Hank Smith:                      00:00:00             Coming up in this episode on followHIM.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:00:03             Move forward. Your sins don’t define you in a universe that has a Savior. Trust and walk forward and keep doing all the good you can and God will turn the sins that you turn over to him into these threads woven through your tapestry that give you strength and wisdom and nobility. You would rather never have them and yet if you turn them over to Christ, he will use them to teach you lessons that will give you incredible wisdom.

Hank Smith:                      00:00:37             Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name is Hank Smith. I’m your host. I’m here with John Bytheway. There is no co-host like thee in heaven above or on earth beneath. John, I’m telling you, I’ve looked in heaven and on earth, there is no better co-host.

John Bytheway:               00:00:55             I was fired from both locations, so that’s right. Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      00:00:59             They have not looked under the earth yet.

John Bytheway:               00:01:01             They were downsizing. Yeah, we’re going in a different direction.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:01:06             I get excited to see how Hank is going to make John squirm every week. Like, how is this going to go? Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      00:01:12             It’s actually pretty fun to go on the hunt for some of those. Although in the Book of Judges, it was hard to find a positive adjective.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:01:18             Wow. If he had longer hair, we would’ve been okay, but

Hank Smith:                      00:01:21             Yeah. John, we’ve heard that voice before. Dr. Shon Hopkin is back with us today. Shon, welcome back to followHIM. We’ve missed you.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:01:31             It’s so good to be with both of you.

Hank Smith:                      00:01:33             We have had wonderful episodes with Shon in the past and I’m sure today will be no different. John, we’re talking about Solomon’s temple and we also are talking about David’s … John, what did you call it once? The Goliath David could not kill. The difficulty in David’s life and then the temple. What are you thinking about?

John Bytheway:               00:01:53             Like 20 years ago, guys, I used to give a talk called Rough Start, Great Finish, and I was thinking, this is like great start, rough finish. A lot of the Old Testament has been that way. What we’ve been studying so far. Is there ever a great start, great finish? I guess that’s just Jesus.

Hank Smith:                      00:02:11             Yeah. Shon, what are you looking forward to?

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:02:12             Let me just say that enduring to the end concept that’s right there. That one matters a lot. There are some wonderful things that we will talk about, some poignant things, of course. My middle name is David, Shon David. David, I felt both an affinity to. Honestly, I’ve sort of paid extra attention to him and he’s lovable and likable and admirable in so many ways and there’s so many things I can learn from him and there are some warnings that I want to make sure I pay attention to as well. Hitting that sweet spot, making sure we don’t dilute the warnings. We need those, we need the cautions and we need to highlight those at the same time to make sure that we don’t lose our hope that we can be redeemed, that we are all imperfect and that in Christ, if we will turn our hearts to him, all will be well. We’ll try to hit that space as we talk about David and then we’re going to talk about temple. That’ll be a lot of fun. Then Solomon ends up being a somewhat similar storyline to David just in slightly different ways. There’s a lot of fascinating things to do today, I think.

Hank Smith:                      00:03:29             We’re excited to walk through this. I remember once walking out of a gospel doctrine class, we had just talked about David and Bathsheba, and I was thinking, oh, that’s too bad. Oh, that guy, he just fell apart. Shane Argyle, good friend of mine, he turned to me as we’re walking out and he said, that lesson scares me. That was surprising to me. I said, why does that scare you? He said, that’s David who fell, if he can fall. Shouldn’t we all be a little bit nervous? It never occurred to me. I thought, oh, it was a good insight. Instead of judging David, I saw some of the warnings that you’re talking about, Shon. Now, John, there may be someone who doesn’t know who Dr. Hopkin is. They’re definitely not from Texas because everyone in Texas knows who Dr. Hopkin is and in Provo. John, what do we know about him?

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:04:15             Let me defend the Texans for a second. You never ask someone where they’re from. If they’re from Texas, they will tell you without you asking. If they’re not from Texas, they’re actually embarrassed about it. So it’s not going to go well either way.

