John Bytheway:               00:01                   Welcome to part two with Dr. John White, Psalms 49 through 86.

Dr. John White:               00:06                   We’re going to look at Psalm 61. We get in here this phrase that the rock. We understand the rock, obviously a metaphor, is higher than I. The big idea here is the divine refuge taking comfort in God transcends geography at any kind of emotional distance, that security is in God himself and that we’re guarded and vouched safe by God’s covenant love, not our circumstances. I love what he says, Psalm 61: 2,4. It says, “From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I. I will abide in thy tabernacle forever.” This is verse four now. “I will trust in the covert of thy wings.” That’s a powerful passage. It really welcomes us when he talks about the end of the earth. He’s not talking about miles, but it’s at the end of your resources. The prayer from the place isn’t make me taller. It’s lead me to the rock that is higher than I. All formation starts with this admission. Building our foundation, the New Testament is on the rock, Jesus himself, which cannot fall. That’s even kind of an echo of Helaman 5:12.

Hank Smith:                     01:23                   You’re right on. I love how he says, “I don’t know this…” And then we think,

John Bytheway:               01:28                   “Yes, he does.” You’re doing pretty well.

Dr. John White:               01:31                   I want to share a story here. On 2012, when I took the job at Baylor, similar to taking the job here at BYU, my son and I moved down, but Cindy and the girls stayed back because we had to sell our house and some other circumstances that postponed their move. There was this choir from Baylor that came and it sang, “My Shepherd will supply my need.” And I’d never heard that song before. I started to look at who sings that song. And guess who I discovered? The Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

John Bytheway:               02:03                   Tab choir, baby.

Dr. John White:               02:05                   This is like this pre-evangelism that the guy was already starting to pull my heartstrings. And I love the line, “No more a stranger nor a guest.” That peace and belonging that comes when you understand the Shepherd and what he supplies. And when I was a boy, we moved nine times. There was a lot of instability, a lot of unpredictability. One of the strengths is I can make friends very quickly. But I always work from this insecure attachment because I’m wondering, are these my roots? Are these my people? Can I trust them? I love what we see in this song that there’s a love that does not move away. There’s a love that says I belong. And this is one of the signatures of the LDS community that drew me in, is that I belonged before I believed. Sociologists talk about this, that oftentimes people start with this idea that you have to assent to some belief, some dogma, some structure of any worldview that one holds.

                                           03:08                   But we often find ourselves enculturated. We’re brought into a community. And as we belong, we believe. And that’s exactly what happened to me when I began to come here and make six trips. I began to listen to the Saints pray. I began to go to these lab meetings with Dr. Nelson, with all of our students, the way they loved, the way they accepted me. And for someone who works from an insecure attachment, that was startling to me. Like these people don’t even know me and they’re accepting me and loving me. Again, that was a portrait of God’s acceptance, God’s love of me. As I began to then journey, I recognized that these people who often have been misunderstood because it was a they at that point, scripture says, New Testament, that you will be known by your love. They discipled me without me knowing it.

                                           03:58                   They tutored my heart. They schooled my heart. Then when I started to read the Book of Mormon, I started to get more evidence. It made the transition easy because I understood that I now belong. I’m just a decision away of fully trusting in this and getting baptized. I like that move there in Psalm 61. And then Psalm 62 is this idea of an unshaken rest of the soul was found exclusively in God. His power is always matched by a steadfast love. Again, no status or wealth can ground it. Six times in six verses, he uses the word only in verse one, two, four, five, six, and nine. Only God. Not God plus savings. Not God plus reputation. Only God. Then verse one declares the rest. Truly my soul waiteth upon God. Verse five, we must command that, my soul, wait thou only upon God. We see this stillness is not some kind of personality type. It’s a practice.

                                           04:58                   Trust is re-chosen over and over. We wait, we trust, we wait, we trust. And as we get more drawn into relationship with God, that only increases our hope to continue to trust. I want to make a handoff now though. From Psalm 62, it stills the soul. Psalm 63 aims the soul. This is the one I’ve been waiting to talk about. Let me take some time to unpack this. There’s a lot going on in Psalm 63. He says, “My flesh longeth for thee.” Well, the big idea is that community with God so surpasses all other earthly goods, including life itself, that even the wilderness deprivation where we’re parked and we’re dry becomes the occasion for the soul’s deepest satisfaction. Most people don’t know this, the early church, meaning the broader early church tradition, not just the restored gospel early church. Psalm 63 was the fixed morning Psalm of every Sunday service.

                                           05:57                   For centuries, Christians began the Lord’s day by saying, early will I seek thee. I’m a morning person. I had a paper route when I was a kid. It started at 4:00 AM. When I then became a Jesus follower, it wasn’t hard for me to start seeking the Lord early in the morning. Versus my brother, when I gave the paper route over to him, my dad would look out there at 5:00 in the morning, he had fallen asleep over the papers. So my brother prays at night. He doesn’t pray in the morning. Psalm 63 here, the first point is you don’t have a thirst. I really like this. I don’t believe you have a thirst. You are a thirst. O God, thou art my God. Early will I seek thee. My soul thirsteth for thee. My flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is.

