John Bytheway (00:02): Welcome to Part two of this week’s podcast.

Hank Smith (00:06): Now, let’s jump into what you said about Ephesians.

Kerry Muhlestein (00:10): Yeah. And again, I see this as tying in, and, and I don’t know that we need to spend a long time on this, but he’s got this beautiful bunch of verses about girding up your loins and taking on the breastplate of righteousness and your feet shod with a preparation of the gospel of peace and the helmet of salvation and sword of my spirit. All this is really coming right from Ephesians. But the interesting thing is, and again, covenants on my brain, but I’m gonna feel okay about it ’cause you told me I could. So, the, the promises in the covenant include words like, I will be your shield. I will be your protector. Right? I think the idea is that protection is one of the blessings promised to Israel. If we’re gonna look for those blessings, it’s one of the blessings promised. And so, again, I see this as a logical transition. We’re talking about the covenant and the keys to the kingdom that have been committed as part of this, and as a result, I want you to gird up and be ready, both to be protected, but to go out and do the battle that will bring other people into that protection. A cohesive section, I think that helps us understand what God wants us to do, and how it’s tied into the sacrament and doing the sacrament with an eye single to his glory.

John Bytheway (01:22): I can’t not equate the armor of God with the sacrament, because I think of the priests up there saying that they may always have his spirit to be with them. And I think of the sword of the spirit and how we go, and we re-arm every time we go to the sacrament table. And as my mind is racing here, I’m thinking about looking back to the sacrament table. Like it’s an altar, the body and the blood of Christ–looking forward as if the sacrament table is a table of communion, where we will have a sacrament meeting again with Christ, as we’ve just talked about. And I see it both as a table and an altar, kind of.

Kerry Muhlestein (02:03):

That works because anciently, I mean, often sacred meals were associated with sacrifices. And the idea is that you’re–this is a communion. You enter into this together. Right? So I, think it’s intended to be understood that way.

John Bytheway (02:14): I love it. And I love to tell, I used to tell my ward when I was a bishop that, you know, it says in the handbook, we shouldn’t have visual aids for Sacrament meeting, but there is a visual aid and it’s bolted right there to the floor. And every week that you come in, you have a visual aid of the savior’s mercy and his love and his sacrifice for us. And I just think it’s–how do you miss this visual aid of the sa–. And it’s not, we don’t wheel it in at Christmas and Easter. It’s right there every single week. And how beautiful and merciful that is, that the Lord would say, come back, let’s do this again.

Hank Smith (02:51): Wow.

Kerry Muhlestein (02:52): And I think it does give us that protecting power. It’s talking about, and that you talked about. That covenant renewal, gives us both the sword of the spirit, but all–just protection, right?

John Bytheway (03:01): Yeah.

Kerry Muhlestein (03:02): That renewing that covenant is protection.

Hank Smith (03:06): This is amazing to me because here’s Joseph on his way to get some wine, right? He’s like, we gotta get some wine. And the Lord’s going, okay, yeah, wine. Wine’s important. Actually, let’s talk about the reason we do all this. And I like what you said, Kerry, ’cause I had never tied in the armor of God with the covenant, but it almost as if the Lord is saying, you gotta, we’re gonna restore the gospel, we’re gonna restore the covenant, and we’re gonna gather Israel, and it’s gonna be a battle. So put on your armor, with the sacrament. Put on your armor, take on your covenants, andbe ready. This spiritual protection that comes. I, man, this to me is a beautiful section. You know what’s funny is I see these sections one way, and then we talk about ’em. And now I am like, this is the best section ever. Right? Like, this one is the best one.

Kerry Muhlestein (04:00): I just always like to picture Joseph when he gets home to Emma and Emma says, so where’s the wine? Right? This happens to me all the time. I sent you out to get some, where’s the wine? But he’s got a good excuse. And he says, well, I met someone. Let’s talk about this. Let’s talk. Right? Hey, you know, great family conversation.

John Bytheway (04:16): Why not finish this? What did happen? Did they go back? Did they finish the meeting?

Hank Smith (04:21): Sounds like it.

John Bytheway (04:22): Did they get confirmed? Were they able to take the sacrament?

Kerry Muhlestein (04:25): Yeah, they made grape juice, right? They made it right there. So it clearly ends up not being fermented because–So it’s, I mean, sometimes we say, oh, yeah, wine when it talks about in the scriptures is not fermented. No. They–and they use fermented wine many times after this as well. So that’s not what it is. But in this case, they just squoze some grapes, right. Then made their own grape juice, and they did the whole thing.

Hank Smith (04:46): That’s so fantastic. And you know what? I’ve often thought in the gospel of John, when the Savior has his talk with the woman at the, well, that he was preparing the world for a sacrament that uses water. Because he calls himself living water.

Kerry Muhlestein (05:02): Yep.

Hank Smith (05:02): Right? And so he makes– I I often think that was kind of just squoze in there, because yes, we’re gonna use wine for a while, but we’re going to, we’re gonna use water because it mattereth not, like you said. Oh, and by the way, that is a great symbol of me. Look at John chapter four. Yeah. Right? Yeah. It’s–I’ve got it all prepped.

Kerry Muhlestein (05:19): And John chapter seven, living water, and then, is it in Alma somewhere– it talks about parting of the bread and waters of life freely? And I’ve always thought, oh, is that an illusion to the sacrament right there?

(05:29): Right? Yeah. Yep.