John Bytheway:               00:04:28             Shon was born in Denton, Texas, son of Lorraine Hopkin and Arden Hopkin. Attended Southwest High School in Fort Worth, but graduated from Orem High School, received a bachelor’s and master’s degree from BYU in near Eastern studies with a focus on the Hebrew Bible, a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in Hebrew studies with a focus on medieval Hebrew, Arabic and Spanish literature. Yeah, I was thinking of doing that. Before coming to BYU, he taught in seminaries and institutes, taught at Tempe, Provo High, Austin Institute of Religion. And at BYU, he served as the chair of the Book of Mormon Academy, chair of the BYU Religious Outreach Council, chair of the Department of Ancient Scripture, and that was only recently, I think you were released from that and currently serves as Associate Director of Academics for the BYU Jerusalem Center, and we spent a lot of time talking about that before we started recording today. He has four children and two grandchildren.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:05:29             And I will announce to the world, and one on the way. I think that’s public knowledge, but hopefully by the time this is posted, this’ll be public knowledge. We’re very excited about that and to be here with two close friends and colleagues there from, that we teach together in the Department of Ancient Scripture is a joy to me. Yeah, and I’m really grateful for each of my colleagues and for two of you.

Hank Smith:                      00:05:53             We love having you here. Let’s start with the Come, Follow Me manual and we’ll be underway. The lesson this week is Hear Thou in Heaven Their Prayer. Saul, David and Solomon, the first three kings of Israel all started out with so much promise. Humble, courageous, and wise, they each found favor with the Lord, at least at first. Sadly, each king also gave into human weakness and temptation. They put their own desires before the Lord’s and as we’ve seen over and over in the scriptures and in our own lives, that led to tragedy. But something important happened during the reign of Solomon that provided some hope for the stability in the lives of the covenant people. Solomon built a temple. It was to be a more permanent house of the Lord than the tabernacle had been and it would represent a more permanent presence of the Lord among his people. Solomon knew that the people would continue to face weakness and trials of various kinds. In dedicating the new holy house, Solomon pleaded with the Lord. If they return unto thee with all their heart, then hear thou their prayer. That’s part of what temple covenants do for us. They create a connection to God. They secure for us the promise that through our repentance and his mercy, he can dwell among us and never forsake us. Wonderful. I’m excited to walk through these chapters. Shon, how do you want to get started?

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:07:07             I love what they did in that manual. God is eminently and eternally steady and we tend not to be. But to have that temple there that is such a symbol and sign and that points us constantly back to God for Latter-day Saints, of course, that becomes very important. I love what they did there. I will take a slightly different tact in one area than what they did, although these are beautiful and powerful and moving stories and we often read them. I think I often read them as, well, wow. Saul started off great and then he fell. David started off great and then he fell. Solomon started off great and then he fell. What happened to these guys? Another way of reading the story is that there were these weaknesses in their personalities and when those weaknesses were magnified by unlimited power, they became unmanageable, multiplied the potency of the damaging nature of those weaknesses.

                                           00:08:11             And this is why I would say speaking to all of us as young people, as it were, as people who are still able to change, repenting to the best of our ability, we’re all going to continue to be flawed, but paying attention to it and not just thinking, I’m a pretty good person. I’ll just keep walking the way I’m walking. And in one sense, God loves you as you are. Move forward and keep turning your heart to him. Sometimes I worry that we’re a little too casual and we’re a little too quick to say, oh, wow, David, what a train wreck that is. Well, how would any of us do with unlimited power? If I take some of my own personal foibles and then I multiply them on that kind of a stage, sometimes we look at those in our society who fame gives them a huge amount of attention and power and money and acclaim and then we watch what seems we’re easy and quick to say from a distance to be the train wreck, but they’ve got the same kind of flaws that I have.

