John Bytheway:               00:00                   Part two coming up with Dr. Eva Witesman.

Hank Smith:                      00:05                   Eva, I want to ask you a follow up question to what you just said because I think it is crucial rather than just assuming that young women are fine. As a young woman, you’re seeing all these boys who you grew up with and you’re having this internal conflict, probably not sharing it with everyone around you. What would you say to a young women’s leader, young men’s leader, bishop, anyone? How can we help? I wouldn’t say ignore it. What did Sister Eubank say about the temple question? That’s a fair question. That’s a fair question for a young woman to be asking.

Eva Witesman:                 00:41                   Yeah. The advice that I would give goes back to the idea of holding meetings and activities versus counseling together. One of the roles that our youth leadership can fill is really as counseling together. Not to just teach them how to run an activity so that later they’re good at running ward activities, not just to lead a meeting, so later they’re good at leading meetings, but rather invite them into council. We’re instructed that in those councils what we’re supposed to be talking about is the wellbeing of the people within our stewardship. We can actually talk about each person or we can talk about even the generation or the group, the cohort, say, how are people? What are the questions that they have? Rather than trying to efficiently get through those conversations, feel like we’ve done a good job of sort of modeling a meeting, counseling with the young people because they know if they don’t themselves have the questions, they know people who do.

                                           01:41                   They can help provide information and clarity from their perspective to the leaders, whether that’s young women’s presidencies or bishops, to help them counsel with and guide and create experiences that make it safe for people to talk about their questions so that they can work through it together. I would say that the answers continuously come back to both ministering and counseling together. I think those are really where we want to focus. The measure of a young women’s or young men’s program is not how fun the activity was. It’s the extent to which we are creating ministering relationships where people can trust one another as they guide one another on this path that Jesus Christ has laid out for us.

Hank Smith:                      02:32                   Yeah, because here’s this young woman hurting. We’re about strengthening the feeble knees. Would it have been helpful if someone would have helped you as a young woman understand that partaking of the sacrament? Would that have been helpful, or do you think that would’ve been more of a side step to say it’s not about who’s blessing or passing, it’s actually the Lord is mostly concerned with those who are taking  the sacrament. Would that have been helpful or more of a you’re just trying to sidestep the issue?

Eva Witesman:                 03:07                   I got there eventually, but it was decades later as I was praying, trying to understand my role in the priesthood, and it actually came through the experience of having callings, the miraculous access to priesthood power that I had. There was one time I was serving in a stake primary presidency. I was in my early twenties, mid-twenties probably. It was my turn to give a message to a primary that we were visiting. I’d never been in that ward before. We were there sitting up front symbolically and then kind of at the end, it was my turn to deliver a five minute message. The Lord had invited me. The story makes so much more sense, if you understand, I am terrible at remembering names like bad, like really bad. Mnemonics don’t help. Like nothing helps me. That’s important background information.

Hank Smith:                      04:01                   Well, this is John and I’m Hank.

Eva Witesman:                 04:03                   Yeah, thank you. It’s nice to meet you both.  I stood up and the Lord told me that what he needed me to do in this message was to call out each of the children in this room, in this primary by name. I did not have a roll in front of me. The only thing I had was that we had sat through music time. The music leader at some point in the course of leading music time had named each of the children in the room. I want to say there were probably about 15 to 20 of them.

John Bytheway:               04:36                   Oh, oh.

Eva Witesman:                 04:38                   I stand up and I said, the Lord knows each of you. He knows you by name. He knows you by name. And then I started naming each of the children. I named every single one of them until there was a girl right in the middle of the primary, and in that moment I couldn’t remember her name. I was like, oh, no. Can you imagine being the one person when the message is the Lord knows you by name? I skipped over her, named all the other children, and then her name came to me and I went back to her named her by name. I was able to name every single one of those children by name. I am telling you right now, that was a blessing that came with the calling both the instruction that this is what the children needed to hear. I thought about why didn’t I just get all of them perfectly, and then I was like, well, what if they thought I’d just memorized them in order?

                                           05:32                   Now I demonstrated that no, it was actually right that they were known. There’s these miracles that I got to participate in. As I experienced the church, as I experienced the power and authority of the priesthood in my own life, I started to understand, oh, I have access to this too, and that’s where then the power of the covenants and my access through those covenants started to really make sense, and it was about that same time that this was more commonly spoken about in General Conference by many different leaders. It was so empowering at that point, but when I was a 12-year-old, I didn’t have that experience to draw on yet at that point, I wasn’t ready for it. All I needed was for it to be safe for me to have those questions, for it to be okay that I had those questions, to continue on, on the path to have faith.

                                           06:27                   I’m grateful that I had that. I’m grateful that in my family I had the freedom to talk about how I really was, what I was really thinking and feeling and my questions. It allowed me to continue to be curious and to invite that process of revelation, just like we’re seeing in the D&C where it’s like it doesn’t come all at once. You don’t get it all at once, and I would say now, as a leader of the rising generation, I work mostly with students at BYU between the ages of say, 18 and 25. One of the saddest parables in all of scripture is the story of the 10 virgins because I relate to it so deeply that I have this light in this lamp. All I want is to share that oil so that others can have it too. I want to give them my oil.