                                           06:46                   I like how it even starts there. O God, thou art my God. Notice it starts covenant relationship, that we belong to God. That should then catapult us, but that should dispose us to want to seek him. He uses the language of the soul. As human beings, we’re no like ghost in the machine. This is very concrete. In fact, I love the Hebrew language here. It talks about the throat. That’s the organ of thirst. The whole living, wanting self is thirsting. As embodied people, we’re thirsting. And as early as the dawn, our first movement of waking consciousness should be for God. It escalates here. It moves from identity, thou art my God, to pursuit this soul thirst and this body ache. It’s interesting, in the D&C, it talks about that the spirit and the body are the soul of man. The Restoration, I think, defines the soul the way Psalm 63 does and the way that it’s prayed here.

                                           07:43                   David’s flesh, bodily longing isn’t sub-spiritual. It’s the soul doing what souls do. We’re supposed to reach out for these kinds of things as embodied creatures. The body makes possible a breadth and depth and an intensity of experience. And it’s interesting, Elder Bednar, he has a talk on things as they really are. And he goes into the body there in ways that I’ve never, I mean, it’s so enriching. I think you even seek resonance here, this idea that as human beings, we can’t talk about what it means to be human apart from the body. In fact, a lot of philosophers talk about the difference between people who think they have a body, merely have a body, versus I am a body. That we are bodies. On one level, you can use the language, I have a body, but we are embodied creatures and we don’t want to deny or suppress that.

                                           08:30                   Somehow that’s sub-spiritual. There’s a view early on in the first three or fourth century of church called gnosticism. Somehow the body is evil. Here we have way before that heretical belief. David’s showing us that the body is good. In fact, the body has thirsts and longing. It ought to be ultimately longing for God. Moving this along, this is where C.S. Lewis has really helped me a lot. He has this argument from desire. The Psalm fits in there really well. He says, “If I find in myself a desire, which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” Lewis talks about that hunger corresponds to food, thirst or water. So why do humans carry a longing? Nothing that finite creaturely reality can satisfy? It’s because we are made for God. Even Ecclesiastes says eternity is set in our hearts.

                                           09:26                   The only thing you can satisfy it is something that’s infinite. In all the omnis that we know as far as the attributes of God. David’s thirst ultimately is for God himself, we see. And even he says in verse two, the sanctuary. That’s pretty cool. And this is something I’m really looking forward to. I can only go into the temple for proxy baptisms. So I’ll get my, it’s a temple endowment here in October. In fact, I meet with my bishop this week. We’re working through reading Anthony Sweat. Holy Invitation. I’m really excited that we see the role of this temple and sanctuary in the Psalms too. And I really can’t speak to that from the Restoration Gospel completely because I haven’t been. Unless you guys want to give me insights.

John Bytheway:               10:09                   Just read Anthony’s books. I’ve had my kids read those before they’ve gone through the temple.

Dr. John White:               10:15                   Well, what we see here then that communion deepens longing. It doesn’t retire. As we connect with God in the temple, as we connect with God in the sacrament meetings, this should only strengthen and fortify our worship, our trusting in God. Then point three here, better than life. This is a bold claim. If you think about it, he says, “Because thy loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.” I love that quote by Joseph Smith. He says, “Could you gaze into heaven five minutes you would know more than you would by reading all that was ever written on the subject.” The five minutes of seeing heaven reorders all our values. If we really understand God’s loving kindness, we should value it more than anything than life itself. Now, some people say, “Well, what does that mean?” Well, God wants to preserve our lives, so by loving God, then we’re getting a life with him that preserves us in eternal, the abundant life. The extremes that people go, we see people are martyred for the faith. They’re willing to give up their own life because they’ve had this sacred encounter. They know God. Most of us aren’t going to have to do that. But that’s people who have been really caught up in this trance like Joseph Smith as far as gazing into heaven.

Hank Smith:                     11:28                   Stills the soul and aims the soul.

Dr. John White:               11:31                   And that gets at that idea that rightly ordered love is always going to be done in and toward God. Augustine, this is where I think he’s brilliant. Saint Augustine was perplexed by how can I love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and might and have anything left over for anything less than God? The way that he configured this is, we love everything in and toward God. In fact, Catholic theologians go so far to say that any instance of love needs to be properly suspended and connected to God. So you can say on one hand, I love ice cream. And make sure you love ice cream appropriate to the kind of creaturely good that it is. So I don’t love ice cream the same way I love my dog. I don’t love my dog the same way I love my spouse. And I don’t love my spouse in the exact same way I love God. But God is the purpose, right? Everything is loved in and toward him.

                                           12:24                   All earthly penultimate good should be loved properly in relation to God. And that’s why we need to cultivate this, these thirsts in the right directions so that they’re aimed ultimately towards God as our object of adoration and love. The Book of Mormon, Enos says, “My soul hungered.” It’s so embodied. Again, another witness to the thing that I discovered as I read the Book of Mormon. I just started seeing that it places a premium on our materiality. Theologically, we talk about the scandal of the incarnation. God became man. In the restored gospel, there’s even a bigger scandal. Jesus only became what was already true of the Father. He is fully embodied. He has flesh. He has bones. He has a face.

John Bytheway:               13:06                   Do you guys want another intertextuality thing here?

Dr. John White:               13:10                   Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s do it.