                                           00:09:11             So I can learn from that with deep sympathy and love for others and hoping that by the grace of God, I can be spared some of those challenges. And in small and simple ways, we all sort of walk this walk in our own lives. That’s maybe one thing that I would just mention. I think we see some of these things maybe. It depends on how you read the story, because David is so lovable early on. And I mentioned my middle name is David. There’s so much to love about his courage, his exuberance, these moments when he has this opportunity to lift his hand against Saul and he refuses. What a noble moment that is. But then there’s another way of reading the early life of David that shows some of these things. Let me just quote from a biblical scholar here named David Wolpe. He’s going way back to the David and Goliath story and he says, the first time David speaks, it is a biblical commonplace that a character’s first words are defining, and here are the first words.

                                           00:10:08             What will be done of the man who strikes down yonder Philistine and takes away insult from Israel? Now, I don’t want to read too much into that. I love David. He was so exuberantly faithful and courageous. I love what he did with Goliath. Sort of interesting that his very first words are, what do I get if I do this? You see maybe, maybe a hint of willfulness, a hint of egoism, egotism there early on that continues to play out and we’ll finish the story of David. The manual doesn’t take us there, but we’ll give it a little bit of time that at the end of his life, you see him once again doing the census that he knew he wasn’t supposed to do, but he’s counting in a way that seems egotistical and prideful. Certainly the Lord says, I don’t want you to count how mighty you are. I want you to trust in the Lord. And it causes problems yet again. With that negative potential assessment there, I will look at my own self and just say, I need to seek after holiness. And I can be me, I can be my normal human being self, which I very much am for better or worse. And the gospel trying to get us to seek after the Lord early in our lives, early being today for any one of us is so important to avoid some of the heartache that will come to all of us when we don’t, we all feel this when we don’t seek after holiness.

John Bytheway:               00:11:35             Thank you. Just what Hank said at the beginning about leaving the lesson and having your friends say, ooh, that’s scary. When we go to the, how do I apply this? It’s a humbling story I think for all of us. If David can go, shields up.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:11:50             The trick for all of us is to do this to feel this in a way that moves us forward because I think for some, there’s so many different people who are having different kinds of days who are going to hear this followHIM episode and might think, oh no, well, then I’m a goner. I’m done for. If those warnings ever come in a way that we lose hope, in fact, let me go to this warning. The starkest warning that we have is actually in restoration scripture. There’s a lot actually, there are a number of restoration tidbits about David and Solomon and here is the most terrifying, you might say, or the strongest. And it is in Doctrine and Covenants 132:39 and I’ll, it’s short and sweet or not sweet and it says, “David hath fallen from his exaltation and received his portion.” That’s a pretty stark warning.

                                           00:12:49             And that says with this incredibly charismatic, incredibly good-hearted in so many ways, human being, you can lose your exaltation. Now, I want to unpack that a litle bit. First, I like seeing the scriptures as intertwined and connected and not overdoing it with one verse because we have other verses that help us. I’m so grateful for the Book of Mormon’s 2 Nephi 26, which by the way, as an Isaiah guy, I have to say, this is commentary that flows out of Isaiah. Just a quick nod there. He doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world for he loveth the world even that he layeth down his own life. If David has lost his exaltation, that’s not because God is trying to make David miserable or punish David. He loves David and David needs to be where David will have the greatest amount of peace or whatever he needs or has longed for or sought to be.

                                           00:13:44             The other thing I want to give a little caution on and I’ll share something from the JST that might just at least put some tension on that, that there is later a comment about Solomon in the JST KJV 1 Kings 11:33, this is fascinating, states that these different kings have not walked in my ways to do that which is right in my eyes and to keep my statutes and my judgments as did David, his father. David is often or constantly even complimented both in the biblical text and in the JST for being loyal to Jehovah. As Latter-day Saints, we understand Jehovah is Jesus Christ, that loyalty to Christ, that has power even with those challenges. But then look at this as well. His, and it’s talking to Solomon, Solomon’s heart is become as David his Father and he repenteth not as David his Father that I may forgive him.