Hank Smith (05:31): Oh, you, for those of you listening, who wonder why we get so excited? This is our idea of a good time. Just so you know. Like, if you’re going, wow.

John Bytheway (05:40): This is why our kids think we’re strange.

Hank Smith (05:41): Yeah. It really is. Dad, can’t we just finish the chapter? I’m like, no, no, no. This is amazing. You’re gonna want to see this. Right. It reminds me of Alex Baugh-well, he’s gonna come on the podcast soon– saying to his kids, that is where Wilfred Woodruff was ordained an apostle. You put your hand on that. I’m gonna take a picture. Right? We as dads get so excited about these, about these things, but they’re exciting. Yeah. Once you catch the vision of Section 27, once it clicks, it’s exciting stuff.The covenant is exciting. You can see why President Nelson is so excited. How old is President Nelson? And here he is still so excited about the Abrahamic Covenant.

Kerry Muhlestein (06:23): Oh, man. You can feel it when he talks.

John Bytheway (06:25): The greatest work you could ever be involved in. Yeah.

Kerry Muhlestein (06:29): Yeah. You shouldn’t take those kinds of words lightly, huh?

John Bytheway (06:32): Yeah. He uses really strong words, doesn’t he? When he talks about it.

Hank Smith (06:35): He said, I think, at one point he said to the youth, in that youth meeting with Sister Nelson, he said, this ought to be the most important part of your life. This ought to be the most important part of your life. Right? And to me, I mean, that’s a — we can’t, like you said, Kerry, we can’t miss that.

Kerry Muhlestein (06:53): Yeah. You can’t let those words fall to the ground, as it were. Right?

Hank Smith (06:56): Let’s move into Section 28, Kerry. The heading tells us that a church member by the name of Hiram Page, who we’ve heard of before, he is one of the eight witnesses that we talked about. He claimed to be receiving revelation from a certain stone, which we’ve talked about Joseph Smith’s seer stones here before. But for the entire church. And it seems like the Whitmers, who I believe Hiram Page was a member of the Whitmer family.

Kerry Muhlestein (07:20): Yeah.

Hank Smith (07:21): I think he had influenced the Whitmers, including Oliver Cowdery, who is also a member of the Whitmer family.

Kerry Muhlestein (07:27): Or about to become one. Yeah.

Hank Smith (07:28): Is he not married yet? He’s…

Kerry Muhlestein (07:30): Not, not quite yet.

Hank Smith (07:31): Okay. How do you explain–Explain to us what was happening and what led up to this revelation?

Kerry Muhlestein (07:37): Yeah. So there are so many fascinating things here, but you’re right. So they’ve been in Harmony with Emma’s family, and things are getting dicey there. There’s a lot of persecution. That’s why they couldn’t do the confirmation and so on right there. There’s a lot of tough stuff going on there. And even Emma’s father and mother are no longer so thrilled with having them there, and they’re not able to shield them as much. And so they’re thinking of going back to Fayette, and that’s where they decide to have–and Fayette’s where they’d lived and kind of finish translating the Book of Mormon and so on. Right? But, that’s where they’re going to have this conference. So they’re going back for this second conference–the first one in April, this one’s in September. And as they get there, they’ve heard about this stuff, that Hiram Page he’s been receiving through this stone-

(08:25): Some inspiration revelations, particular about Zion. And, and as you said, Hiram Page has married one of the Whitmer daughters. Oliver Cowdery will soon marry a Whitmer daughter. I think about a year and a half later, somewhere in that range. But he has become very good friends with the Whitmers. I mean the Whitmers are a key family in the church. Right? And that’s why they’re all part of the eight witnesses. And that’s why Hiram is because he’s the brother-in-law, right? And so on. And I don’t think Hiram has any bad intents here. The fact of the matter is the church is still figuring out what’s going on. Like you said, this is the four month old church. Right? This is the little baby church trying to figure out what’s going on. And it’s so wonderful to have the principle of Revelation restored and inherent in there.

(09:14): And we still get this today. We preach this, everyone should be receiving revelation, everybody. Right? And in fact, the way Moses puts it is he wishes that everyone in Israel would be a prophet. And it’s interesting because in the days of Moses, they actually have the same problem. Moses–revelation is restored, things are going for them. Right? And Moses is the, the prophet receiving revelation. He tells everyone, be a priest. Everyone receive revelation. Aaron and Miriam come to and say, Hey, we received revelation. You’re taking too much upon yourselves. And God has to kind of set that right. A little while later, Korah and a bunch of Levites say, Hey, we receive Revelation. You’re taking too much upon yourselves. It seems to be inherent, this idea that once Revelation is restored, and the idea that we should all receive revelation, that we all start receiving them for everyone in every sort of way.

(10:05): Right? And then God has to say, hang on, personal revelation is for you. I need some kind of order in my church or in my kingdom. And so we can’t have everyone receiving revelation for everybody else. We’re gonna have a structure where this works. And I don’t think you can blame anyone for not getting that until God teaches it. And God could have taught it at the very beginning, and he didn’t. Now, I can’t read God’s mind, but I just kind of make the assumption it’s because he doesn’t want to quash the idea that people should receive personal revelation. He wants to encourage that idea.

John Bytheway (10:38): Wow. Yeah.

Kerry Muhlestein (10:39): He just doesn’t want them to say that they can all receive it for the whole church. And that’s really what Section 28 is about, is establishing how Revelation works organizationally for the entire church, which is separate from how Revelation works for you as an individual. Right?