John Bytheway:               13:12                   Look at Psalm 63:5. In verse five, “My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness.” So my soul is satisfied with fatness. Now look at 2 Nephi 9:51, “Feast upon that which perisheth not, neither can be corrupted and let your soul delight in fatness.”

Hank Smith:                     13:33                   There it is.

Dr. John White:               13:34                   Wow.

John Bytheway:               13:35                   2 Nephi 9:51.

Hank Smith:                     13:37                   It’s not often you see that word fatness.

John Bytheway:               13:40                   I know. I thought this is one to put on your fridge. Let your soul delight in fatness, right?

Hank Smith:                     13:46                   Go for it.

John Bytheway:               13:47                   I had never seen that until right now, but I know that’s in 2 Nephi.

Dr. John White:               13:51                   Good connection. That’s awesome.

Hank Smith:                     13:53                   All right, John, what should we do next?

Dr. John White:               13:55                   Look at in verses 4-6 of 63. Notice what the body does here. The body’s being shaped. It’s a performance or practice that’s getting the body properly aimed. It says hands lifted up, not grasping, mouth praising, not consuming. Night thoughts meditating, not worrying. Every faculty is redirected from food, from wealth and worry to God. This is profound. These are daily habits. Even when I come to church, what am I doing with my body that’s training me towards these right aims? I said I did my dissertation on John Paul II. He talks about that every human action has two directions. There’s a transitive. There’s something you’re doing in the world. You’re altering the world somehow. If I open the door, that door wasn’t opened before by me, so I did something. But it’s always reflexive. Whatever I’m doing outwardly, reflexively is doing something to me inwardly.

                                           14:52                   When I think about my daily habits, what am I doing outwardly that’s shaping my character inwardly? This Psalm is getting at this idea of very practical concrete when I lift my hands. When I open the door to help someone, not only am I physically opening that door for them to get through, but it’s shaping me to be more generous, more other-regarding, more kind. If we start to connect those dots, we start to see that God has given us ways and means here on earth to deepen his presence and his character in our lives. We need to become cognizant about the kinds of things that we practice.

Hank Smith:                     15:31                   Oh, daily practice. Even just kneeling down for prayers. There’s something different about that act. It’s very small, but it’s different than standing or laying in your bed. It’s just a little different.

Dr. John White:               15:45                   Before you guys asked me to do the Psalms, I made a conscious decision to start 2026 to do the morning, evening prayers of the Psalms. When you asked me, I was in Psalm 128, I think. So I stopped because I wanted to go back and start preparing for this back in May, whenever it was you asked me. One of the first things I tried to do is before I put my feet on the ground to start my day, I would read a Psalm. Sometimes I get on my knees too. I like this idea. I wanted this practice to say that, God, you are, everything that hath breath, praise the Lord. The very breath that I’m going to use to pray these prayers, I just want to be cognizant that you sustained me through another night. I could have not woke up. And so just being conscious of God as the author and finisher of my physical body, but also the author and finisher of my spiritual direction too.

Hank Smith:                     16:38                   And you’re saying they’re connected. What I do with my physical body affects my spiritual self.

Dr. John White:               16:43                   Absolutely. This is what John Paul II once again is brilliant that the body is a visible manifestation of invisible realities. I think if we understand that, then what we’re doing with our bodies, how is it working in concert with divine and spiritual truths?

Hank Smith:                     16:59                   Where does he say my arms are up?

John Bytheway:               17:03                   Verse four.

Hank Smith:                     17:04                   I had written so much in verse five it went over that. In verse four.

John Bytheway:               17:09                   I noticed another reference like that in Psalms 119, verse 48, “My hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments, which I have loved. I will meditate in thy statutes.”

Hank Smith:                     17:26                   John, this might be outside of your expertise. I don’t know. But the idea of I will lift up my hands. Is that an ancient way of praying? Is hands up? Because we fold our arms. We bow. But it seems that in the Old Testament, they say that frequently with prayer. My hands will reach up.

Dr. John White:               17:45                   I know in the Episcopal tradition when before they do the Eucharist, they say we lift up our hands and our hearts. They’re oftentimes going back to the Psalms or going back to the ancient traditions. But you really see that the point you’re making is that you see the body as in full exercise in worship. If we’re not careful, worship can be kind of disembodied. And that’s doing a disservice to the fact of how God has created us. Even when we die, we know that our body is separated from our soul. Paul says that’s not natural. When the resurrection comes, we’re getting those bodies back. A glorified body. God always intended for us to be in a body-soul relationship. This is an analog to the fact that the Father has a body too. We don’t want to deny or suppress that. The body is a good thing when it’s properly stewarded.

John Bytheway:               18:33                   When you first heard that doctrine of our theology, that was probably something you’d never heard before.

Dr. John White:               18:42                   When you look at some of the anti-LDS or Mormon literature, they take us to task on that.

John Bytheway:               18:49                   They pound that one.

