, “It is because of your dead works that I have caused this last covenant, and this church to be built up unto me, even as in days of old.” And so there’s almost this. That’s the whole point of the Church. The Church is here to administer the covenant. And if I had to summarize into one word, what we’re doing is we are administering the authorized covenant.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, we’re building a covenant community based in this new and everlasting covenant that is being brought forth. And I know we like to throw the word authority around, and it’s a fair argument, but it just struck me over the years how verse, how Section 22 does not use authority as the argument. He’s just saying there’s a kind of new way of doing it that everyone needs to align with. Now, you can use the word authority. It’s totally appropriate, but it… Just how carefully he’s going toward the word covenant, where maybe our impulse is to go toward the word authority.

Anthony Sweat:
I like that.

Scott Woodward:
He’s not making that argument, particularly. In fact, I’m struck by like Section 35 of the Doctrine and Covenants, where Sydney Rigdon, who was a preacher, a very effective preacher, baptize a lot of people in his congregation, not LDS. And the Lord just seems to be really, like, pleased with that and affirms that and says, I sent you forth to prepare the way. Now we’re going to lay my hands on you and we’re going to ordain you, and you’re going to now take everyone to the next level. So it’s not like your baptisms were bad, or like they don’t count at all because they’re not by the right authority.

Scott Woodward:
He’s saying, there is now, with the Restoration, there’s a new covenant that we’re now inviting everybody into. This is now the funnel where we’re trying to get everybody here. So bring all your good works of the past, and now let’s step it up into the, into the new covenant.

Anthony Sweat:
We could squabble over authority. There’s not a lot of faiths, though, that are talking about covenant, of trying to establish a new covenant or a people who are linked into a covenant family of God. But back to Book of Mormon doctrine, title page. One of the purposes of the Book of Mormon is that they may know the covenants of the Lord. And so, again, 22 is hearkening to that. We’re a covenant-based people. We’re a covenant-committed people. That covenant is by heavenly authority, and the Lord is going to recognize this new and everlasting covenant. So join in.

Scott Woodward:
And I love that they would attach that section to Section 20. Okay, so, Anthony, are there any controversies in Section 20 of the Doctrine and Covenants? Our third C.

Anthony Sweat:
There are controversies here.

Scott Woodward:
There are. Tell us about Oliver Cowdery. He had a beef with a particular verse, the way it was written here in Section 20. He even called Joseph out directly. Tell us what verse and what was the controversy here?

Anthony Sweat:
The controversy is in Section 20, verse 37, where it adds the list of requirements for baptism. And Joseph adds the requirement of a broken heart and a contrite spirit and manifesting by their works that they’ve received the remission of their sins. And Oliver does not like that addition. I’m going to read to you from Joseph’s history. He… And to Oliver’s credit here, you know, we can crack on Oliver. And after I read this reminiscent from Joseph account, we’ll be like, well, Joseph, or Oliver, you’re overstepping a little bit there. But in Section 6 of the Doctrine and Covenants, Oliver’s told to watch over Joseph and to admonish him in his faults. And so…

Scott Woodward:
To admonish him, yeah.

Anthony Sweat:
Yeah. I mean, Oliver might be thinking he’s doing his scriptural duty here. Although from my perspective, he takes it a little far.

Scott Woodward:
He does.

Anthony Sweat:
If I could say that nicely. Joseph writes in his 1839 history, I received a letter from Oliver Cowdery, the contents of which gave me both sorrow and uneasiness. The above quotation, he said, was erroneous, and that’s the one about manifesting by their works, and commanded me in the name of God to erase those words from that commandment, that there be no priestcraft be among us. I immediately wrote to him in reply, in which I asked him by what authority he took upon him to command me to alter or erase, to add or diminish to, from a revelation or commandment from the Almighty God. I short… Yeah, that’s a great response there from Joseph.

Scott Woodward:
How are you calling me out to change a verse that I got by revelation?

Anthony Sweat:
That I got by revelation. I shortly after paid him a visit, I’m back to Joseph’s, a reminiscing account here, when I found that he had persuaded Father Whitmer and most of the family that the above was in error. And it was with great difficulty. I mean, like most people, I think the prophet’s wrong. I think he’s off base here. It’s not good enough just to leave it alone. You got to convince other people that you’re right and he’s wrong.