                                           07:16                   I want to say I had the same questions. I had the same struggles, I had the same pain. Look at my light now. Look, I know it’s true. It’s real. It’s tangible. God loves you. That is always the answer. God loves you, but I can’t give them all of those experiences. They have to go to them that sell and get it for themselves. I was really grateful when President Johnson talked about how you may not be able to give them your oil, but you can share your light. That’s what I try to do, but it’s been a journey. It hasn’t always been easy. I’m grateful for the gift of faith that has allowed me to struggle and wrestle with these questions, but also to experience the revelation and the power as it comes. I wish that for everyone who has questions, whatever those questions are, they may not be the same ones I had, but I hope that people can stay on the path, trust long enough that they receive that revelation for themselves.

Hank Smith:                      08:17                   Hmm, thanks.

Eva Witesman:                 08:19                   The other piece is that we’re not going to be able to create any job that’s a parallel to the priesthood of God. I want us to recognize and honor the gift that that is for men. One of the beautiful things that President Nelson has done that just was so touching is he talks about his holy envy of motherhood. He’s done it in a couple of different venues where he talks about, I became a surgeon because I couldn’t become a mother, but he’s not just talking about people who’ve had children in this life. He’s talking about the eternal role and destiny of God’s daughters, and he specifically says that switching the narrative that way was one of the more helpful moments for me because it was like, I’m not going to try to make it okay that this is different. I’m going to honor the difference, the beauty of the difference.

                                           09:14                   We’ve got to lean into that in a way that doesn’t diminish it. Now, my adult self is thrilled about that. In fact, my 8-year-old son was having trouble wanting to go to church. He’s like, why would I? It’s so boring. Like I don’t want to be there. It’s not fun. I don’t like to sing. Sacrament meeting in particular, not awesome. We talk about the sacrament and the beauty of it, but at one point I said, son, I want you to go to church and I want you to look at the men and I want you to look at what they’re being taught and what kind of men they’re being taught to be. Then I want you to look at what the other messages of the world are teaching men about who they are and what they should be. This is why I want you coming to church.

                                           10:00                   I want you accessing the sacrament, but I also want you to see what the priesthood of God is transforming these men into when the rest of the world is teaching them to take and exploit. We are teaching them to give and to serve. I am no longer sad about the role of men in the priesthood. They aren’t the priesthood. I have access to priesthood authority and power, but it is transformative in a way that remedies the brokenness of the world’s masculine systems. I’m grateful for it, and it wouldn’t be the same in our systems now, the way that the worldly systems are built. The priesthood would not have that same effect if it were for both men and women. It is a corrective, in my view. It is a corrective to these other worldly ways. I’m grateful for it.

John Bytheway:               11:00                   Beautiful. Thank you so much for saying that. If our young men are not learning what it means to be a man from their church leaders, where are they going to go? The options are terrible.

Eva Witesman:                 11:15                   Let’s move forward into verse seven. Doctrinally, we’re still talking about forgiveness and sin, but there’s a new idea here that I think is really important. Now, verily, I say unto you, I the Lord will not lay any sin to your charge. Go your ways and sin no more. There’s that reference to the woman taken in adultery, but unto that soul who sinneth shall the former sins return saith the Lord your God. Well now not only are we invited to forgive others in order to receive our own forgiveness, but now not only do we need to remain pure, but if we now sin, all of the mistakes that have been forgiven are sort of laid back to our charge, which invites constant repentance. Is there any question about why we need the sacrament every week where we have this ability to receive that forgiveness, to engage in repentance where we re-baptize? There are only a few places where we get that sort of cleansing. We have baptism, we have the temple and we have the sacrament, but this idea that by remaining pure we’re also keeping all of our prior sins at bay is a new concept.

John Bytheway:               12:35                   Yeah. I love what you said, Eva, about inviting constant repentance. That is the way you should take this because I think Satan wants people to take this verse and beat themselves up with it. I can repent, but I know I’m going to make a mistake somewhere. This is hopeless because then everything comes back. I’m a hopeless case. Taking it that way is inviting constant repentance. The consistency of the sacrament table’s going to be there every week for all of us and in fact, Hank, I wrote down Mosiah 26:30 next to there. Yea as often as my people repent, will I forgive them their trespasses against me. We see in the Doctrine and Covenants this sort of thing over and over again, these folks are doing the best they can and they have to be forgiven practically every section something else happens. I love that the sacrament table is not on wheels that we wheel out for Easter and Christmas, but that it’s bolted to the floor. Every week. You’re all going to need this. Come back again. You’re invited to come back again to the Lord’s table. Let’s use this verse just to say, this invites constant repentance. What a blessing that that repentance is available.

Hank Smith:                      13:50                   This verse has been misused. I will try to keep my emotions in check here, but when you try to shame a youth into obedience by telling them that if you sin again, it’s like you never repented. It’s like you never did any of that work. You will lay a foundation of discouragement that they might never recover from if they believe that that is true. John, as you just said, that is not true. Eva, you talked about how a lot of these are highlighting little footnotes to some of Jesus’s parables. This is another one, the Lord says, but unto that soul who sinneth shall the former sins return, it’s like you said, inviting constant repentance. It’s a parable that not a lot of people understand. When I teach this at BYU, so many of my students raise their hand and say, can you explain this? I have no idea what it means.