Dr. John White:               18:50                   Yeah, they do. Sometimes we’re privileging if we’re not careful for the alternative view, somehow as if spirit is more important than matter. Most people believe in creation ex nihilo. God is the only one that’s eternal. But I love it that we were all in this premortal relationship in this heavenly council. We’re co-eternal. We’re not co-divine. We’re co-eternal. But we will evolve and become this participation in the divine nature. You see that in 2 Peter. The Greek church, you know, deification. I mean, for a lot of evangelical Protestants, that seems, you know, heretical. But even Lewis says that He became human so that we could become gods. We could become like God. I didn’t have any problem with that once I started working through that. You know, a lot of this stuff too, I was taught, for example, premortal existence in my divinity courses. But they poo-pooed that and they talked about that that was seen as heretical by origin.

                                           19:49                   But I remember mentally shelfing. There’s something there as far as God bringing it to completion. But I didn’t know what to do with it because everyone around me, I would’ve definitely been seen as the minority view, for sure. I’ve been probably the only person. But then I could go back and say, “Hey, I can get on board with this.” I remember having this discussion with Janae at a conference in Salado, Texas. And we had this lengthy discussion about premortal existence. And I was convinced that it’s true. Seems like it was just an ongoing unfolding of me getting new revelations to explain where there was questions that hadn’t been answered.

Hank Smith:                     20:28                   Yeah. Is that why ritual is so important? We think of baptism. It’s a very tactile experience. The sacrament. The temple is the same way. It’s clothing and ritual. Is that because we need to involve our bodies in our worship?

Dr. John White:               20:44                   Absolutely. That’s why I’m so excited about the temple, because people know that I come from more of a high, they call it high church, high liturgy. And they’re like, “Oh, you’re going to love the temple.” Again, I’m being prepared for this. This makes me want to cry and just like, this is amazing. Now I’m going to get, one can argue the apex of this, I mean, this is a miniature form of what will, the new heaven and new earth will be. And I’m just preparing me for this to have these sacred encounters and expect to meet and know God in ways there that, that I don’t know him in an ordinary time.

Hank Smith:                     21:16                   Yeah. It’s important to have that body movement. I really appreciate that. Yeah. I really like the way you’ve put this because it’s, why are you doing that little thing? Why are we passing around trays of bread? Well, it’s important for us to use our bodies in our worship. Why walk into this water and feel the water and go under the water? And it seems like it’s a very feely, touchy experience.

Dr. John White:               21:41                   Yeah. I mean, think about all I can do is proxy baptisms, but those dead can’t go into fleshly tabernacles. I can physically represent them in the here and now. See the connection there to the body? Well, Jesus and 3 Nephi, right? One by one, physically going to people. I had that hermeneutic, that interpretive grid from my dissertation, and now it’s just like reified, amplified, blown up as I come into the restored gospel.

Hank Smith:                     22:11                   Yeah. There’s probably lots of times. I knew it. I knew it. I knew I was right.

John Bytheway:               22:17                   John, this has blessed me. I think it’s going to bless a lot of people because they’re seeing it through the eyes of somebody that has come from a different place. If I can speak for some of our audience, maybe I’m right. A lot of us are going, wow, I’ve always had this. I’ve taken this for granted. Hank, I’m writing down notes for my future classes, as I’m sure you are. And John, did you strain friendships? Did you lose friends? What kind of sacrifices did you make to be here today?

Dr. John White:               22:44                   After I was baptized in October of 2025, key events happened in October for me. Not sure why the month of October other than just happened that way. October 2023 was when I got my first visible witness from Dr. Nelson. Then I was in a conference a year later, same conference where I’d met Dr. Nelson or Janae, but it was in New York City. In advance, a team of us from Baylor and BYU were going to present some papers there. So I was joining a presentation with Dr. Nelson and one of her graduate students. And then some other Baylor folks were there too. But in advance, I said, hey, to Janae and to Jodie Jensen. I said, hey, we’re going to be a few hours from this place called Palmyra and Sacred Grove. I was wondering, I said, are you guys familiar with it? So I was being genuine. They were real humble. They were like, yeah, we’re familiar with it.

                                           23:52                   This is where I was starting to really, it was in the thick of my investigation. So I was like, “I need to go there. Yeah, I need to learn about this firsthand.” So they agreed that we would go. So we went to the sacrament meeting. This is where my conversion happened. Moroni 10:4-5. And at that time, I didn’t realize that that’s a missionary promise. That’s like John 3:16. I heard someone give their testimony and they cited those verses. And it really quickened my heart. I was like, “Wow, that’s a profound verse.” And I hadn’t read through the whole Book of Mormon yet. Then when we ascended Hill Cumorah, we read it together.

                                           24:26                   We read, I think we read most of Moroni 10, not just those verses. Then we got to the top. That inscription is on the Angel Moroni statue. That’s three times. Now, at that time, I was still Trinitarian. Father, Son, Holy Ghost. We still believe in the God had three personages. So I was like, wow, that’s three. That’s an incredible witness. After the Sacred Grove, we went to the Grandin Press and the senior missionary, I didn’t even know there was such a thing as senior missionaries. The woman said to me when we got to the second floor, there was Moroni 10:4,5 scription. She goes, “Why don’t you put your name in place of the ye and read it aloud?” It was just a small group of us. I could barely get through it. I started to weep. I started to cry. After that trip, I began to text and tell people I would put it in all caps, “I BELIEVE.” They knew what that meant.