John Bytheway (10:59): And I love that he brings up Moses.

Kerry Muhlestein (11:02): Yeah.

John Bytheway (11:03): And what do you think that means, Kerry? That Joseph–let’s see the end of verse 2–Joseph Smith, Jr.: For he receiveth them even as Moses. He’s better at it? Or what does that mean exactly?

Kerry Muhlestein (11:16): Well, I think, again, we wanna look at the context, because this is hot on the heels. In June, he’s gotten Moses chapter one, which expands your view of who Moses is. Right? This is Moses who has a vision where he sees every soul on earth and has this deep communion with God. And then Satan comes and he has a tussle with Satan, and then Satan leaves, and Moses has a more comprehensive vision of seeing every soul and every particle on earth, right? After Moses chapter one, you have a different understanding of Moses than you did before that. And they’ve just received that. I don’t know that everyone has read it, but I’m convinced that lots of people know Joseph has received it, and that some people have had the chance to read it. So they’ve got a new conception of what it means for Moses to be a prophet.

John Bytheway (12:05): I have never connected that before that. Oh, that’s so cool. That Moses is brought up here, and they just received the book of Moses. And maybe some have even read Moses chapter one, which is amazing.

Kerry Muhlestein (12:18): Yeah.

Hank Smith (12:18): Let’s make sure that everybody understands this, Kerry, that the book of Moses is Joseph Smith’s. He’s going through the Bible and it’s Genesis.

John Bytheway (12:27): It’s basically the JST of Genesis. Yeah.

Hank Smith (12:29): However, Moses one is brand new. So can you kind of explain where the book of Moses, you know, its structure, where it comes from? And how it’s connected to the JST?

Kerry Muhlestein (12:38): Yeah. So I would say Moses 1 is the preface to Genesis, like section one is the preface to the Doctrine and Covenants, right? So somewhere in that same time period that Joseph receives the visions of Moses, as he calls it, that will eventually be compiled in what we call the book of Moses. But somewhere in there, as he receives it, he’s also told to go and translate the Bible. We don’t know if he has that vision, and then is told now go translate the Bible. Or if he’s told to translate the Bible, and then the next step is this, and then, and so on. But he does immediately after that start to sit down with an English copy of the Bible to go through and, and correct it, and make additions to it by inspiration. And that’s when he’s going to get what we call Moses two, three, four.

(13:24): All of those are the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible. So the book of Moses is, well, we call it the Joseph Smith translation. He called it the New translation. Others call it the inspired version. The book of Moses is the Joseph Smith translation of the first several chapters of Genesis. And it had so much new material that it doesn’t work as an appendix or a footnote. Right? Joseph–It was so much new material. He published it in the church’s newspaper. And then eventually that gets compiled into a booklet called The Pearl of Great Price, that eventually becomes the scripture of the Pearl of Great Price. But really all it is, is, well, I say all it is, that makes it sound like it’s not much. It’s amazing and a ton. But we understand it best if we understand this is the Joseph Smith translation of Genesis and Moses one is the preface.

Hank Smith (14:10): Yeah. Oh, that’s wonderful. And I want to remind our listeners of something. Do you remember John, Dr. Janiece Johnson said about translation? She said, be careful when you hear that word that you don’t automatically assume translation, because this is Joseph taking it from English to English.

Kerry Muhlestein (14:25): Yeah. And giving us something that wasn’t there in the first place, right?

Hank Smith (14:27): Right.

Kerry Muhlestein (14:28): Right. And it’s brand new, so an English version he’s looking at. Yeah.

Hank Smith (14:30): Right. So I like the term she gave us with translation. She said, think of translated beings of perfecting them. Of, what did she say, John? Of transforming. Right. Bringing something to a higher level, a higher plane.

John Bytheway (14:45): They’re clarified.

Kerry Muhlestein (14:45): And if you look at the Webster’s dictionary definition of translate, in Joseph Smith’s day that’s actually its first definition.

Hank Smith (14:53): Its first definition.

Kerry Muhlestein (14:54): Yeah. Transforms is to transform or change. Yeah.

Hank Smith (14:57): Because we use that term Joseph Smith translation, and my students will ask, what language was it in before? Yeah. I’m going. No, no, no. That’s a different definition of translation, I think, in this case. So, let’s get back into section 28 then. Was it, do you think, do you think it was an awkward moment for Joseph Smith because he didn’t want to discourage people from receiving revelation? I know something in my reading of Joseph, it was always go to the Lord yourself.

Kerry Muhlestein (15:25): Yep.

Hank Smith (15:25): You can receive your own answers. And yet here he is saying, well, yes, and, but we gotta have stewardship. We’ve gotta have who can receive revelation for who Right? Involved in this work.

Kerry Muhlestein (15:37): It’s especially awkward because, his closest friend, and in a way, ally, is Oliver Cowdery and Oliver Cowdery is close with Hiram Page, and Hiram Page has convinced Oliver. Oliver believes that these are revelations from God, and so does the whole Whitmer family. And so it’s kind of Joseph against everyone else in saying, yeah, this stuff isn’t so good.

Hank Smith (16:00): I think I read it this time. It’s, there’s a whole 62 members of the church at this point. Right?

Kerry Muhlestein (16:05): Yeah.

Hank Smith (16:06): Now it’s 10 times what they had in April. Don’t get me wrong. That’s wonderful. I would love to go 10 times, right. Yeah. I dunno if we could handle that kind of growth. But, that had to be an odd, you know, an awkward moment of yes and no.