Scott Woodward:
Yep, yep.

Anthony Sweat:
And remember, Oliver Cowdery is going to marry a Whitmer daughter, so he’s a son-in-law, and he’s convincing the whole Whitmer family. Joseph just says, And it was with great difficulty and much labor that I prevailed with any of them to reason calmly on the subject. However, Christian Whitmer, at length, got convinced that it was reasonable and in according to scripture. And finally, with his assistance, I succeeded in bringing not only all the Whitmer family, but also Oliver himself to acknowledge that they had been an error and that the above quotation was in accordance with the rest of the commandment. So you can see here, Joseph is just like, oh. Most of what Joseph had added was coming from Moroni 6, except for that one line.

Scott Woodward:
Except that one line.

Anthony Sweat:
That one line. And so Oliver is being a careful editor, a careful watcher-over, but probably someone who’s a little overzealous until Joseph convinces him from other scripture of the rightness of that concept there. And ironically enough, it will be Oliver, who sustains the minutes, who sustains and presents Section 20 in, I believe it’s the September conference. So he obviously was, was convinced, so.

Scott Woodward:
He’ll stand up and read the whole thing out loud to the Church’s conference. By September, he’s good.

Anthony Sweat:
By September, he’s good. But it takes the summer to bring him around on that. First controversy there.

Scott Woodward:
Does Doctrine and Covenants 20:1 announce Jesus’s birthday? Some people say yes, and some people say no. Did you see the word birthday in the, in the verse?

Anthony Sweat:
I saw the word birthday in there. Didn’t you?

Scott Woodward:
I did not. See, this is part of the problem.

Anthony Sweat:
Clarify it for us.

Scott Woodward:
So here’s verse one, “The rise of the Church of Christ in these last days being 1,830 years since the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the flesh, it being regularly organized and established according to laws of the country,” et cetera, et cetera. “In the fourth month, on the sixth day of the month, which is called April.” So is that line saying, being 1,830 years since the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the flesh, skip down, on the sixth day of the month, which is called April. Is that saying Jesus was born on April, 6. Anthony, there’s a strong, kind of a subcurrent in the Church that says, yes. And I think we know where that started. I think it was Elder James E. Talmage in the book Jesus the Christ. I think we could trace it back to him. He read it like that. Other apostles have read it not like that. I remember Elder Orson Pratt saying he thought it was several days later, like April 10th. I know Elder McConkie and President J. Reuben Clark, Jr. who were in the First Presidency said they preferred maybe a December date on his birthday. So there’s been various apostles who come down differently on this, and they’re not all reading Section 20:1 the way Elder Talmage did.

Anthony Sweat:
I would say we also have modern apostles, President Kimball and Elder Bednar, who have used April for the birthday. Whether it is or isn’t, April or December or whenever, I don’t think is really the point. I would get to the heart of what Section 20:1 is saying, which is it’s a fancy way of saying, On April 6, 1830.

Scott Woodward:
Totally.

Anthony Sweat:
That’s a fancy way of expressing a date back then.

Scott Woodward:
1800s fancy way of talking. In fact, yeah, here’s reason to believe that John Whitmer is the one who wrote verse 1. Since the discovery of the Book of Commandments and Revelation’s manuscript of Section 20, which we didn’t have for many years. It showed that verse one was actually an introductory head note written by early Church historian John Whitmer, something he did for several of the revelations. And this is how John Whitmer writes. Let me quote him in a different place. He said this, listen carefully, quote, “It is now June the 12th, 1,831 years since the coming of our Lord and Savior in the flesh.” Does that mean Jesus was born on June the 12th? No, it’s John Whitmer’s way of saying in fancy 1800s language, June 12, 1831. Right? That’s it. So Jesus could be born on April 6. That’s one of 365 possibilities. Other apostles have come down on different days. Different historians have come down on different days. One of our colleagues, Jeff Chadwick, has written a fantastic article going into all of the scholarly arguments, looking at the date of the death of Herod and other things that scriptural and textually, we would kind of try to triangulate in order to pin that down.

Anthony Sweat:
Dating the Birth of Christ is the name of his article.

Scott Woodward:
Dating the Birth of Christ. If you want to get into that argument, you can. It could be April 6th, what we’re saying, I think, with this controversy is Section 20:1 is not making a declaration about that. Don’t use verse 1 to make your case, basically. Is that fair?