                                           14:45                   The Lord says, and this is Matthew 12:43. There’s an unclean spirit going out of a man and the unclean spirit walks through dry places seeking rest and findeth none. It’s this idea that I’ve kicked this sin out of my life. It’s now wandering around somewhere out there and it doesn’t have anyone to go to. It says, the sin says verse 44, I will return to the house from whence I came out. He comes to it back to me and he finds it empty, swept and garnished. He’s like, look, there’s room for me back into my old house. He enters into that house and takes a bunch of other evil spirits with him. Now, they dwell therein and the state of the man is worse than he was in the beginning. In my mind, I’ll let you two comment on this. When the Lord says this in verse seven, but unto the soul who sins shall the former sins return, he’s saying, Hey, if you don’t fill your life with other things and you return to sins, well you’re going to get a whole bunch back. The parable would be different if the unclean spirit, if the sin goes back to the house and finds it full, it is full of doing so much good. I would love for our youth to say, I don’t have time to sin. I am too exhausted doing good. I’ve got so much good that I’m doing. I’m begging anyone out there who is listening, please do not use this verse as a sledgehammer, especially with youth who live in a world that as adults we do not comprehend.

Eva Witesman:                 16:25                   You have to think about Jesus Christ and his entire role. If us messing up once after we’d repented was it, there’s no way that this plan even makes any sense. It undercuts and diminishes the entire purpose of the Atonement and the beauty and generosity of Christ’s act. Certainly, we want to continuously cleanse ourselves of sin. I mean, you’re sort of either progressing in one direction or you’re progressing in the other direction, so you want to keep walking forward, but sometimes it starts and stops and I love the idea of the parable of the slope. As long as the overall trajectory is headed in the right direction, like sometimes you’re going to make mistakes. We have to remember that Jesus Christ’s role was to make it possible for us to return to God, to coinherit with him. Even though we are not perfect and we’re not going to be perfect, we just have to be penitent. We just have to be repenting. We have to be accessing him. We have to be accessing the Atonement. We have to be seeking to improve ourselves. To take this one verse out of context, to think that it means that you get to repent once and that’s it is false.

Hank Smith:                      17:48                   Eva, as you’ve taught us here, I’m almost rereading this verse to say, go your way sin no more, but unto that soul who stops repenting, sins return, don’t stop repenting. Repentance is a good word. It’s a hopeful word.

Eva Witesman:                 18:05                   It’s a beautiful word.

Hank Smith:                      18:06                   The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Second is improve because of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Keep improving because we don’t want sins to return to us. Eva, thanks for letting us stop there in verse seven, letting John and I  give an emotional plea, but we got to keep going. We have more to do and not a lot of time to do it.

Eva Witesman:                 18:32                   Yeah, so what’s exciting about verse eight is that we get wind that later in this section we’re going to be receiving a new commandment, which is really exciting. Again, I say unto you, I give unto you a new commandment that you may understand my will concerning you, and in verse nine, or in other words, I give unto you directions how you may act before me that it may turn to you for your salvation. I just want to pause and appreciate that definition of commandment. Verse nine is defining what a commandment is. It’s directions about how we may act before God that it may turn to us for salvation. Like what a great definition. I just think that’s really cool.

Hank Smith:                      19:15                   That’s fantastic.

Eva Witesman:                 19:17                   Then verse 10, I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say, but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise. This is another one of those section 82 one-liners that we say all the time, but we don’t necessarily remember when was that provided. We are about to receive not just a commandment, but a covenant, which is verse 10 is now taking the commandment to a covenant because there’s a two-sided promise. There’s our behavior by commandment, but then also the Lord providing that benefit back to us and the benefit is our salvation, the opportunity to inherit in kingdoms. Verse 11, there’s just one thing that I want to talk about here. It basically lists a bunch of people who are all participating in different roles, but what I think is so interesting is the order in which they’re listed. Therefore, verily, I say to you that it is expedient for my servants, Edward Partridge and Newel K. Whitney, Sidney Gilbert and Sidney Rigdon, and my servant Joseph Smith and John Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery and W.W. Phelps and Martin Harris to be bound together.

                                           20:26                   We’re going to talk more about that, but first, like it took me a hot minute looking at this, trying to figure out what on earth order are these men listed? It’s not by order of ordination. We don’t have the prophet first or last. It almost just sort of looks like a hodgepodge of names. There are a couple things I want to draw out here. Number one is this is again, bringing back that idea of eschewing hierarchy and inviting counsel. If this were a hierarchical ordering, it would be ordered hierarchically in order of ordination or office or certainly the prophet would either be listed first or last as places of honor and sort of a listing, and that’s not the case. It’s obviously not alphabetical. If you list out in order these men and what they’re doing at the time, you actually begin with what could be thought of as sort of an ecclesiastical side.