                                           25:20                   So I had converted. Then we decided with this fellowship that I’d gotten with Baylor University, the last segment of that fellowship to finish my responsibilities for the grant was to come back in October and present a paper at the Book of Mormon Culture Conference. I decided to get baptized on October 26th, because that’s when this all started. So I got baptized. I now am teaching at an institution that doesn’t allow tenured folks to be LDS. I’m in a difficult situation. I can continue here for a little bit longer with integrity and just not teach anything against the restored gospel or against Baylor. I was going to postpone my baptism, and Kim B. Clark mentored me. He really took me under his wing and started to encourage me. He would text me regularly. I met with him and Sue. We went to their ward. His son, Jonathan, is the bishop there, and we went to lunch to his house afterwards.

                                           26:18                   And I said, “I just want to lay it out.” I said, “Once I get baptized, I’m going to have to resign or get fired. Maybe I should postpone my baptism.” He goes, “Oh, no. Do not postpone your baptism.” This is just following through. He goes, “Basically, let’s trust God on this.” Here he was, former Dean of the Harvard Business School. So even-keeled, patience, his composure. He’s believing the best and he’s trusting God. And part of me is thinking it’s easy for you to say that to me. You’re not in my shoes.

Hank Smith:                     26:49                   Not your job.

Dr. John White:               26:52                   I decided to go forward and to be baptized. And I came back home knowing that I had to make a decision. I knew I’d lose my job. I thought, well, I’m, I don’t know where I’m going to work. So I started some conversation with people at BYU. Then it looked like months later that there’s going to be a position for me. I go to this annual conference called the Academy of American Religion and Society of Biblical Literature. I have a good group of friends. We’re talking best friends. They know everything. And I tell them pretty much everything. They knew I was working, going back and forth BYU, and they were really excited for me. The last night before we fly home, the next day, we go out as a group. And they’ve seen that I’ve stopped drinking. I mean, this group would like to go to pubs.

                                           27:36                   They’d seen these outward changes in me. The Lord said, “You’re going to tell them tonight.” I was like, “I don’t think I can tell them. I just, I don’t think I can do it. This is, this is going to be so hard.” But I thought, “If this is true, then I need to testify.” We’d finished dinner and I hadn’t told them yet. They’re going to a pub. I remember the Lord saying, “You better tell them earlier rather than later, because the more they drink, the more contentious or this could go in the wrong direction sideways.” We were walking to the pub, and we see the Old South Church. They wanted to go inside. And God said to me, I remember this. It wasn’t audible, but it was impression. He goes, “Sacred sight. This is where you’re going to tell them.” And so I was like, uh. So we go inside. It’s quiet. It was about ready to close. We were in the chapel area, the sanctuary. I turned to them, I said, “Hey, guys, I got good news and I got surprising news.” I had to, I had to pitch it that way, right?

                                           28:31                   The good news is, it looks like I’m leaving Baylor and going to BYU. I hadn’t signed a contract yet, so it’s still by faith. I don’t think God ever wanted me to convert, be baptized knowing I had a job. He wanted to make sure this is full trust. Said, “Looks like I’m going to get hired by them.” And so they’re like, “Looks like it.” They’re concerned for me contractually, right? I haven’t signed anything yet, but it’s really looking promising.” Then they looked at me real quick and they go, “Wait a minute. Surprising news?” I mean, they’re logicians. They knew. They’re like, “Wait, you can’t work at BYU. All things are equal. There are exceptions unless you convert or baptize.” And I said, “Well, surprising news, I’ve converted and baptized.” I mean, the rest of the night, the rest of the night, I left the gathering at about 10:15, 10:30, because I knew they were going to continue drinking and usually not much happens good after 10, 10:30 to begin with at night at a pub.

                                           29:25                   Next day I saw them, I said, “What’d you guys talk about?” They’re like, “What do you think we talked about?” So this is getting at some of the opposition. My best friend, a renowned scholar, on Saturday or Sunday, I get a text from him, “Hey, are you available next Tuesday? I’d love to get together.” I waited 24 hours before I replied to that. We got together and met for an hour and it was opposition. It was challenge. It was, why are you doing this? Why can’t you postpone it? You could lose your family over this. I mean, all these reasons you shouldn’t. All these objections. This could hurt you as far as occupation. You already have tenure. You’re going to start all over. The academic guild, but you could be seen as an outcast. By the end of it, he said, “I’m not going to change your mind. Am I?”

                                           30:12                   And I go, “Nope.” He goes, “I didn’t think I would.” What that meant though is that that was some opposition, some good friends. Then after I left, and they’re asking all kinds of questions, they’re like, “Was he converted when he was here? We heard he’d been baptized.” In my letter of resignation, I just made it clear. I said, you know, I fully affirm the mission and values of BYU and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.” That was my way of saying, “Hey, I’m one of them.” There’s just been some awkwardness. People have talked to other people, but if they’re really my friends, why don’t they come to me and talk to me? That’s what’s been hurtful about this whole process. I’ve been lonely at times. I know that I’ve done the right thing, but just a modicum of definitely persecution. You know, I’ve heard some stuff that just is absolutely not true. It’s like, “What? Why would you say that? Come talk to me.” That’s a long answer to your question.

John Bytheway:               31:08                   Wow. Thank you for sharing that.

Dr. John White:               31:12                   Baylor’s been good to me. I’m not leaving in hate. I’m just being candid with y’all.