Anthony Sweat:
That’s fair. And I would say that Joseph, by revelation, was told the precise day when to organize the Church. And he was told to organize it on April 6th of 1830. Now, to be very clear, the Lord does not, or at least in the record that Joseph left, he doesn’t say why. Now, you could make an assumption because that’s his birthday, or maybe that’s his resurrection day, or maybe…

Scott Woodward:
Spring equinox.

Anthony Sweat:
Yeah. Joseph gets by revelation to do it on April 6th. It’s something significant about that day, but the Lord doesn’t delineate it, and verse one isn’t making a statement about his birth directly, although it possibly could be April 6.

Scott Woodward:
All right, so to wrap up Section 20, let’s talk about the consequences of this section. So first of all, this section is announcing the Church’s legitimacy, stating that it exists because God commanded apostles to establish it. Number two, it’s outlining the Church’s foundational history, founding narrative, and that from that comes the founding doctrines and theology and beliefs that flow out of that, and then the practices that flow out of those fundamental theological points. So history, theology, and practice that flow out of that.

Anthony Sweat:
The only thing I’d add is, as you study later revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants, anytime you read “according to the covenants” or “according to the articles,” like here’s Section 28, verse 14, “Thou shalt assist to settle all these things according to the covenants of the church.” Here’s Section 33, verse 14, “Ye shall remember the church articles and covenants to keep them.” Here’s Section 42, the section known as the law, verse 13. “They shall observe the covenants and church articles to do them.” Anytime you read phrases like that in your brain or in your scriptures, note, that’s Section 20. Even the Lord in later revelations, he’s going to reiterate the importance of Section 20 to reference and to follow. It’s really the forerunner of a modern-day handbook of instructions, where today in the Church we say, Well, what does the handbook say? We should follow what the handbook says.

Scott Woodward:
Do these things according to the handbook.

Anthony Sweat:
To the handbook. Yep.

Scott Woodward:
So hard to overestimate the significance and importance of Section 20 of the Doctrine and Covenants as absolutely foundational to the Church from the 1830s all the way up to today, honestly. Okay, that is Section 20. Let’s transition over to Section 21 of the Doctrine and Covenants. And boy, also so significant, the very first revelation given on the founding day of the Church on April 6th, 1830. Speaking of, we actually get a revelation that day, and that is Section 21 in Fayette, New York, right there in the Whitmer home.

Anthony Sweat:
President Hinckley called it a day of commencement, the graduation of Joseph Smith from 10 years of remarkable schooling. I love that, that phrase there. I think it would be good just to read real quick from Joseph’s history where he says what happens at the meeting on April 6th, 1830.

Scott Woodward:
Before we, before we jump into Joseph’s account of that day, it’d be fun to maybe paint a picture. As you mentioned previously, the Lord designated specifically this day, April 6th, 1830. And it’s kind of funny because if you go back and look on your calendar, that was actually a Tuesday. So the Church is actually established on Tuesday. I don’t know, for some reason in my head, I always thought it was a Sunday, but it was not. It was a Tuesday.

Anthony Sweat:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And picture about 50 people or so crowded into this little Peter Whitmer log home there in Fayette to try to witness the event. A lot of people will know that there were six original members, and this is because there was a New York State law requiring, If you wanted to start a religious society, you needed to have six people officially sign a certificate of incorporation. So minimum of six, and so. If you want to do some fun little trivia, who were the original six members of the Church? I bet people can probably guess two out of the six right away, right?

Anthony Sweat:
Yep, yep.

Scott Woodward:
It’s going to be Joseph and Oliver. They’ve got to be there. Who else? We’re also going to have Hyrum Smith, which is cool.

Scott Woodward:
Peter Whitmer, Jr., Samuel Smith, Joseph’s brother, and David Whitmer. So those are the six who volunteered to be on the official original certificate of incorporation in New York. So anyway, that’s kind of the setting. We got six official, about 50 or so in the Log home. It’s a Tuesday. What happens next?