Kerry Muhlestein (16:20): Yeah. And, and I think it can’t be easy. Joseph is often put in the position of being the Lord’s mouthpiece to say, my mouthpiece is important. Don’t mess with him. Right. That’s, that’s an awkward place just to be. Yeah.

John Bytheway (16:31): Yeah.

Kerry Muhlestein (16:32): Let me be the one to say this about me, but really it’s from God and it’s true. It is. Right? But that’s just gotta be a little bit awkward as well. And especially, he has to take Oliver aside and convince him of this before he presents the revelation to everyone. And in a lot of ways, he is doing exactly what he will later receive revelation to do. Which is take thy brother aside and between he and the alone work this out. Right? Don’t do this in public. So he works with Oliver, and he gets Oliver to work with Hiram so that by the time they will read this revelation, which we understand was received just days before the conference. So by the time they get to the conference, Oliver and Hiram are okay with this revelation. Again, it’s just a fantastic example of Joseph doing things under correct principles. He could have easily just gone to the conference, read this revelation and how horrible that would’ve been for Hiram and Oliver to–but when they’re prepared and ready to support him ahead of time, then it’s a great unifying experience.

Hank Smith (17:37): Wow. That just tells you about the inspiration of the prophet, but also tells you about his character, that he wasn’t out to, to make people feel foolish publicly or-he just wanted to do thing right. I think.

John Bytheway (17:50): And that advice is in the revelation. Go alone in verse 11. Again, thou shalt take thy brother, Hiram Page between him and the alone. And I, you know, that’s like the Lord dismissing the group. The woman taken in adultery in John chapter eight, dismissing the group, and then he talks to her one-on-one and has such respect, for someone even in that position. I like that. Okay, we’ve mentioned some of these verses. We’ve jumped into it. Kerry, do you have any specific ones you want to highlight and look at in section 28 and talk about?

Kerry Muhlestein (18:28): Yeah, I mean, I think that the key is given is, we’ve already mentioned verse two, but let’s make sure we read the second part. Let’s make sure we get that first part. No one shall be appointed to receive commandments and revelations in this church, excepting my servant Joseph Smith, Jr. That’s a principle that is still true today. Right? The only one who can give direction for the entire church. The only one who can receive revelation for the entire church is the presiding high priest or president of the church. And that’s just how it is. Now, typically in our day, he’s going to do that in conjunction with the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve, right. But it has to come from there down. And so verse two is, in some ways, one of the most important verses for church organization in all of scripture.

(19:11): This is the way it works, right? Now, verse four, if thou art led any time, at any time by the comforter to speak or teach, or at all times by way of commandment of the church, thou mayest do it, but thou shall not write by way of commandment, but by wisdom. Right? So the idea is, as you receive inspiration, go do it. You’re inspired to preach, preach repentance, go do it. You’re inspired to do this, go do it. But don’t say you’re doing it by way of commandment to the entire church. You don’t have the rights or the prerogative to do that. There’s only one person that can do that. And that’s still in, you know, applicable to us today. If you’re inspired to say something to someone–do it. Right? Don’t pretend though that you have stewardship over them unless you really do.Right?

Hank Smith (19:54): Right. I like that. I like how you translate the verse into a way I can understand, and the Lord is saying it, but by wisdom, I think he’s saying. Yeah. Yeah. You can definitely give advice to other people. You can speak, right. I’m a gospel doctrine teacher in my ward right now. I can speak and teach, and I hope I’m speaking and teaching by the spirit, by the comforter. But I would never say this is revelation for the people in my class. God told me to tell you this.

Kerry Muhlestein (20:20): That’s right.

Hank Smith (20:20): The Lord is saying, Ooh, temper that a little bit. Just, let’s just, let’s help each other. Let’s teach eachother.

Kerry Muhlestein (20:26): But your bishop could do that. Right?

Hank Smith (20:27): Right.

Kerry Muhlestein (20:28): So that’s, and that’s the, that’s the thing we need to understand. So in verse nine, this is interesting because this is where he is saying, so Hiram Page, part of his revelations were about where Zion was going to be established. Now, that’s interesting. ’cause we haven’t had a lot of talking about Zion up to this point, although it is possible. We don’t know. It seems like it might be just after this, but it is possible that, , some of the revelations that have to do with Enoch are being received. It seems like that’s coming after that. But it, it could come right before, and, and in one way or another, either this just precedes it, or it is just preceded by. But this, this idea we were talking about earlier, that, , the we’re getting step by step god’s just given him a little bit more and a little bit more, somehow this idea is interacting with what they’re gonna learn about Zion by learning about Enoch, right?

Hank Smith (21:19): Yeah. The Lord has dropped little hints along the way, the cause of Zion. I have seen his weeping for Zion and going, what’s Zion? And now we’re gonna hear,

Kerry Muhlestein (21:28): Yeah.

Hank Smith (21:28): We’re gonna cement it a little bit more.

Kerry Muhlestein (21:29): And it’s mentioned a little in the Book of Mormon, but not a ton, right? So…

Hank Smith (21:32): Right.