                                           00:14:45             And I don’t know what that means. Was David forgiven, but then he lost that forgiveness? Is there more to this storyline than what we’re getting in Doctrine and Covenants 132? If we’re going to unpack just a little bit further, Doctrine and Covenants 132 that says, David hath fallen from his exaltation. I think often we say, oh, end of story. But it’s not really my business who’s exalted and who’s not. That’s between God and David. What this is for as God figures out how to work with David is a warning to me that it’s possible to lose one’s exaltation. And I can leave David over there, so to speak, for God to work with according to his own justice and mercy, but I need to learn the lesson. By the way, this statement comes thousands of years after David lives. There’s been time in the spirit world. There have been decades since that statement.

                                           00:15:39             I don’t know that David’s story is over or not. I can leave that there, but I do need to take the warning that I shouldn’t procrastinate the day of my repentance. And sometimes we worry that we’re not sufficient and so then we say, no, I’m awesome just the way I am and I’m just going to be the way I am and I’m going to just be casual about that. I’m a nice enough person. This is all just going to work out for me in the end. David can be a warning. No, repent. Turn to the Lord. Doesn’t mean you got to lose your personality quirks or the fun little things that make you you, but turn to the Lord, you will save yourself a lot of sorrow if you do so. And the Lord is ready for you today. So if anyone hears that in Doctrine and Covenants 132 and thinks my exaltation may be lost, there are probably those listening who are like, I really identify with David. Is my exaltation lost? I want to say very strongly, even though that’s between God and you. No, that’s not the message. The message is turn to the Lord today and if you are worried, then that’s because you care. Turn to the Lord and the Lord will draw you to him. That’s not what that warning is for. That’s not what it’s trying to accomplish I don’t believe in any of our lives. It’s trying to say, turn to the Lord today.

Hank Smith:                      00:16:52             I love that, Shon.

John Bytheway:               00:16:54             It was so fascinating to me that President Oaks, who before his call was a Utah State Supreme Court judge, gave a talk called Love and Law, another one he called Judge Not and Judging. Boy, there’s an opening paragraph in Judge Not and Judging where he says, “Some scriptures tell us not to judge and others tell us how to judge.” He put them into final judgments we are forbidden to make, intermediate judgments we are commanded to make but upon righteous principles. And I love what you just said because those are final judgments. You don’t make that about yourself. I don’t make that about others. That’s not my call. That’s beyond my pay grade.

                                           00:17:36             So just come to the Lord now. President Oaks gave that talk called The Challenge to Become, and I just loved it because I think there was a focus for a long time on knowing what we should know and teach me all that I must know. And President Oaks was, “It’s great to know it’s even better to do. If we know what to do and we do what we know, we begin to become what we’re supposed to become”, which is, oh, what a great thought. So I think they should change it to teach me all that I must be, because then that fits with President Oaks’ talk. The idea of, like you said, Shon, oh, I’ll just be the way I am. Well, there’s a process of becoming. Face the Savior and keep on becoming. Let him worry about the final judgment. Just keep coming to Christ and keep becoming.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:18:20             I think that was beautiful. This was Jacob’s concern. How do I give the warnings and the cautions without wounding hearts? And I suspect with the reach that you have, that’s a concern that you bump into. How do we lift and give hope and joy? And you do it with a lot of humor, that’s helpful. Also, how do you make sure those warnings are hit and they’re not diluted but that they hit in the right space? I suspect that’s something you think about fairly frequently.

Hank Smith:                      00:18:49             As a teacher, I think it’s difficult for me to strike the balance. I try to step back, teach the stories, teach the doctrine and at least in my experience, the Holy Ghost has that perfect little sweet spot of, you really need to work on this, but listen, you’re going to be great. I have a hard time trying to gauge that myself. I think I overdo it. I overdo one or the other. And I think the Holy Ghost is like, look, you just teach the stories. Let me do the guilt, because guilt is not a bad thing. Guilt is actually quite wonderful. It says, hey, you didn’t live your values. Let’s make a correction. Let’s get you back on.