Anthony Sweat:
You know, Joseph and Oliver, by the way, previous, a number of months previous, had been praying to know if they could ordain each other or give each other the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Anthony Sweat:
And they’re praying in the chamber of Father Whitmer that Section 128 makes a reference to, and the voice of the Lord tells them to do it, but to wait until the Church can be assembled and organized to do it. And so part of what they’re going to do is also not only organize the Church, but they’re going to take care of these first ordinations and sustainings. So this is from Joseph’s history. We made known to our brethren that we had received a commandment to organize the Church, and according, we met together for that purpose at the house of Mr. Peter Whitmer, Sr., being six in number. Again, those are the six you mentioned for the official organizing. On Tuesday, the 6th of April, A.D., 1,830. Having opened the meeting by solemn prayer to our Heavenly Father, we proceeded, according to previous commandment, to call on our brethren to know whether they accepted us as their teachers in the things of the Kingdom of God, and whether they were satisfied that we should proceed and be organized as a Church according to said commandment, which we had received.

Anthony Sweat:
To these several propositions, they consented by a unanimous vote. I then laid my hands upon Oliver Cowdery, and ordained him an elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And by the way, I would make a note that Joseph is writing this later in 1838, 39, after the full name of the Church has been revealed. After which he ordained me also to the office of an elder of said Church. They’re following, again, the direction they had been given earlier in the chamber of Father Whitmer there. We then took bread, blessed it, and break it with them. Also wine, blessed it, and drank it with them. We then laid our hands on each individual member of the Church present, that they might receive the gift of the Holy Ghost and be confirmed members of the Church of Christ. The Holy Ghost was poured out upon us to a very great degree. Some prophesied, while we praised the Lord and rejoiced exceedingly. While yet together, I received the following commandment or revelation, which is Section 21 of the Doctrine and Covenants.

Scott Woodward:
So right there on the day and in the place that the Church was organized, we now get Section 21.

Anthony Sweat:
Yep.

Scott Woodward:
Okay, so let’s dive into the content of this revelation. What exactly does the Lord say there in that context? You know, this really ripe, rich season of rejoicing, what now does the Lord say? Let me pick it up here in verse one. First commandment to the Church. “Behold, there shall be a record kept among you.” If you go downtown to the Church history department, you can go into the archives and you’ll see this emblazoned up on the wall as you walk in. There’s this language, Behold, there shall be a record kept among you. And we’ve taken that very seriously since day one to keep a record of our Church. And that’s not the end of the sentence. “And in it,” in this record, the Lord says, “Thou,” Joseph Smith, “shall be called a seer, a translator, a prophet, an apostle of Jesus Christ, an elder of the church through the will of God, the Father, the grace of your Lord Jesus Christ, being inspired of the Holy Ghost to lay the foundation thereof and to build it up unto the most holy faith.”

Scott Woodward:
I love that right here, all three members of the Godhead are mentioned in verses 1 and 2 as having played a role in the establishment of this Church.

Anthony Sweat:
It’s interesting in those titles that Joseph’s given, he is called a prophet. Well, I’ll give them in order, a seer, a translator, a prophet, an apostle, and an elder. Now, those are all important titles. But what do you notice is missing of a common one that we say in the Church today?

Scott Woodward:
Revelator.

Anthony Sweat:
Revelator. And I, personally, this is just my own personal take on this, so I could be wrong, of course, but I think it’s going to be later in the summer, that summer, and then the controversy in the September 1830 conference with Hiram Page, where Hiram Page is going to claim revelations to guide the Church, where the Lord will give very clear direction that, no, there’s only one person who gets revelations in this Church for the Church to guide it. And I almost wonder if that was the impetus for sustaining Joseph as the revelator for the Church. So I could be reading into that wrong, but it’s an interesting note that in this title, they don’t mention the revelator for the whole Church.

Scott Woodward:
I am intrigued by your hypothesis. I think you might be right.

Anthony Sweat:
It’s just a hypothesis there.

Scott Woodward:
But it’s a good one. I think it’s solidly based in the history. And, I mean, you can clearly read in this revelation. In fact, we’re about to go there. Verse 4, it is implied here. It’s not even implied. It’s explicitly stated here that Joseph is a revelator. Let me read it. “Wherefore, meaning the church, thou shalt give heat unto all his,” the prophet Joseph’s, “words and commandments, which he shall give unto you as he receiveth them,” there’s the revelation, “walking in all wholeness before me; for his word ye shall receive as if from mine own mouth in all patience and faith.” Verse 4 and 5 are clearly saying Joseph is going to be receiving revelations for the Church. But I like that you’re suggesting that perhaps the crisis this coming September is going to be the impetus for… Let’s add the title there. Let’s, let’s say revelator as well.