Kerry Muhlestein (21:33): But that’s what Hiram has been, receiving revelation for, but it’s false revelation, right? So God’s letting him know, well, you don’t know where the city of Zion is. I know, and I’ll tell you at some point, but I’m not telling Hiram I’m gonna tell Joseph. Right? And that’s, that’s kind of the key to this whole thing. And so in the meantime, he’s saying, don’t go off building Zion anywhere that anyone is telling you until I tell Joseph where it’s gonna be. And that’s really what the next couple verses are until we get to verse 12. So I don’t know if one of you would like to talk a little bit about verse 12 then, or…

Hank Smith (22:09): Well, yeah. I wanna come back just to verse six, where he says, thou shalt not command him, who is at thy head and at the head of the church. It’s interesting to me that Joseph maybe to some people seems like someone you can overstep a little bit, right? Just kind of someone, yeah. Yeah, Joseph, I’m gonna do that, and then I’m gonna take over from here. And the Lord’s, everybody back up. He’s still, the one I’m talking to. And this would be, like you said, Kerry, a really awkward place to be, but it’s an important place to be. To say we can’t have more than one person receiving revelation for the church, because then we’re gonna be serving two masters, right? We’re gonna be trying to go east and west at the same time. So the Lord is saying, listen, this is a, not so much a, he’s more important, but he’s the one I’ve chosen. This is how we’re gonna do this. And that’s the same thing with my bishop, my stake president, right? I might…

Kerry Muhlestein (23:07): Mission president.

(23:07): They might not, right? They might not have the personality where I can, you know, I can go get running ahead. But the Lord’s saying, easy, easy. Don’t do that. Don’t do that. Don’t command him that is at thy head.

(23:18): Yep. He’ll later say this by saying, my house is a house of order. Right? It’s the same idea. We can’t just get too confused here.

Hank Smith (23:26): Yeah. So maybe our little baby church has stumbled a little bit, but that’s okay. All children stumble all, you know, I never got mad at my toddlers for stumbling. I was like, how dare you in this house we walk, right? They are, they’re learning. They’re learning as they go.

Kerry Muhlestein (23:41): And I do think that this was part of the process of learning about revelation and that revelation was the first important principle, and then stewardship and order was the second important principle. And it was taught that way. And teaching it that way, you’re gonna have to stumble. So verse 12, for behold, these things have not been appointed unto him. Neither shall anything be appointed unto him. And this is Hiram Page, who in the verse before it says, Satan has deceived Hiram. So not gonna be appointed unto Hiram. Neither shall anything be appointed unto Hiram, unto or unto any of this church, contrary to the church covenants. And I do think, while we’ve been talking about covenants a lot, I think this is specifically referring back to section 20, which is the Articles of Covenants of the church. This organization.

(24:23): So this is another crucial step of organizing the church. And this is something we’re just gonna have to keep our eye on throughout this year of studying church history. That the Lord organizes it just a little bit at a time, right? So to begin with, it’s a first and second elder. It will eventually become a First Presidency and then a First Presidency and Quorum of the 12. But it’s not all of that all at once. He’s given him, we could quote Isaiah line upon line precept upon precept. He’s just given him a little bit. And as they’re ready for the next step, then the next step and the next step. And so this is one of those next steps in understanding church organization that started with Section 20.

Hank Smith (25:04): Ooh, I like that a lot. All things must be done in order and by common consent in the church. That’s this idea that everybody takes part, right? That everybody gets a, I wanna say a vote, but everybody has a voice, right?

Kerry Muhlestein (25:19): Well, and it is in a way, it is a vote, but not the way we think of voting, right? And we, we had this actually in section 20. It says the same thing that when someone is appointed to do something, then it’s by consent of the whole church, right? And that’s exactly why. So we actually read that in my Come Follow Me family scripture study with my family this morning. And I told them, you remember on Sunday when we sustain so and so, this is why we do it. It’s by Revelation. And it’s there in section 20, and it’s here in section 28. It is by revelation that when someone is appointed to something, we all get the chance to say, we sustain that, or we don’t sustain it. If we don’t sustain it, then we can go talk about why.

(26:02): But in the end, it comes down to the person who’s in charge. So it goes back to that stewardship thing, right? So this is that same tension we were talking about. We all get personal revelation, but there’s someone who receives revelation for the whole church. That person can put someone forward and say, we’d like to sustain this person to do this. We all get to say whether we support it or not. That doesn’t mean we’re making that determination, but we get to be part of this. And it gives us the opportunity. If we think there is something that presiding authority should know, then we can go tell them, right? Which is what happens even in General Conference where they say, if there was as a dissenting vote, please talk to your stake president. The stake president can bring it to the general authorities, and so on and so on, right? So that everything is done in order.

John Bytheway (26:44): The name of the church itself is instructive. It’s the Church of Jesus Christ. And then there’s another of, there’s two ofs–of Latter Day Saints. It’s His, and it’s ours in a way. We have a participation in it. And there’s a hierarchy in it too. It’s the Church of Jesus Christ, but it’s, we don’t vote in people or vote people out. It’s not that kind of thing, as you’ve just talked about. But I’ve always loved the double of, in the title of the church. It’s ours too, by common consent.

Hank Smith (27:15): I like that a lot. John. Yeah. What was Hiram Page’s reaction to Joseph? Oliver seems like, humbled himself and said, okay, I’ll follow you, Joseph.

Kerry Muhlestein (27:26):

And then Oliver went and, and convinced Hiram. And Hiram also said, then, okay, I’m okay with this. And they agreed that they would get rid of the stone. We actually have two different accounts of what happened to the stone he was using. So we don’t know, which is correct. One says that they ground it up into powder and got rid of it. But then another guy later says, oh, yeah, well, we had that stone for years. We just got rid of it later on. And so, who knows exactly what happened? But it is clear that they all said, okay. Oliver convinced Hiram. Then when the two of them were on board, then everyone else was easier to get on board, and that he would forsake this stone and that it was of the devil. And that brings up another important point.