                                           21:25                   You have Edward Partridge, who’s the bishop in Zion. You have Newel K. Whitney, who’s the bishop in Ohio. You have Sidney Gilbert, Sidney Rigdon first counselor in the first presidency, and then you have the prophet and the whole thing sort of folds in on itself around the prophet Joseph Smith. He’s actually at the center of this list. Then you move into John Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery and W.W. Phelps, Martin Harris, where you have some of the more temporal things. You’ve got John Whitmer, who’s a historian and recorder, Oliver Cowdery, who’s in church publishing, W.W. Phelps at the time, a printer and publisher. Of course, we know and love him as an author of some of our favorite hymns, and then Martin Harris, who’s a benefactor. He provides a lot of financial support for the church. What you actually see is this mirror around Joseph Smith where you have the temporal side and you have the spiritual side. The way that we would sort of talk about it today, the ecclesiastical channels and the more temporal channels, yet we’re going to see this pattern play out throughout section 82. It’s not actually two different works. It’s the same work. I thought that was a fun thing to look at, like why is this list in this order? I don’t know that there’s some big capital M meaning to it, but I do think it’s interesting that it’s challenging normal ways that you might list a group of people and order them.

Hank Smith:                      22:55                   I have a friend, Jonathan Oliver, who owns a very big company in Provo. If you go on the website and you look at about us, he’s just there with everybody else in order. I think they’re in alphabetical order. I like that you pointed that out to us. Joseph doesn’t list himself first or list himself last or saying, look, here’s the order which we came into the church, Joseph, Oliver. I never would’ve noticed that had you not pointed that out.

Eva Witesman:                 23:21                   Then they’re invited to be bound together by a bond and covenant that cannot be broken by transgression, except that judgment should immediately follow in their several stewardship. Now, we’re re-invoking what we started with, which is judgment, which is the Lord’s. We need to stay pure. We need to not be broken by transgression, which I think means both, not be broken by our own sin, but also not be broken by the transgression of others, by sinning ourselves, by judging them or questioning them. Transgression can break us because we’re participating in it or because we’re focusing on the transgression of others. They have this opportunity to create this bond and covenant. We’re still eager to find out like, what is the new commandment? What is this new covenant that’s coming? It’s still coming. We’re not there yet. This word stewardship is invoked in verse 11. Stewardship is a beautiful concept.

                                           24:19                   There’s a lot that’s taught by the Savior about stewardship and how to maintain those. We’ll talk more about those as we continue through the scriptures, but I just want to take a moment and just appreciate President Johnson’s teachings on stewardship. She gave a worldwide fireside for young adults where she talked a lot about stewardship and the different kinds of stewardship that we have. She talked about how stewardship is the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care. She also talks about how our role is to understand our stewardships as we prepare for the second coming of Jesus Christ. Caring for our stewardships well is part of how we can recognize our standing before God and connect with him and his work. She connected stewardship with stewardship of our neighbor and of the earth, caring for the environment. She talked about communities, helping them to become more sustainable as communities, caring for people in need, people who are hungry, and she also talks about stewardship in terms of other resources, which is how we generally have interpreted it in the context of these verses of the financial stewardships and real property that the church owned at this time.

                                           25:39                   In verse 12, we’re reminded what we’re doing all of this for to manage the affairs of the poor and all things pertaining to the bishopric, both in the land of Zion and the land of Kirtland. Again, managing the affairs of the poor is a key piece of this. Why do we have all of these goods? Why do we have these full storehouses? It’s to serve others. Verse 13, for I’ve consecrated the land of Kirtland in mine own due time for the benefit of the saints of the most high and for a stake unto Zion and 14, for Zion must increase in beauty and in holiness. Her borders must be enlarged. Her stakes must be strengthened. We’re growing the church. Part of why we’re growing the church is to bring about access to forgiveness, the beauty of these ordinances and of salvation, but also to care for those who are in need, and that’s really as we’re talking about the United Firm and we’re talking about the stuff and the money, the wealth that the church has accumulated at this point and received the purpose of it is really to care for those who are in need.

                                           26:46                   Finally, in verses 17 through 19, we actually receive what the new commandment is that we’ve been promised. We’ve been told that it’s coming. We have all kinds of lead up to why it’s necessary, what the purpose of this is going to be. Finally, in verses 17 through 19, we receive it. The reason we know that this is where the commandment is, is because we get imperative language. It’s kind of like a thou shalt is an imperative. You will do this. Verse 17 says, and you are to, this is now the imperative language that tells us this is a commandment. You are to be equal, or in other words, you are to have equal claims on the properties for the benefit of managing the concerns of your stewardships. Every man according to his wants and needs inasmuch as his wants are just all this for the benefit of the church of the living God, that every man may improve upon his talent, that every man may gain other talents.

                                           27:44                   Yea, even a hundred fold, to be cast into the Lord’s storehouse to become the common property of the whole church. Every man seeking the interest of his neighbor and doing all things with an eye single to the glory of God. So it’s kind of a lot, but if you’re going to shorten it down to like a thou shalt, it’s essentially thou shalt have equal claim on this property, and then there’s an expansion of what that means. What are you using it for? You’re making sure that everyone’s basic temporal needs are cared for, and you are going to use this to bless the lives of as many people as you can, everyone who’s in the church, and that in doing that, as you are putting things into the storehouse, it’s actually going to be multiplied. Every man may improve upon his talent. Talent here has a double meaning like it does when Jesus Christ gives the parable of the talents.