John Bytheway:               31:17                   Nothing but respect for you, John. Holy cow.

Hank Smith:                     31:21                   What a leap of faith. It’s beautiful.

Dr. John White:               31:24                   It’s that promise obligation. I look at the beauty and grace of the promise of the restored gospel. I have to. It’s necessary.

John Bytheway:               31:33                   Yeah. And so what else mattered?

Dr. John White:               31:35                   For me not to do it is sin.

Hank Smith:                     31:38                   Yeah. Hmm. I know what I know. Now, we don’t want to let you go without walking us through a few more Psalms. What should we do now?

Dr. John White:               31:44                   Let’s go to Psalm 85 and 86. We already talked about Psalm 78, that where it sits in the center of the psalter about the compassion, forgave their iniquity. So let’s turn to Psalm 85, and this is a great phrase. We see a parallelism here. We see where mercy and truth kiss. I like this because we see God’s attributes. We see steadfast love, faithfulness, righteousness and peace. They’re not in competition. They converge and really guaranteeing a restoration already begun. It’s already here in the very person and presence and it’s near at hand through Jesus, but we await for his second return. There’s kind of this dialectic, this tension, and you even see it in these different attributes. So let me just read this real quick. It says, “Mercy and truth are met together. And then righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” I love how he uses this to show that these virtues are not pitted against each other.

                                           32:46                   Shalom or peace isn’t the absence of conflict, but flourishing in a right relationship. Justice is one of those necessary conditions. If things are really going as God intended, you’ll find yourself in equitable relationships. There’s been a failure sometimes in Christian communities where we divorce these attributes. Justice is filing for separation from mercy. Psalm 85 shows that there needs to be this reconciliation. And you see this in Alma, is it chapter 42? He performs this wedding ceremony between justice and mercy. It’s called the atonement. That’s what brings justice and mercy together. As an ethicist, it’s easy to fight for righteousness and a private morality. We live our lives upstanding with integrity, but there’s no gospel without social justice too. And this is where I think Zion is so important, that we dwell in righteousness. We have responsibility to the poor and we’re one heart and one mind, these attributes.

                                           33:47                   They don’t compete against each other. That the kingdom of God embraces both of these. We want instances of Zion. And this is important because the evangelical background that I came out of, oftentimes the gospel that was preached, pedaled, and proclaimed was oftentimes for my personal salvation, which it is. You become so heavenly minded, no earthly good. Those who are most heavenly minded are the most earthly good. You talk about some of the greatest prophets, Martin Luther King Jr. is because he understood, had a big enough hope of these attributes staying together that he was disgruntled, dismayed when he didn’t see it happening here on Earth. A proper prophetic anger when you see an injustice because you know that’s not what God intended. We should be unhappy with that, dismayed with that, frustrated with that, because it’s frustrating God’s cosmic order and purpose in the gospel flourishing here on earth.

Hank Smith:                     34:47                   That’s a beautiful idea that there’s a future Zion coming, but let’s build Zion now to the degree that we can.

Dr. John White:               34:57                   Well, and we pray the prayer in the Lord’s Prayer. Your will done on earth as it is in heaven. Your justice, your truth, your mercy, your loving kindness done here on earth as it is in heaven. It’ll always be imperfect, it’ll be impartial, but we don’t give up. We should still be striving for it.

Hank Smith:                     35:11                   There’s one of our hymns. How great, how glorious, how complete, redemption’s grand design, where justice, love and mercy meet in harmony divine.

Dr. John White:               35:25                   What’s the name of it? That’s beautiful.

Hank Smith:                     35:27                   It’s called How Great the Wisdom and the Love.

John Bytheway:               35:30                   It’s a sacrament hymn, isn’t it, usually?

Hank Smith:                     35:32                   It’s a sacrament hymn. Yeah. It was actually a talk from Elder Holland. It’s called Where Justice, Love, and Mercy Meet.

John Bytheway:               35:40                   It’s a great line, isn’t it? And they kiss, according to Psalms here.

Dr. John White:               35:46                   Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Bytheway:               35:47                   They’re not fighting. They’re not outdoing each other.

Dr. John White:               35:50                   Yeah. The physicality of that. It’s a metaphor, but literally that there’s this organic union communion between the two.

Hank Smith:                     35:58                   Yeah.

Dr. John White:               35:59                   They’re joining.

John Bytheway:               36:01                   What do you make of verse 11? When you see that, does it remind you of anything, the first phrase there?

Hank Smith:                     36:08                   Truth shall spring out of the earth. That’s a restoration phrase as well, isn’t it?

John Bytheway:               36:14                   The Lord speaks peace to his people. Truth shall spring out of the earth, in parentheses, the Book of Mormon.

Hank Smith:                     36:20                   Isn’t it the Book of Moses, John? Truth will I send forth out of the Earth?

John Bytheway:               36:25                   Some intertextuality. It’s my new word for the day.

Hank Smith:                     36:29                   Moses 7:62. Righteousness will I send down out of heaven and truth will I send out of the earth to bear testimony of mine Only Begotten. And I’ve seen that maybe as revelation coming down, Book of Mormon coming out of the earth. I will cause to sweep the earth as a flood. To gather out mine elect. I think it says John White in there. To gather out mine elect from the four quarters of the earth.