(28:07): Joseph had a seer stone, right? And the Urim and Thummin are seer stones. So again, this is just kind of natural for people to think, well, he has one. You know, should I, I could have one. And so on. Joseph was not opposed to the idea of people having seer stones. He thought that was great. In fact, he was trying to tell Parley P. Pratt where he could go find one. And he described it for him. I think it was some tree in Buffalo, if I remember right. And Parley never went and got it. So maybe we should get a field trip and go find one.

Hank Smith (28:32): We should go look. I go to Buffalo a lot. I’ll have to go.

John Bytheway (28:35): But– so he wasn’t opposed to this idea. And really in the end, a seer stone is an object that helps us with inspiration, right? Helps us receive inspiration. In their day and their culture. That’s how they’re expecting to find it. In our day–so for us, we think of a seer stone as, listen to the Tabernacle Choir and go to the celestial room, right? It’s the thing that helps us focus and be open to inspiration. I think when the Lord says he speaks to us according to our language and culture, that that means not just whether it’s English or Portuguese, but it’s also, this is how you expect me to speak to you. Someone else expects it in a different way. Maybe they’re expecting a dream. So it can be dreams. And I’m expecting it when I’m in the temple.

(29:15): So it comes to the temple. He’ll work with us where we are. For them, seer stones was part of that, but it was easy to be deceived. And he was deceived, and fortunately he took–Hiram Page should be a role model for us. I would guess at some point we’re all deceived on something. I’d be shocked if that doesn’t happen. Hiram Page accepted correction. And this was probably pretty tough. He’d been public about this. He had things written down. A lot of people are following him. This is kind of prestigious for him. It’s kind of exciting. And then he gets some correction and says, actually, you’re, you were deceiving. You were believing stuff from Satan. Right? That’s gotta be a little bit humiliating. And I know I’d have a hard time if, you know, if the prophet said that to me, well, you know, that was a nice book, but it was actually from Satan.

(29:59): Thanks for writing it though. And so that would be, that would be tough, but Hiram Page accepts it. And he says, let’s get rid of the stone. I will try and do things the way that you’re teaching me to. And he’s unfortunately, the, the sad ending of the story is that eventually the whole Whitmer family has some problems and leaves the church. And as part of the Whitmer family, he leaves as well. And that’s a sad thing. But he never, ever, ever denied his testimony as one of the eight witnesses. Neither did any of the other Whitmers. And so, while he, while he left the church, he didn’t really ever leave his testimony. And that’s a comforting thing.

Hank Smith (30:38): Oh, I really like that, that idea of I will be humble and I will take correction. I love that he should be an example for us. But we need to make sure that the person giving us that correction is the right person right. To offer that correction. Because, you know, I can’t go over to John, pull him aside and say, I’m gonna give you some correction. I’ve tried a couple of times.

John Bytheway (31:00): Just last week he did that.

Kerry Muhlestein (31:01): He told me that.

Hank Smith (31:01): Yeah. But, you know, I can see people taking that idea of I am at the head so I can start doling out correction where Joseph wasn’t that way. I don’t get the feeling that Joseph was here, let me correct everyone in everything. So I like the, we’re kind of, we’re walking a, a beautiful tension, like you said, Kerry.

Kerry Muhlestein (31:24): And, I love the way the Lord ends it on a positive note as well in this revelation. Right? So, we get verse 14: Thou shalt assist to settle all these things, according to the covenants of the church. So this goes back to this idea, help help the church do things the right way. Right? And that’s before thou shalt take that journey among the Lamanates. This is the, this precursor to this really important journey that’s gonna end up. Yes it takes the gospel to the Lamanites, which is part of what’s the promise in the covenant, and especially the covenant made to the Nephites, but it’s also gonna end up in the starting of Kirtland, right? So, but I love verse 15 and 16, and it shall be given thee from the time thou shalt go, until time that thou shall return.

(32:04): And what thou shalt do. So he’s saying, sometimes I’m gonna tell you to go out and do things, and then I’m gonna tell you when to come back. You’re gonna be given callings, you’re gonna be given assignments, you’re gonna be given missions, and, and so on. Verse 16. And thou must open thy mouth at all times, declaring my gospel with the sound of rejoicing. Amen. Right. That’s the positive encouragement. Yeah. Hiram, you got deceived here. Oliver, you got deceived here. But you know what? I’ve still got some good things for you to do. And if you’re willing to follow, you are still gonna receive revelation. It just won’t be for the whole church. But you are gonna receive revelation from me. I’m still gonna talk to you. You follow that revelation and great things will happen, and you’ll teach my gospel and you’ll do it with rejoicing. That’s a great message.

Hank Smith (32:49): Yeah. It’s a very positive idea. Right? And I keep, we come back to this idea of a little church, but I think of when I was a, a young dad and trying to give those little kids some encouragement, right? Yeah. Yes. Do some correcting, but not, don’t, don’t, what did you use the–don’t quash their excitement.

Kerry Muhlestein (33:07): Yeah.

Hank Smith (33:07): Right. For what they’re doing. ’cause this seems to me to be the result of maybe some excitement of this unfolding of a revelation. John, anything else?