Anthony Sweat:
Clearly, Joseph is going to be getting revelations, but it doesn’t clarify that he’s the only one to be giving the revelations for the Church.

Scott Woodward:
It doesn’t I don’t mention anybody else, I guess, would be the counterpoint. It just mentions him. But I see how people could maybe see a little bit of wiggle room in there.

Anthony Sweat:
Clearly, Hiram Page felt at liberty to get a revelation to the whole Church in Section 28.

Scott Woodward:
Yes. Yes. So we will definitely tackle that controversy when we tackle Section 28. But there’s our… The teaser. And I love that verse 4 and 5 are laying out like an order in the Church, which I guess needs to be highlighted more intensely later. But it’s saying Jesus to Joseph to Church members, right. It’s establishing the prophet’s role. The prophet’s role is to walk in holiness before me and receive revelations for the Church. And the Church members’ role is to give heed to those revelations that the prophet receives as if from the mouth of Jesus. And do this in patience and faith. And if you do, then comes the powerful promise of verse 6, “For by doing these things, the gates of hell shall not prevail against you; yea, the Lord God will disperse the powers of darkness from before you and cause the heavens to shake for your good, in his name’s glory.” And then he reiterates, “For thus sayeth the Lord God: Him,” Joseph Smith, “have I inspired to move the cause of Zion in mighty power for good. And his diligence I know, and his prayers I know,” and he goes on to say, “and his weeping for Zion I know,” and let’s let Joseph weep no longer.

Scott Woodward:
Alright, let’s… If we can have the Church come and support the revelations he’s been receiving and follow them diligently. This is going to be the beginning of great blessing in the Church. That’s pretty awesome. In fact, the Lord says one more time in verse 9, he reiterates, I will bless you if you follow these words, “Behold, I will bless all those who labor in my vineyard with a mighty blessing, and they shall believe on his words,” Joseph Smith, “which are given him through me by the Comforter,” that’s revelation, “which manifested that Jesus was crucified by sinful men for the sins of the world, yea, for the remission of sins unto the contrite heart.” That same spirit that bears witness that Jesus was crucified is the same spirit by which Joseph is receiving revelation, and you’ll be blessed as you follow his revelations. That’s good. That’s how it starts, Anthony. This is the Lord laying out the order of how he sees this playing out. I give revelations to the prophet. Church members, rally around those revelations, support him in patience and faith, and let’s go. Let’s build Zion.

Anthony Sweat:
Right there, April 6th, 1830, from the get-go. Just lays, like the first meeting of the Church. Talk about like a jumpstart, like bam. Could you imagine being in that first meeting, Joseph’s like, Hold on, write this down.

Scott Woodward:
Right in front of everybody.

Anthony Sweat:
Showing the Lord guiding him from the very get-go, and it’s evident that he is. I really do like the patience and faith that’s been highlighted before. That shows that patience and faith might be tested at times through directives that are being given or teachings. If it didn’t, then the Lord from the get-go wouldn’t have said, Hey, there’s sometimes you’re going to learn to be patient. There’s other times where you’re going to have to walk by faith here on this.

Scott Woodward:
I think that is an issue for some, right? And it could come from a misreading. Maybe we could talk about this. Does Section 21, verse 4 and 5, we just read, is that saying that every word the Church president says is as if Jesus is saying it? And if that’s how you want to read it, then how do you reconcile that reading with statements like, you know, when Joseph says, A prophet is only a prophet when he’s acting as such, or Brigham Young. Here’s a quote from Brigham Young. He says, Can a prophet be mistaken? I will acknowledge that all the time. President Oaks said back in 2018, We don’t believe in the infallibility of our leaders. And we could go on with other quotes like that. When many of our apostles have acknowledged very much that they can make errors, sometimes doctrinal ones, policy issues, whatever, they can have opinions, whatever, right. You know, Brigham Young said, I’m fearful that the Saints will settle down in a state of blind self-security and reckless confidence in their leaders, that kind of thing. So I’m hearing on the one hand, people quoting Section 21, verses 4 and 5, saying, Whatever he says, it’s basically as if Jesus says it.