John Bytheway:               00:19:24             It’s a check engine, check engine light saying that you need to check this, but Hank, that’s what I was thinking is fortunately if the Holy Ghost is present, it will take things to people’s ears in different ways. Because you might have a kid in your class who stole a Snickers when he was six and feels guilty about it and I can’t serve a mission and somebody else that’s having serious problems in some other area and doesn’t think anything of it, how do you talk to both of them in the same class? And you have to rely on the Holy Ghost and the Savior to get that to their ears just the right way, I guess. When you guys figure it out, let me know, but I think it’s the Holy Ghost.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:20:07             We learned a lot about John that that was the sin he could think of was stealing.

Hank Smith:                      00:20:11             Right.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:20:11             When he was six. I don’t know.

John Bytheway:               00:20:12             Well, it was a Milky Way, but yeah.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:20:14             Ahh. Yeah. Yeah. My guilty theft story is when I was nine, I was obsessed with school supplies and we went to buy school supplies for the new school year. My mom turned her back and I’m like, school supplies. And I just like, those big pink erasers and those shiny rulers, I’m like, got them up under my shirt. We got home, I hopped out of the van, they fell out of my shirt. My mom’s like, you stole school supplies? And I had to go take them back to the store and there’s like this teenager behind the counter and I’ve like got this white sort of blonde toe-headed chili bowl haircut. I put them on the counter. I’m like, I took these. I still remember that teenager looks over and he’s like, dude, you stole school supplies? So that’s my like, my sins are, I’ve got others too that I’m not going to talk about, but they’re embarrassing.

John Bytheway:               00:21:01             No, that’s a PhD in the making right there. Rulers and pencils and erasers.

Hank Smith:                      00:21:07             That’s so great. Yeah. I get concerned when people fall into shame. I am bad. I am a sinful, terrible person. I don’t deserve things versus, oh, my, that action didn’t match my value. I really need to make sure that I’m living according to my values. I try to err on the side of mercy as a teacher. Hopefully the Holy Ghost can touch someone’s heart and say, actually, there’s some repairing that needs to be done and you’re the one to do it. That can be very healthy.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:21:38             You know, at the risk of belaboring this too long and I’ll tell one other quick anecdote and then we’ll move back into the storyline here. I remember this is not even a sin, it’s just a silliness where I was teaching seminary and I was in charge of seminary graduation. I was in charge of the stake that had the stake president who was sort of in charge of all the stake presidents with church education stuff and I felt like, oh, I got to do well at the assignment. I pulled a suit out of my closet that night. I’m like, I have not worn this in like two years. Why not? And I put it on, I’m like, this is a nice suit. And I wore it. I was in rare form that night. I was up and down. I was hugging people saying hi to people and really enjoying being there and it was a little breezy.

                                           00:22:17             I didn’t think much of it though. I got home late that night and the back of my suit pants had this just giant hole. Like it was just like a flap hanging down. And my brain went back through how ridiculous I looked the entire night. That’s why that thing was hanging in my closet. And I’m like, I’m that guy. I am that guy. I look, everybody was just laughing at me all night long. That’s silly. Like who cares? Like these are silly little things, but I had one of those moments where I’m like, I am the wrong kind of human being. I can’t go back. Sometimes we get really dark about ourselves and then I don’t think that’s the Lord. That’s one of the ways that for me anyway, I distinguish. It can feel sort of dark, but there’s got to be a ray of hope or let the Lord bring that in to say, and you can change. And then it’s sweet. It draws you to goodness.

Hank Smith:                      00:23:10             Kind of like a warning on an electric fence. Take that seriously. There’s one every six feet. They make it pretty clear. Do not come here. I like that with this lesson. Shon, it’s not necessarily, oh, what did David do? It’s, am I noticing these signs every six feet? Don’t do this.