                                           28:41                   Even the early Christians would interpret this in two different ways. The talent is either a unit of money, which is actually like a lot of money, decades of wages, a lot of money, or it can mean spiritual gifts. There’s a very intentional reference to that parable of the talents here, but there’s also this other little reference in here where it talks about even a hundred fold. Nobody in the parable of the talents gets a hundred fold return on their investment. At most, they’re doubling their investment, but here we’re promised a hundred fold increase. There’s a fun little rabbit hole that you can go down. If you look at all the times that a hundred fold increase shows up in the scriptures you’ll see that the pattern is that it’s referring to essentially an eternal reward or an eternal increase. It’s unlimited. It’s essentially infinite.

John Bytheway:               29:41                   Interesting.

Eva Witesman:                 29:42                   It’s like the parable of the talents, but with a twist. One of the fun ironies is that the parable of the talents itself comes with a twist. The parable of the talents or a similar parable anyway, is told twice in the scriptures. In the King James version, I think they use the word pounds. In others, it’s minas, I think, and then the parable of the talents. They’re similar but slightly different stories. Here’s where that twist is. In general, we feel like we have a pretty good sense of what’s going on in these stories. You have stewards who are given by the person who actually owns the wealth, some amount of money. The amount in Luke 19 is much smaller. It’s about three months wages, whereas the talents in Matthew 25 are about 20 years worth of wages, but in both cases, you’ve got multiple servants who are stewards of this temporal investment in Matthew 25, the parable of the talents.

                                           30:41                   You have one servant that’s given five, one that’s given two and one that’s given one. The two servants with five and two go and invest the money and they double their investment and return that back to the Lord whose money it is. In the Luke 19 version where we’re talking about pounds, there are actually 10 servants who get one pound each. Everybody gets the same amount, but there are only three outcomes that are described. One gets a tenfold increase, a really amazing return. Then you have another like in the prior story that doesn’t get quite as good a return, but still they invested. They risked and they got a return. Then there’s one servant who basically buried their pound, basically just returned what was given to them originally. Here’s where the twist comes in. There was a political situation at the time where Herod the Great had a son named Archelaus.

                                           31:38                   Archelaus traveled to Rome because he wanted to receive the title of King after his father Herod had died. There was a delegation of Jews that opposed him and they appealed to Caesar and said don’t make him our king. We do not want this guy to be our king. They essentially came up with like a different title for him. He ended up not being the king. This is happening in the ether. This is in the political ether of these stories. Well, the Luke 19 version of this story starts out, a certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, but his citizens hated him and sent a message after him saying, we will not have this man to reign over us. There are some scholars who in studying these parables say there may actually be a hidden coded message about the systems that were in place at the time and the politics of the time.

                                           32:33                   Those interpretations actually give almost an opposite interpretation than the one that we typically use. Normally, we think the servants are rewarded with more responsibility over whether it’s cities or whether they get more wealth or praise because they’ve invested and received a return on their investment. There’s some interpretations that actually suggest that the purpose of the story was to say that the person who did the right thing was the person who didn’t participate in corrupt systems that exploited people in order to get gain. What’s so weird is now we have almost opposite interpretations, rotations, but what I would suggest is that we actually think about both of them in parallel. If you think about taking spiritual gifts, trying to magnify those and invest those and get a return, that is consistent with everything that Jesus ever taught, but if you think about financial returns and you think about it in the context of Christ’s ministry, the purpose of wealth is not to get returns.

                                           33:45                   It’s about having the opportunity to bless others. There are applications in both the literal money sense where I would tend toward the interpretation that says, actually, we don’t participate in corrupt systems. We need to be honest with our dealings. We need to make sure that we’re fair, but then also the idea that the ways that we invest spiritually will be added upon us in righteousness. Those two interpretations, if you think of both of them, they can actually exist in parallel. One that’s sort of literal and one that’s metaphorical. They can exist in that tension. As we come back up on some other scriptures later on, we’ll see that that tension continues as we see additional parables that are referred to in these scriptures.

Hank Smith:                      34:32                   Hmm, I like what you did there. We often want to know which way is correct in interpreting a scripture, and I think the Lord would say what you said, well, all of them.

Eva Witesman:                 34:43                   Take the right lesson.

Hank Smith:                      34:45                   Yeah. The scripture, it seems to the Lord is very fluid. He uses pieces of it and shapes it, changes it according to who he’s talking to. I love all the New Testament you’re drawing out of section 82. I’d never seen it before.

Eva Witesman:                 35:01                   There’s so much there. One of the neat things, again about section 82 is that it’s structured in sort of a cycle, a circle. In verse 23, we come back full circle to where we started. Remember, we started with forgiveness and making sure that we weren’t judging one another in verse 23, that’s reiterated. We have all these instructions. We have this new commandment. Now, verse 23, leave judgment alone with me for it is mine. I will repay. Then peace be with you. My blessings continue with you, which is kind of an echo of peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Again, this voice of Jesus Christ you can recognize here in section 82, but returning back to this concept of judgment and purity, which follows up in verse 24. For even yet, the kingdom is yours and shall be forever if you fall not from your steadfastness, even so, amen.