(33:15): Yeah. And that’s, that has to keep going.

(33:16): Yeah. We don’t wanna stop that. I don’t want to–this is a good, this has really actually has been a good parenting lesson for me to be careful in my correction. Right? I think I remember President Faust saying, your correction may be worse than the behavior you’re trying to correct.

Kerry Muhlestein (33:36): Yeah. I’ve been guilty of that any number of times.

John Bytheway (33:40): I just think, this is a great point that, right now, not only are we getting an emphasis from President Nelson about, letting God prevail and being Covenant Israel, and gathering Israel this great work of Covenant Israel, but also of how do you hear him? And everyone can learn to hear him and receive personal revelation. And I like that you brought that up, Kerry that this was great. Don’t want to quash that, but things are done in wisdom and order, and who has the keys and who has the stewardship, that had to be figured out. And it was, sounds like it was figured out fairly early in this–what’d you call it, Hank a toddler church.

Hank Smith (34:24): Yeah. I like that and I like this, that the Lord is still every section he seems, Kerry, you were exactly right. He says, okay, let me answer this question. Oh, by the way, we’re gonna go on a little trip to the borders of the Lamanites. Let me drop that at you a little bit. We’ll talk about that later. Everyone’s gotta be thinking, wait, what? Huh? What we’re, we’re, we’re going somewhere. Yeah. That’s fantastic stuff.

Kerry Muhlestein (34:44): I mean, so we’ve talked about President Nelson with the Covenant and President Nelson, with Hear Him. I mean, don’t you just have such a feeling of gratitude that we have a prophet like Joseph Smith or like Moses that is receiving revelation, and that’s revelation for the entire church. And wow, during this last you, I mean, well, during Covid, but the period leading up to Covid and so on. I just keep getting overwhelmed again and again with how inspired President Nelson is in giving us exactly what the Lord would have us have and exactly what we need. I’m so grateful for that.

Hank Smith (35:20): Yeah. When he said, the next conference we attend, this was a while ago. The next conference we attend, will be unlike any you have ever attended. I’m going, wow. Are we gonna have a new video? Right? And it was…

Kerry Muhlestein (35:33): And we did.

Hank Smith (35:33): Yeah. We did have a new video and Wow. Was different than any other conference we have ever attended. It’s just, yeah. Wow. You’re right. Exactly right. Kerry. How blessed. How blessed we are. I feel like, you know, Brigham Young saying, every time I think I knew the prophet Joseph, I wanna shout Hallelujah. Right. And I think that same thing about President Nelson.

Kerry Muhlestein (35:56): Yep. And in the end, that’s really the message of section 28. Be grateful you have that prophet.

John Bytheway (36:02): And that maybe, is that the, what’s the, the very last word? Well, the last word in section 28 is Amen. But the one before that is rejoicing. And as we were looking at that, I thought about, you know, say nothing but repentance. Well, that’s a joyful message. That’s a fresh view about God, about oneself. And here the gospel ought to be a sound of rejoicing. I like, that’s good, good way to tie things up.

Hank Smith (36:26): You know, oftentimes when we, when we have conflict like this, we either avoid the conversation altogether because we don’t like the awkwardness of the conversation, or we come at it too hard and we create a negative. We think we basically have two choices, right? Either I can continue to have a good relationship with this person, or I can ruin the relationship by telling them the truth. And I think Section 28 is an example of, you can both be open and build the relationship. It’s a little bit more difficult to do. I think it’s called, have those crucial conversations. I don’t know if you’ve ever read that book. But it seems the Lord is saying, it’s–you can have conflict, you can resolve it and be better off. And everybody’s rejoicing, everybody’s, everybody’s happy. To me, that’s a, I don’t know about you two, but I sometimes avoid difficult conversations. Because it just seems like, oh, I don’t wanna upset the, I don’t wanna upset ’em. Where the Lord’s saying, no, it’s okay. It’s okay. Go take him between you two and go have this talk. It’s okay. It’s gonna work. Trust me. It’s okay for us to talk about you here for a second, I think.

Kerry Muhlestein (37:38): Are, are you gonna swear or what?

Hank Smith (37:41): You’re one of the most brilliant minds in the church. You’ve spent, I don’t know how old you are, Kerry, you look like you’re 25. But, you’ve spent decades studying and teaching from the scriptures. Can you walk us through the life of Kerry Muhlstein, Dr. Kerry Muhlstein, the Egyptologist, and tell us what the restoration has done for you? And what it means to you personally in the life of the prophet Joseph Smith? And tell us a little, maybe a little bit about your life as a scholar and a and a believing Latter-day Saint.

Kerry Muhlestein (38:16): I did not want to be a teacher because I felt like they didn’t get paid well, which turns out to be true. But, I felt led to, first of all, to be a teacher. I wanted to be a seminary teacher to begin with. And then I can remember sitting in a class one day in the same building that I’m sitting in now–the Joseph Smith building at BYU. And we had a guest teacher who had, just, was just finishing a degree from the University of Harvard. And, I mean, not Harvard, Chicago in biblical studies. And they were kind of interested in hiring her. So she came and taught our class. And when I saw what she could do with the scriptures because of the training she’d received, I realized I don’t wanna spend the rest of my life wishing I could be better at what I do, but not having paid the price.