John Bytheway:               00:23:29             I like that phrase from The Chosen. You have one job today. Follow him. Maybe you don’t have to worry about where am I going to end up about my exaltation. Just one job today, follow him. The answer’s always Jesus. Start there, if nothing else.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:23:48             Yeah, I love that. Well, okay, a little bit more with restoration scripture and then we’ll go straight to 2 Samuel 11. We’ve spent some time exploring this, but I think it matters to frame what we’re talking about. We know this from Jacob 2 in the Book of Mormon, behold, David, and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me saith the Lord, wherefore I, the Lord will not suffer that this people shall do like unto them of old.” And then he goes on to say, plural marriage is only going to function if I command it to raise up righteous seed unto me, right? This is Jacob chapter two. But then look at how that interacts with Doctrine and Covenants 132:38. David also received many wives and concubines and also Solomon and Moses my servant, as also many others of my servants from the beginning of creation until this time.

                                           00:24:36             In nothing did they sin, and here’s the lesson, save in those things which they received not of me. You’re going to notice there’s this moment when we’re reading 1 Samuel 11. If we read that verse, I think we will, where it says, he sent unto the woman and they did take her. He brought her to him. This makes the story more horrifying that David is in a position of power and authority. And these are sensitive topics here. Notice when Nathan comes to David in 1 Samuel 12, never once, never once is Bathsheba critiqued or criticized. He zeroes right in on the most powerful person in the land and that is on David. And since we’ve sort of started talking about that, let me go ahead and read from Elder Patrick Kearon because this is a sensitive topic as we pause and think about Bathsheba.

                                           00:25:37             Let me just read what Elder Kearon says. We often think, oh, David’s the storyline here, but there is another storyline that we don’t know super well, and that is Bathsheba’s storyline. I think she was trying to bathe privately and David’s up on this roof. By the way, the city of David in Jerusalem, you can see it. It slopes downwards. So if he’s up on his roof, he’s got a view down into people’s private yards and private space. Here’s Elder Kearon. “If you have experienced any kind of abuse, violence or oppression, you may be left with the idea that these events were somehow your fault and that you deserve to carry the shame and guilt you feel. The abuse was not, is not, and never will be your fault. No matter what the abuser or anyone else may have said to the contrary, when you have been a victim of cruelty, incest, or any other perversion, you are not the one who needs to repent. You are not responsible.”

                                           00:26:35             This sounds very similar to the way Nathan is talking. And we love David and we care about what happens with David. God cares about David and we need to be careful when people have committed grave sins, God still loves that person and he will work with them according to his justice and mercy. And human experience is complex and it’s nuanced and it’s not always men who are the bad guys and women who are the good guys. We’re complicated folk. All of us need a Savior. All of us need a Savior desperately.

John Bytheway:               00:27:10             A couple of things I’m trying to think of moms out there trying to teach this to their kids and David had wives and porcupines.

Hank Smith:                      00:27:19             Prickly.

John Bytheway:               00:27:21             Yeah. How do you explain wives and concubines to kids? I liked what you said and both of you have been to the Holy Land, I bet a lot more than I have. By the entrance to Hezekiah’s tunnel, yeah, you go east of there and you see the old city of David. Like you said, it’s just this you didn’t have to go out looking. Everybody’s rooftop is visible from there. But the other thing I’m thinking about, wait, I thought Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the city of David, but there’s an old city of David and that is closer to what you’re talking about.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:27:56             First, city of David, you’ve got the birthplace city of David, the place where he was born. Then you’ve got political city of David, the place that he sets up. And we’re talking the political city of David. And there’s actually a building that’s been uncovered there that may have been, we’re not sure, but may have been his palace that’s been uncovered there. It’s a monumental structure. You can actually stand where his palace may have been and look down. The city of David sort of shaped like a thumb and you’re on the sort of looking down towards the thumbnail part of the thumb, so to speak. And you can see it heading downhill like that in a way that makes the story really obvious what’s going on. The other thing I would say is concubines in the practice of plural marriage as instituted by God through Joseph Smith in the latter days, that concubines, this wasn’t ever part of the practice. This is part of an ancient system of marriage that included concubines are if you marry someone who is not of the same social status, maybe a servant or a slave, then they would be considered a concubine rather than a wife. That doesn’t apply, didn’t apply, hasn’t applied at all in the latter days and was part of the unique circumstance of antiquity. That’s why you’ve got that in these accounts. Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      00:29:16             That’s interesting. Shon, thanks for doing that. That storyline of Bathsheba can be very helpful to someone who thinks, well, maybe I did something wrong in this. It doesn’t seem to be the case that she was doing anything wrong.