John Bytheway:               36:58                   I love that you brought up Zion. Zion in the early days was thought to be a place and then more like a cause.

Hank Smith:                     37:06                   When the Lord introduces it, he does it really slowly with Joseph. The cause of Zion. Oh, it’s a cause? Yeah, it’s also a people. It’s also a place. It’s all of a sudden an entire movement. If you would’ve been in the early church, the 1830s church, Zion was-

John Bytheway:               37:26                   Was a place.

Hank Smith:                     37:27                   Was, yeah. It was a place and it was their point. It was a place. We are going to build Zion on the earth. Now we build stakes of Zion, trying to become Zion.

Dr. John White:               37:44                   Well, I love that. It’s both spiritual and literal. It’s not reducible to one or the other. So some people want to build utopia here, heaven on earth, but we want to make sure we’re doing it spiritually, that those are meant to be in congruence. I love that.

Hank Smith:                     38:00                   What the early saints learn is that it’s buildings are easier than people. John likes to say when they brought the children of Israel out of Egypt, that it was easy to get them out of Egypt. It was difficult to get Egypt out of them.

John Bytheway:               38:13                   Yeah, that’s an old saying. It’s not mine, but yeah. There’s still a lot of Egypt in me. I’m just glad, John, that when you showed up at some sacrament meetings, you were welcomed and embraced. When I hear people tell that story, I’m like, “Oh, I hope, I hope, I hope everybody was just like, hi, how are you? Welcome. What’s your name?”

Hank Smith:                     38:30                   Because as John, as you know, it’s not always the case that when someone asks me, are Latter-Day Saints Christian? I say, oh, hopefully. Most of the days.

John Bytheway:               38:39                   I hope so. I hope they’re acting like it. Yeah.

Hank Smith:                     38:42                   Most of the time.

Dr. John White:               38:45                   Well, my first sacrament meeting, though, it was interesting. The mics didn’t work. The bread wasn’t there. The bread wasn’t there.

Hank Smith:                     38:52                   Oh no.

Dr. John White:               38:53                   I mean, from all outwardly purposes, it seemed like a train wreck. But then the Spirit showed up when we sang, is it, I will walk with Jesus?

John Bytheway:               39:02                   Uh-huh.

Dr. John White:               39:03                   We sang that at my baptism, along with Be Thou My Vision. That’s when I really felt the Spirit, was when we sang that. I hadn’t been converted yet. This was, and it was a very meaningful experience for me. I think it’s Robert Millet talks about that our gospel doesn’t need any props. Even though those things had been kicked out from underneath in my first sacrament experience, the Lord showed up. The Lord proved himself and presented himself to me. Psalm 86, this is unite my heart. I like the movements here. Verses one through seven, there’s this petition for poverty, for I am poor and needy. And verse 8 to 10, there’s this incomparability among the gods. There is none like unto thee. And then verse 11 through 13, this is the center. Teach me, unite my heart. So here we have wholehearted praise.

                                           39:57                   Deliver me from Sheol. 14-17, and then a renewed plea as far as God’s own creed. My Lord, thy servant. You see that seven times my Lord and thy servant three times. My first point here is that notice how in verse 15, I praise God’s self-description of who he is back to him. But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion and gracious, long suffering and plenteous in mercy and truth. What I see here is prayer’s not based on one’s personal faith alone, but on the ancient and continuing confessions of the whole community. The whole community is joining in this. And so I think it’s really important that there’s this community orientation. And then in verse two, he says, and you are my God. Answers that electing word. I am the Lord your God. And it’s only answered if one dare to say my God.

                                           40:54                   You have to say my God. You have to entrust yourself to be able to say my God, that you belong. That’s powerful language you see in the Psalms over and over my God by David. So this gets at this personal relationship. And I like a rare petition here in verse 11, Teach me thy way, O Lord. I will walk in thy truth. Unite my heart to fear thy name. One of my hopes for this whole time together is that these texts have become our prayers. And that for listeners, they may feel that somehow maybe God is repelled by their brokenness, by their doubt, by their despair, even by their unbelief, people push back and say, why is unbelief and doubt so often in the Psalms? I think it’s important because God recognizes that these are periods we may go through, and he’s catechized them for us.

                                           41:48                   He’s put them in there to know that it’s okay to doubt. This is a part of your journey. The problem is if you run from God instead of a place to actually entrust yourself to God, to actually call upon Him in your despair. My hope is that we would recognize that God stands ready to hear. He is joy and gladness from Psalm 51. And we can then testify, teach, and live to this plan of the good news of happiness.

Hank Smith:                     42:17                   One of my teaching assistants, her name’s Danica Nusink. She wrote a paper on Nephi towards the end of his writing, switching from talking about Jesus to this I glory in truth, I glory in my Jesus. Something happens from He’s the communities and He’s my Jesus.

Dr. John White:               42:45                   Yeah, that’s really good. I’m really impressed by the students at BYU. There’s just a level of maturity. If you have to go out for two years as a male or 18 months as a female, that’s a significant commitment. You have to grow up pretty quickly.

Hank Smith:                     43:01                   John’s on his sixth child heading out on a mission.

John Bytheway:               43:04                   My daughter’s going to France. I’m like wooo. Lyon France Mission. Which is really fun because her oldest sister went there too.