(39:06): And so I decided, and, and I’m not saying that that’s what everyone should do. I think that was a direct prompting for me that I needed to pay a price to learn about these things in a, in a different way, right? We each have our own role that we play, and it became clear to me that was the role that I needed to play. And so I started studying. That’s, that’s why, you know, when you introduced me, I was already a psychology major, but I started studying Hebrew. That’s how I got the Hebrew minor, because I started studying the ancient world, and I just got hooked. And I also realized that as much as I enjoyed teaching, I enjoyed researching. I liked both, and I liked writing. In fact, my original, I was a communications major as a freshman.

(39:47): My original desire was to be a writer and maybe a newspaper writer or maybe fiction, kind of both and so on. I liked writing so when I found that I could research and teach and write about things that I cared about more than newspaper articles or fiction, then I realized that there was only one job that I could do all of those really well. And so I set my sights on teaching at one of the BYU’s, and I had some experiences that I won’t get into that kind of led me to Egyptology and led me specifically to UCLA, where I had some fantastic advisors. And one of them loved to talk about the church. He was one of the top Egyptologists in the history of Egyptology, just fantastic.

(40:39): He left UCLA to direct an Egyptological program in Switzerland. And then was made the president of that university, and then the president of a consortium of universities. I mean, just a really intelligent guy, but he loved to talk about the church and about the Book of Abraham and so on. And in fact, later, so he went to the University of Basel, which also has a great theology department, and he used to go to their theology debates to represent the Mormon point of view. So I was blessed to have a fantastic couple of teachers that that taught me. My first job was at BYU Hawaii, teaching in both the religion and the history department, which allowed me to kind of do both elements of what I love. And I would say just things keep getting dropped in my lap.

(41:23): I did not intend to direct an excavation. That got dropped in my lap. In fact, I told, when it was offered to me, I said no, and then I made the mistake of praying about it. That’s got me any number of times. I have to say that there is a thrill. So I’ll say this, I, as you said in, in the little bio I taught history at UCLA, I taught history at Cal Poly Pomona, and that was specifically–so it was Egyptian history at UCLA. It was a history of the ancient Near East and the Iron Age at Cal Poly Pomona. So that’s the age that we get the biblical stories in. I loved those experiences, but as I did it, I found myself constantly frustrated that at the state schools, I couldn’t talk about the things that meant the most to me.

(42:13): And I would have students, right? We’re talking about Assyria or Babylon doing things with Israel, and students would ask me, it was clear some of those students were Christian and they wanted to, they were asking questions about that, and I could not answer them the way I would’ve liked to have answered them. And it is so thrilling to be at a place where I can say what I think, where I can say what I believe, and conversations like what we’ve had today are what we, and we have these same kind of conversations with students. That’s just exciting, right? Literally, 10 minutes before I was on with you guys, I was teaching the plagues and the Exodus story with my Old Testament students, and I bring it in, you know, Egyptian religion and Israelites symbolism and some Hebrew and all of it to try and make sense of this picture.

(43:00): And it is just so fun to have a wide arsenal to use, to say let’s see what we can make sense of. But in the end, the lesson we’re taking away from this is God can deliver you. And if that was the only thing I was able to teach, I would’ve been happy with that. I was glad to teach Egyptian religion and about Ma’at and Isfet and so on, but it’s great to be able to have the more important thing at the end, which is to say God will deliver you. In fact, I taught what I, the part of that lesson about the Egyptian symbolism was a paper that I wrote as a graduate student that I won an award for then, but I couldn’t put that ending in. And it’s so,so thrilling to be able to, put that ending in and to have comfort when things are tough.

(43:50): So this is the great thing about doing things because you feel like the Lord has asked you to do them. I won’t get into a long, detailed story, but there was one time, as I said, I’m only involved in this excavation. I love it. I love everything about it. You know, I publish on this, it is just fantastic. But, I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t felt inspired to do it. So there was a time where some things went fairly wrong. Some, some crazy things happened. It was some false reports in the media that caused some crazy things to happen. And I had a couple, a couple of weeks that were really felt kind of dark because it seemed like I had, not through something I’d done wrong, but just the way things had happened that I was causing some problems for the university and all sorts of things.

(44:34): And I didn’t like that. But the thing that got me through was that I could, each night as I was going to bed, and as I was thinking about this, I could say, well, I am doing this because I felt inspired to do it. I’ve only ever been trying to follow inspiration and do my best. I’m sure I’ve made mistakes, but I trust that when I’m doing my best to follow inspiration, that the Lord has a plan and he’ll take care of it. So right now, I can’t see how this particular thing’s gonna work out, but I know it will, because I’m just trying to do the Lord’s will. And sure enough, it worked out. And there are all sorts of times where something happens. You’re like, oh, man, what a mess. What am I gonna do about that? And each time you can say, huh well, I’m doing my best, so I’ll just leave the rest up to the Lord. And He always comes through. And that’s a thrilling, well, again, to go back to the covenant, that’s a blessing I can count on because I’ve made, and I’m doing my best to keep covenants. And I’m part of that Abrahamic covenant. I can count on that. The Lord has my back. And that’s a, that’s a good way to get good rest when you know that the Lord has your back.

Hank Smith (45:38): Thank you, Kerry, for being here and thank you, John, of course, for being here again. Like I said, you’re my favorite co-host I’ve ever had. And I hope you take that the way it’s meant to be taken. We’re grateful for you, our listeners, for your support. Thank you so much to our producers, Steve and Shannon Sorenson, thank you to our production crew, David Perry and Jamie Nielsen and Lisa Spice, and we hope we’ll see you on our next episode of Follow Him.