Scott Woodward:
And then I’m hearing, on the other hand, the apostles themselves, Joseph, Brigham Young, and modern leaders saying, Well, we’re not infallible. We’re not Jesus. Right, it’s not that everything we say is as if Jesus said it. So let’s walk through kind of how, how should we navigate that. Is it just a misreading of verses 4 and 5, or is there more work that needs to be done here? What do you think?

Anthony Sweat:
I listened to a previous episode that you and Casey did on Section 3 through 5, and you guys tackled that very well on Joseph’s prophetic mistake of losing the 116 pages.

Scott Woodward:
That was a whopper.

Anthony Sweat:
Welcome to the Restoration. You lost holy scripture that testifies of Christ and the Restoration for the whole world. So I’d recommend, number one, people go back and listen to your discussion on prophetic fallibility there. But I might tie it back to verse 9 that you read, Scott, “Behold, I will bless all those who labor in my vineyard with a mighty blessing, and they shall believe on his words.” Now, first of all, I think sometimes we can get lost in this discussion a little bit, and it’s hard. We can get, you know, caught in the weeds on some things. To me, the big key is, let’s labor in the vineyard. Let’s serve in our callings. Let’s do our duties. Let’s fulfill our stewardships individually. And the Lord promises that if we do that, we will receive a blessing that will believe on the prophets’ words, that we will be able to know that they are prophets of God. Now, that doesn’t directly answer, is every single word. I say to myself, I’m going to let President Russell M. Nelson lead the Church and guide it. That’s not my stewardship. My stewardship is to be a really good husband, a really good father as best I can, to serve in my callings, in my ward and stake, to do my ministering, to serve God’s children around me, to be kind, to have faith, have hope.

Anthony Sweat:
If I labor in the vineyard in my stewardship, the Lord will bless me with a mighty blessing that Joseph Smith, down to Russell M. Nelson, are his servants and that they are guiding this Church. That testimony has been given to me so deeply, and I prize that over parsing out whether every single word is or isn’t a revelatory decree from Almighty God. But I will say on the second part, you’ll not only believe his words in verse 9, “which are given him through me by the Comforter, which manifesteth that Jesus was crucified by sinful men for the sins of the world.” I would connect those two things.

Scott Woodward:
How so?

Anthony Sweat:
Moroni 10, we go a little off a base, in my opinion, where we don’t connect the promise to pray about, read, and ponder on the mercies of God, and then connect it to the subsequent gifts of the Spirit that are promised. We got to connect those. There’s fruits that come from it. In other words, you can’t connect the revelation from the fruits. I would connect here. I think he’s making a connection. The Comforter… Comforter’s whole job is to lead you and I to Christ. The Comforter’s job is not to give us a blanket or to make us good at math or to help us remember people’s names. Now, it might do all of those things, but that’s not its primary role. Its primary role is to lead me to Jesus Christ. It testifies of Christ. And where prophets are infallible, we talk, in my opinion, sometimes a little too much about prophetic fallibility. And we need to talk about the area where they’re infallible. They’re infallible in their witness that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, resurrected in glory. I know when prophets are prophets and when they’re speaking as prophets, when the Comforter testifies of prophets by leading me to the Christ, to learn of him, to follow him, to be like him, and to be his disciple.

Scott Woodward:
I love that. I think that’s very beautiful and really well said. The text itself, I would argue, if someone’s arguing this, that verse 4 and 5 says, you should, everything they say is as if Jesus is saying, I would say, the text does not support you. The text says, Follow his words as he receiveth them. There’s the revelation. And verse 9, “believe on his words which are given him through me by the Comforter.” Like I don’t think anyone will have a problem saying that whatever is communicated from the Lord to the prophet by revelation is true and should be believed and sustained. But because it’s not always clear for you and me, it’s not always obvious when the Lord’s prophet is or isn’t sharing that which is given him by me through the Comforter, to quote verse 9. And like you said, it’s not always our role to be able to tell that. I think that’s what the end of verse 5 is saying, that Church members’ posture toward the prophet is to be one of patience and faith rather than doubt and suspicion. It’s not… We’re not always trying to catch him. Was that the Lord or was that… That’s the wrong mindset and heartset.