                                           35:59                   We begin with forgiveness, with not judging, remaining pure ourselves, and then we receive the commandment in the middle and then we come back to that and what I think is important about that is that I think it sets up a pattern because in the middle we’re referring back to and forward to the law of consecration. It’s being revealed slowly in pieces. This is a piece of that. What do we do with this wealth that we have in our storehouse and how do we be good stewards? If you think about consecration as sort of this pinnacle covenant that we’re engaging with this pinnacle way of existing in community with one another, I think it’s really interesting how it’s connected and here bookended with the idea of remaining pure and repenting, also forgiving one another and leaving judgment with the Lord. That’s a pattern for us that we see in the temple as well. I invite us to just ponder that as we move on from section 82.

Hank Smith:                      36:57                   That was fantastic. I never realized Section 82 was asking us, how well do you know your New Testament? That’s really fun.

Eva Witesman:                 37:06                   Yeah, the teachings of Jesus Christ are constantly referenced throughout that.

Hank Smith:                      37:10                   Alright, we have another section. What do you want to look at in 83?

Eva Witesman:                 37:14                   Section 83 is fairly brief and relatively straightforward. There are a couple things to draw out in terms of our global church and also the context at the time that’s related to this, but in section 83, the Lord lays out the laws of the church concerning women and children, specifically those who’ve lost their husbands or fathers. The reason that this is so relevant, we’re going to take us right back into 1830s. Again, the laws of the time made it very difficult and in some cases impossible for women to own or maintain property. There was no welfare state, there’s no social security, there’s no government security net. The social security system was frankly men. That was it. Men were responsible as fathers to care for their children, including their daughters. When daughters got married to a husband, the husband was now responsible for caring for her and their children.

                                           38:18                   In the case of being widowed, typically that meant, although at this point in the law, a widow could inherit some of the estate of her dead husband, but typically she couldn’t receive all of that. More often than not the estate was put into male guardianship. The widow in this circumstance would actually not have an inheritance in many of those cases, regardless of what the law was at the time, and this is going to be important later as you cover other sections that are still coming up, but this has parallels to the social structure and the social safety net in ancient Israel as well, where the men were responsible. This is where you have like widows marrying their dead husbands brothers, that sort of thing going on. If you look into the rationale and the reason of that, the law that was in place at the time was really about how men were responsible for caring for women and children.

                                           39:20                   Marriage was essentially how you create this social safety net for people who are otherwise not participating in the paid economy. There are all kinds of economists who will talk about the ways that women contribute to the economy, even when they’re not paid to do so, including some of the care work that we talked about earlier. But these systems are set up to care for people and they don’t always work because they require the men to be benevolent. They require the men to actually share their wealth, to care for these people who are in need and not advantaged in the economic systems, not advantaged in the political systems. Whenever I read widows and children or widows and orphans in particular, not only do I think about these economic systems and these political systems where men are sort of the social security net, but I also think about how the Lord is explicitly caring for people who are disenfranchised by the systems of the time.

                                           40:24                   Whatever the economic system is of the time, he’s going to care for those who are disenfranchised. We can think about that in today’s world. There are still systems where you have women who don’t have access to property rights globally. I’m not so much talking about in the United States in most cases, but globally, there are women who don’t have access to property rights. Women in some places who don’t have the right to vote in favor of their own interests and make sure that their needs are represented because it’s really important that we’re focusing here on widows and children and orphans, but also there’s a broader sense in which that’s shorthand for the people who are being disadvantaged by the current economic system. What does the Lord say? He gives us six verses. We’re going to learn. It’s very clear, it’s very straightforward. We jump right into it. In verse two, women have claim on their husbands for their maintenance until their husbands are taken, and if they’re not found transgressors, they shall have fellowship in the church.

                                           41:25                   This is essentially saying, yes, we expect that men will care for women, that they will care for the needs of their wives and their children. We see echoes of this both in the temple recommend questions and in Family: A Proclamation to the World where it’s made very clear in both of those cases. In the proclamation it says, fathers are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. There is this claim to be made that’s beautiful in that it protects the contributions that women make in ways that are not always paid work. There are a lot of economists. I would point to Marilyn Waring. I would point to Nancy Folber or Bina Agarwal who talk about the contributions of women throughout the world. These are economists who are exploring the role of women in economies where the women aren’t always paid for the work that they’re doing, so this includes the work of childcare.

                                           42:29                   It includes the work of elder care. It includes in many cases the type of farming that women are doing where they’re not paid for it, but it’s necessary to maintain the wellbeing of their families. In systems where men have access to the economy in a way that’s paid that allows them to trade. This provides a protection for the women who are also contributing to the economy, but not being paid in a way that gives them access to things like trade and property. Verse two does that. We have echoes of that in the proclamation on the family. Then if we jump to verse four, all children have claim upon their parents for their maintenance until they’re of age. We’re also protecting children. There are so many places in the world, this may seem so foreign to people who are living in the United States of America, although it happens here sometimes too, where you have parents who abandon their children or are in one way or another not capable of caring for their children the way that they need to, but around the world we also see situations where children are abandoned in part because their parents don’t want to or can’t care for them, can’t meet their basic needs.

                                           43:49                   One of the beauties of this set of scriptures that says, first of all, you don’t abandon your child. You are responsible for your child, which doesn’t seem like it should need to be a revolutionary thought, but it actually is in some of the circumstances that people are experiencing. This is a very real question. The next thing is that it creates a system through the bishop storehouse, through the welfare programs of the church that here in 1832 are barely beginning to take place, now are these sophisticated and beautiful systems that can provide the necessities of life for families when they can’t do it for themselves to keep these families whole. This is really the beginning of that welfare system that says, first of all, families, you are responsible to one another as a unit. When you can’t, you stay together. You maintain those family relationships and responsibilities, and the church will supplement you until you can achieve that level of self-reliance that allows you to meet your family’s basic needs.