Dr. John White:               43:14                   Oh, wow. On this last point, as far as Psalm 86:11, I really see that this is kind of a form of, if you’re uniting your heart, fearing in a form of consecration. We surrender. I’m in the Maxwell Institute, so I’ve been reading as much as I can about Neal Maxwell. In fact, I’m finishing his biography.

Hank Smith:                     43:35                   Quite a guy, Elder Maxwell, huh?

Dr. John White:               43:38                   I want to write a book on his discipleship ethic. I see so much in what he’s doing. He loves C.S. Lewis too, like me.

Hank Smith:                     43:44                   Yeah, he did.

Dr. John White:               43:46                   He has a phrase that he uses in one of his talks is, “Consecration is the only surrender.” He’s talking about the mind being surrendered, which is also a victory. I love that. It’s a paradox. Normally, when you surrender, you think, ohhh.

John Bytheway:               43:58                   A surrender and a victory at the same time.

Dr. John White:               44:02                   Exactly. But it’s because it’s consecrated. It’s set apart for God. And that’s a victory. Verse 13 says, “For great is thy mercy toward me, thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.” So that brings us back full circle to where I started. That this is where we see the deliverance, the answer to the ransom. It’s God’s mercy. And we see that that stands central to this whole section of Psalms we’ve been looking at.

Hank Smith:                     44:28                   John, this has been fantastic. We have walked through so many Psalms and you’ve told us of your experiences joining the church. And I think all of our listeners would say welcome. I loved when you would say we. You are part of this. You’re in.

Dr. John White:               44:45                   Amen.

Hank Smith:                     44:47                   We do have quite a few listeners out there, and we want to thank everyone for continuing to listen. What’s your message to them? To our listeners as a new member of the church, but as a well-studied theologian?

Dr. John White:               45:03                   That’s a great question. One is, keep God as your highest good. It’s easy to allow the things of this world to militate against, to challenge, to conflict with. We can do it in such subtle ways. I started off with this idea that is really our view of God that determines our view of self. So if we have a comprehension or misunderstanding about God, let’s try to figure that out. Don’t opt for easy answers, because the culture may be saying and questioning that knowledge of God. So stay in it. Read the Psalms. The Psalms give us the language. Think about a little child. A child has to be taught how to talk by the parents. And so the Heavenly Father has given us the language of how to talk to Him with raw emotions, how to express our grief, our sorrow. As we said, it’s an anatomy of the soul, mirrors the soul.

                                           46:07                   These are sacred texts that should be a part of your regimen of your spiritual diet and disciplines and practices. But let’s continue to trust in God. And our trust in God is in direct correspondence to our view of God. When we teach this to student athletes, adolescents, we know there’s this prevalent view. It’s called moralistic therapeutic deism out there. That God is just a moralistic God. He just expects you to do good, be a do-gooder. He’s just really here to meet your needs. The vending machine metaphor that we gave earlier. Deism, that God has got this world going and the so holy other that he’s not involved in the near and present and imminence of your life. Well, that’s a flawed view of God. We have a God who is intimately involved, so much so that his own Son came here to suffer for us and identify with us.

                                           47:03                   He’s a God who weeps. Even in the Psalms, we see echoes of Moses seven as far as the God who weeps. We see a God who has emotions. A God who actually feels for us. If you’re brokenhearted, guess what? God is brokenhearted. If you are in despair, He’s a good father. He wants to talk to you. Come and talk to Him. The Psalms give us that invitation. They give us that culture to shape us and how we think about God. And therefore, once we think correctly about God, then we think well about ourselves and other people.

Hank Smith:                     47:41                   It’s wonderful. We love that you’re a part of this church, John.

Dr. John White:               47:45                   I love being a part of this church.

John Bytheway:               47:47                   Yeah. We need to talk to you again after you go through the temple.

Hank Smith:                     47:51                   When someone joins the church, like John. And we have hundreds of thousands that do. There’s an energy that comes. An energy and an excitement.

John Bytheway:               48:07                   If you have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, can you feel so now?

Hank Smith:                     48:14                   Thank you, John. Dr. White, thank you for spending your day with us. We first heard of you back when we were talking about the book of Helaman. Who would’ve thought then when Janae said, hey, I ran this by a friend of mine, that that friend would now be on the show two years later. I just think what a beautiful story. With that, we want to thank Dr. John White for joining us today. We want to thank our executive producer, Shannon Sorensen, our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen, and every episode we remember our founder. He had that same excitement for the gospel John as you. Steve Sorensen. We hope you’ll join us next week. We’ve got more of the Psalms to cover on followHIM. As a thank you to our wonderful listeners, we’d love to gift you the digital version of our book, Finding Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. It offers short, meaningful insights drawn from our past Old Testament episodes. Visit followhim.co, that’s followhim.co, to download your free copy today. And you’ll also find the link to purchase the print edition. Thank you for being part of our followHIM family. Of course, none of this could happen without our incredible production crew. David Perry, Lisa Spice, Will Stoughton, Krystal Roberts, Ariel Cuadra, Heather Barlow, Amelia Kabwika, Sydney Smith, and Annabelle Sorensen.

                                           49:35                   Whatever questions or problems you have, the answer is always found in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Turn to him. Follow him.