Scott Woodward:
It’s about patience and faith, knowing that, as the Lord says here, I’ve seen Joseph’s tears for Zion. He sins, but I’ve forgiven him. He mentions that here again. I’ve forgiven his sins. He is good. He’s not perfect. He is good, and I’m guiding him. And I’m asking you, Church members, to please, with your patience and with your faith, help the cause of Zion. I think that’s the posture that he wants us to have toward the Church president. Under no illusion that he’s perfect, under no illusion that he is Jesus. But man, he works for him, and he is someone that the Lord trusts and works with. And if the Lord needs a prophet corrected, I think the Lord is going to do it himself. He’s the Lord’s servant. Anyway, that’s just kind of where my mind goes with all that. Just to add to what you said, which was great, is patience and faith is so key in this. It’s built in right there from day one on the 6th of April, 1830.

Anthony Sweat:
Amen. I really like that. I like that posture of trust. That fancy word is, you know, hermeneutics. You’re going to… Well, let me give a better one. It is difficult for anybody in any relationship to maintain a relationship if you don’t approach it in a spirit of trust and in a spirit of love. If it’s approached in a spirit of suspicion and a spirit of doubt, that relationship won’t flourish no matter how great the person is. And I think that holds true for the Lord’s servants. I would put my trust in those 15 prophets, seers, and revelators over any other 15 human beings, collection of 15 human things that I can think of to help guide me on the path to follow my Savior. And so we have to approach it with anybody in a spirit of trust and patience and faith. I like how you’ve framed that. It’s the spirit of the posturing towards it.

Scott Woodward:
And think about it, Joseph Smith was 24 years old when this revelation was given. Can you imagine being in this Church with a 24-year-old prophet? I don’t know what it is about having older leaders now, but I don’t know if somehow they seem wiser and more seasoned and whatever. I only imagine that original group hearing these words for the first time, that… You know, the words patience and faith with this 24-year-old prophet. It obviously doesn’t matter how old the prophet is. If he’s God’s prophet, he’s God’s prophet. But it’s been true then, and it’s still true today. And that relationship, like if you’re going to help a relationship flourish, it’s not going to be in the spirit of doubt and suspicion. It’s going to be in the spirit of patience, faith, trust, with a heart that’s trying to help out, a willingness to sustain and support. Let’s go then to our final C for Section 21. We’ll wrap all this up today. Consequences of Section 21. What flows out of this? First and foremost, the Lord wants a record kept, and this begins a tradition of keeping records, collecting documents, recording our Church’s history.

Scott Woodward:
A lot of what we’re able to talk about on this podcast and in our history, and as we talk about our history, is because Church members actually heeded verse one of Section 21. They kept records, and now we can tell their stories. Second, Section 21 begins to set forth this order in the Church of Christ regarding revelation. Jesus giving revelations to the prophet, and who then gives those to the Church, and that the Church members’ role is to give heed, to sustain, as the prophet receives them walking in all holiness before me. So it’s really setting up this relationship between Jesus, prophets, and the Church.

Anthony Sweat:
When the meeting is over, several members are baptized, including people like Porter Rockwell, Martin Harris, by the way, and Joseph Smith’s own parents. When this meeting closed after this revelation was given, Joseph said, We dismissed with the pleasing knowledge that we were now individually members of and acknowledged of God, the Church of Jesus Christ. And that evening, after the organization of the Church and after Section 21 is given, Joseph goes into the woods to pray alone. In Joseph Knight, Sr.’s recollection, he says that Joseph went out into those woods and wept like a child. In his recollection, he says, His joy seemed to be full. I think he saw the great work that he had begun, and he was desirous to carry it out. So just a great culminating day for Joseph to see his parents and Martin and others join and to see the work start. And he’s almost overflowing with emotion at the goodness of God and working through him to that point.

Scott Woodward:
This is the first time that his family members are uniting together in one faith. Again, another personal note there. What might be behind those tears of joy for Joseph. What a fun ride, man. Section 20, 21, and we did a little on 22. What a great week. We hope that this has been helpful for all of you out there. And thank you again, Anthony, for joining me today.

Anthony Sweat:
Thanks for inviting me, brother. Can’t replace Casey. And all your listeners will probably be happy when he jumps back on. But thanks for letting me be a part of it today and study these marvelous revelations together. I love the voice and the work of the Lord in him.

Scott Woodward:
A hundred percent. Honored to be with you, brother.

Anthony Sweat:
Thanks, my friend. Take care.

Scott Woodward:
.