John Bytheway:               00:29:30             I love that you brought it back to Nathan. What did Nathan actually say because he’s the one, like you said, he’s the prophet.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:29:38             And I think he gives modern priesthood leaders a real lesson and it takes inspiration and insight, which he clearly has. He knows what’s going on in ways that David is shocked. Another powerful thing in 1 Samuel 12 is it is shocking in the ancient Near East that you have a religious figure absolutely abrading. It’s not totally unheard of, but this is a tradition that carries forward and continues to influence us in Western society today that these all powerful leaders can be critiqued and should be critiqued and David accepts the critique. It’s one of the really beautiful things about David. When he tells him this story and notice Bathsheba in this story is this tender lamb that is taken. That’s how this story plays out. Nathan does the parable, hey, someone here in your kingdom wanted, he had a ton of lambs and he wanted his neighbor’s lamb and he went and took his neighbor’s lamb and David is ticked. He’s like, not on my watch. That is not going to happen. And then the zinger, as we know, Nathan looks straight at him, thou art the man.

John Bytheway:               00:30:45             Who enjoys calling people to repentance? Nathan was so brilliant in the way he did that. I think they call it an entrapment parable. Basically, he passes the judgment and David doesn’t say, hey, you’re not supposed to judge. He says, what do you think? And David says, that man should be punished. He passed the judgment on himself. Nobody likes being in that position and I’m glad you said that because how often do we see a religious leader and a king working together? Isaiah was not a king, but he was an advisor to the kings of Judah. That’s an interesting point. I hadn’t thought of that, but so was Nathan around David a lot? Did he advise him on things a lot?

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:31:30             We don’t know quite as much about Nathan as we do about Isaiah who was clearly very welcome into the court, but it’s obvious that he is welcome as an advisor to David. David’s response here is fascinating. If it’s just him and Nathan, which is the way it reads, this is a moment when a chapter earlier, David is willing to kill people to preserve his secret and David doesn’t do it. He won’t do it. His devotion to this religious authority. So you see that clear understanding of there is a God in heaven and I owe that God in heaven loyalty. And I have sinned greatly. This is what he says. It’s 2 Samuel chapter 12 verse 13, “And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, the Lord also has to put away thy sin. Thou shalt not die. How be it because of this deed.”

                                           00:32:22             And then he goes on to talk about some consequences. David humbles down. He’s all powerful and he chooses not to continue to carry his secret further and further. Another restoration scripture here that I think is very instructive for watching what’s happening is found these powerful verses that Joseph Smith gives us from Liberty Jail. This is section 121, verses 36 to 40. “The powers of heaven cannot be controlled or handled only upon the principles of righteousness, that they may be conferred upon us. It is true.” And you hear Nathan talking about, I gave you this, this, and this, and I promised you this, this, and this, and here’s what you did. “That they may be conferred upon us. It is true. But when we undertake to cover our sins”, and that’s exactly what he does. He gets frantic.