                                           45:00                   That’s what’s being invited here in this section, especially verses one and four. In verse five it clarifies that last part even more so that they have claim upon the church or in other words, upon the Lord’s storehouse, if their parents have not wherewith to give them inheritances. Again, it refers back to what we just learned about in the prior section. The storehouse shall be kept by the consecrations of the church. Widows and orphans shall be provided for as also the poor. There’s that piece. I’m not just making it up that when we talk about widows and orphans, we’re talking about anyone who’s been disenfranchised. You can see it there in verse six, also the poor.

Hank Smith:                      45:41                   Hmm, good point. That is great. In your work, Eva, do you see this as pretty revolutionary for 1832 that the Lord is saying, we’re going to put a system in place?

Eva Witesman:                 45:55                   Yeah, I absolutely see it as revolutionary. I think it’s actually revolutionary in any time and place that the Lord is saying we actually need to have a system where people give the best that they have. That includes their wealth, but it also includes their talents and their skills to support one another in these beautiful communities. Remember in section 82, we learned that all the worldly systems were broken. None are good. This is a revolutionary approach no matter when or where you do it. Sometimes I hear people talk about this higher law of consecration and that it was removed and replaced with the 10% tithe that we all know and love so well, and that is demonstrably false.

Hank Smith:                      46:41                   Yeah.

Eva Witesman:                 46:42                   I’ll just be really clear about that. This is given as an everlasting model. It has never been revoked. If you look at the systems of the church, both the welfare program, the office of the presiding bishopric, the humanitarian systems that we have in place, fast offerings, ministering, the entire church, its entire structure is elegant, beautiful, and integrated. It’s the evolution of what we’re seeing here. The beginnings of in 1832, I would say yes, it was revolutionary for the time, but I would say it’s revolutionary for any time. If we really understand how it works and we’re able to integrate both the spiritual dimensions where we are loving one another and we’re remaining pure, and we’re also sharing our temporal wealth to make sure that everyone is cared for. There is no more revolutionary system than that.

Hank Smith:                      47:40                   Eva, as you’ve taught us today, especially this piece in section 83, I can see why Paul would say that the love of money is the root of all evil, not money itself. You can see the Lord’s direction with money and resources. He’s not afraid of it at all, but when you start to love it, look who gets hurt.

Eva Witesman:                 48:01                   Exactly. This was actually the first director of the Ballard Center. Todd Manwaring was my predecessor in this role. This was his favorite scripture, James 1:27, pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world. It just encapsulates all of it right there.

Hank Smith:                      48:24                   And I need this constant check on the love of money. I personally need it. I don’t know about any of the listeners out there, and I know John doesn’t fall for this, but I can fall into the trap of that. None doeth good. This system of take, take, take. You’ve got to earn more. Don’t get me wrong. I do love to give, but I can get caught in that system of I need the latest and greatest in order to be happy when the opposite is true, the exact opposite is true. Giving and serving actually create more human happiness. That’s not religious research. That’s research throughout the world.

John Bytheway:               49:02                   It’s an interesting balance because, I want to go on a mission with my wife one day. I have to be a wise enough steward to save up and have something so that we can go do that, but am I going to set my heart on that? That’s what you’re talking about. Make it the love of money.

Hank Smith:                      49:20                   Yeah.

Eva Witesman:                 49:21                   There’s another piece of it too, and I see this sometimes especially with men, students who come through the business school because there’s such an emphasis on men being the provider and making sure that they’re caring for their families in this financial way. Sometimes I see them almost reduce themselves to nothing but a wage earner,

John Bytheway:               49:42                   Nothing but a provider.

Eva Witesman:                 49:44                   Yeah. They derive a sense of value from that. They almost perceive that that’s how others value them as well. I do want to offer that careful counterpoint that while it’s true that, again, I think the Lord is providing a counterpoint to the economic systems of our day, I think that’s what he’s doing here. I think if our economic system looked different, so too would the way that we interface with that, but in our system where men have historically been sort of economically advantaged in terms of the ability to work and earn wages, there’s a tendency to create that now as their identity and to use these scriptures erroneously to sort of say that’s all you are. Again, one of the beautiful parts of this set of scriptures is that it says, no, we invite you into this care work that has traditionally been the work of women.

                                           50:42                   We are going to balance that identity. You’re not just a wage earner. You’re not just a paycheck. You’re a full partner in our work of caring for the children of God. These scriptures invite that, but to anyone who feels like that, their only value is the number on their paycheck every month. I would just say, you are a son of God and that is so much more than mammon can ever give you, but some of these worldly interpretations when we talk about like bringing those worldly views in some of these worldly interpretations are every bit as harmful for men as they are women. I know we talk a lot about women in the way that we have experienced the world, but those worldly viewpoints are really damaging. Really what we see from these scriptures is that we are all invited into the same work. This work of God may have at different points in time, different roles in that work, but it is a shared work. We are to do it together. I love that invitation and I hope to live up to it.

Hank Smith:                      51:46                   Yeah, beautiful. It reminds me of the phrase, there’s a more excellent way. I love what you said there at the end, men and women don’t have to be reduced to these base roles. The Lord is, I think throughout all three of these sections, let me invite you to a much better way of living. Eva, you have taken these, what did you say? 37 verses, is that what you told us at first?

Eva Witesman:                 52:12                   Yeah, I think that’s right.

Hank Smith:                      52:13                   You have been able to draw out things I would never have seen on my own. Do we have any more drops left to squeeze out of you for section 83?

Eva Witesman:                 52:23                   Since section 83 focuses specifically on women and children, I wanted to quickly shout out the General Relief Society’s focus on the nutrition and wellbeing of women and children. President Johnson has talked about this so beautifully. She says specifically, we want to empower women and families with greater understanding and resources so they’re better equipped to make changes that can have a lasting impact in their homes, communities, and nations. Really big thinking, but rooted in serving women and children. She says, when a woman is empowered because she is healthy and educated, families are blessed, communities are lifted and nations strengthened. When you bless a child, you invest in the future, and then she reveals what they’re focused on. Our work focuses on nutrition for children under five, maternal and newborn care, immunizations and education. I don’t know if you knew that the Relief Society has their own set of initiatives that they’re working on.

                                           53:25                   What I would sort of reiterate, President Johnson has talked about finding ways to engage in that in your own community. This may be a global effort and there are lots of places in the world that you could send money for immunizations and education. I encourage you to do that, but President Johnson also talks about looking for the people in your own community who have needs. Look for the women and children in your ward who need those things, and if there’s no one in your ward who has those needs, look for the people in your stake. Make those connections because you can serve more than you think you can. This is a global effort and it’s part of what it means to be a member of the Relief Society right now.

Hank Smith:                      54:09                   Wow. Hmm. Eva, this has been spectacular.  I’m looking back over, John, do you have as many notes as I do?

John Bytheway:               54:20                   Finding all the New Testament references. Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      54:23                   So many insights. It’s not just about the insights Eva, but the feeling when we’re done here that I need to go and do.

John Bytheway:               54:32                   Mm-hmm.

Hank Smith:                      54:32                   John, I don’t know about you, but I’m getting all sorts of impressions of who I need to reach out to.

John Bytheway:               54:36                   Yeah. I need to repent and be a better minister. Yeah. I’m glad I can repent again.  I’m glad we talked about that too. I’m glad we can repent again.  Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      54:50                   Eva, thank you. Thank you for preparing. Thank you for your time.

Eva Witesman:                 54:53                   It’s such a pleasure to be here. It’s a real joy. We can all always do better. That’s just part of eternal progression.

Hank Smith:                      55:01                   Everything you’ve just showed us, the richness of these three sections comes from a, let me look at the date, 1832, a 26-year-old farmer who’s great. He’s not an idiot, but we just took someone with an expertise in nonprofits, decades of expertise. You’re not that old, but decades of expertise. You drew with your expertise, all of this out of the writings of a 26-year-old farmer in the 1830s. What does that say to you?

Eva Witesman:                 55:39                   Well, Hank, I think you know as well as I do that these aren’t just the writings of Joseph Smith. This is the Lord’s voice, and that for me is the testimony that I receive when I read these sections. This isn’t a young person inventing new systems. This is the process of revelation and we can see the voice of the Lord throughout it. Everything points back to Jesus Christ. I love the experience of reading what I refer to as revelatory documents. I think of scriptures that way. I think of the proclamation that way. These are documents that were revealed and they were revealed in the Spirit. When I read those, when I’m experiencing the Spirit, everything unfolds. I’m able to see much more than I could otherwise. Usually what I’m seeing at that point is direction for my own life. I see these sections of the Doctrine and Covenants as revelatory documents. I see the proclamation to the world on the family as a revelatory document. These are places that I can turn, so that I can receive personal revelation and direction in my life. I almost never think about Joseph Smith as the author of any of these things because he’s not, as we saw in Section 81, Jesus Christ is the author and finisher. He’s the Alpha and Omega, and I’m grateful that he is.

Hank Smith:                      57:05                   Thank you for saying that. You almost forget Joseph even gave it to us as you’re going through it, I wonder if Joseph Smith himself, I think he would, I think he’d see what Eva did with this John and go, wow, I didn’t see that either.

John Bytheway:               57:19                   Stand back and go, wow, I didn’t write that.

Hank Smith:                      57:23                   Yeah. Incredible. Absolutely incredible. Everyone we’ve studied this year and we’ve invited someone on, they’ve seen things that are so deep and so beautiful that they transcend 1830 and 2025. Well, with that, we’re sad to see it end, but we need to thank Dr. Eva Witesman for being with us. It has been spectacular. We want to thank our executive producer Shannon Sorensen, our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen and every episode we remember, our founder Steve Sorensen. We hope you’ll join us next week. This is a big one, section 84 coming up on followHIM. Thank you for joining us on today’s episode. Do you or someone you know speak Spanish, Portuguese, or French? You can now watch and listen to our podcast in those languages. Links are in the description below. Today’s show notes and transcript are on our website. Follow him.co. That’s follow him dot CO. 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, Iride Gonzalez, and Annabelle Sorensen.