                                           00:33:13             And then Uriah, the Hittite he invites him home. Uriah won’t go home and be with his wife. She’s expecting a child now because of this interaction with David, this sexual liaison with David. She’s expecting and David wants Uriah to go home and be with his wife. He won’t do it. And the Hittite, by the way, is the one who says, no, the Ark of the Covenant and your people are out battling in the fields. I don’t get to go home and relax. And that must have annoyed David a bit. He tries to get him drunk. He still won’t go home. He’s flailing about to cover his sins and then he writes to Joab and says, you’ve got to find a way to eliminate Uriah.

                                           00:33:54             And as he does so, to cover his sins without intentionally meaning it, other people of course die as collateral. How many people are murdered so he can preserve himself and his image in this moment? And all this is a story of warning to us when we start to dig in and dig a little deeper and a little deeper. And what’s the moment where we say, I got to pull back out of this. I have got to pull back out of this. I’ve got a brother who says he thinks that dishonesty is the worst sin because if you’re honest about your foibles and your faults and your flaws, then you can open it up so there’s light. But if you are willing to cover your sins, then they can just go deeper and deeper and the wound gets harder and harder to remove.

Hank Smith:                      00:34:41             Yeah. Secrecy can become a source of lifeblood to a sin. John, you mentioned how to teach this. There could be two things that I might do as a teacher. I might bring in Joseph of Egypt just to have that contrast. How could I do this great wickedness and sin against God? Another one I might do is look at Jesus and his three temptations and compare them to these three kings and their temptations where these three kings could not stand up against temptation. Jesus stood up against similar temptations. It’s kind of a fun little parallel to do there.

John Bytheway:               00:35:16             Oh, I like that. There’s a word that Elder Maxwell used once, which I think I’ve never used dalliance to dally in something. I remember this quotation as we were preparing this morning, got on churchofjesuschrist.org, and guess how often dalliance appeared? I think it was just one time so I found it right away. This is what Elder Maxwell said in April of ’89. Let’s see. Another vital way of coping was exemplified by Jesus, though he suffered all manner of temptations, yet he gave no heed unto them. Unlike some of us, he did not fantasize, reconsider, or replay temptations. How is it that you and I do not see that while initially we are stronger and the temptations weaker, dalliance turns things upside down. I thought that was cool. At first, the temp- no, we’re stronger than that, but then we dally in it. We replay, reconsider. I don’t know why I remembered that. Like you said, Hank, how quickly did Joseph and Jesus respond to those temptations in the examples that you brought up? I mean, Joseph just took off. He got him out.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:36:27             And this is the urgency to repent today. I think how silly am I or how silly are we when I say, well, I’m going to wait and repent next week. I’m not strong enough today, but I’m going to be strong enough a week from now. There’s going to be this magical moment where I’m going to sin again and again and again, and then I’m going to be strong enough. And the Lord continues to work with us. So there is hope that we’ll be able to repent in the future, but today’s the only time I have any agency today. I never have any agency with the future until it arrives and it’s present. Now is the time to pause and say, oh, don’t continue down this path, David, and he does. But then Nathan, fortunately for everyone, but it’s in some ways too late for so many in this storyline as he sought to cover his sins. If only he had paused before that moment or before that moment, let’s go to 2 Samuel 11. Most are pretty familiar with these verses and the way they read. There’s this sinister tone David has been the man of action. John, would you do verse one for us and then tell us what you see there? And then Hank, would you do verse two, three, and four and tell us what you see there?

John Bytheway:               00:37:43             2 Samuel chapter 11, verse one. And it came to pass after the year was expired at the time when kings go forth to battle that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel and they destroyed the children of Ammon and besieged Rabbah, but David tarried still at Jerusalem.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:38:02             Let me just pause and say we’ve got a citadel, the citadel of Amman Jordan. This is actually the location where they were. The structures that you go see there are later than what they would have been sieging, but we’ve got that spot when we can, we take BYU Jerusalem center students to see that citadel and Amman, Jordan, that’s that space. So we’ve got City of David, we’ve got Amman as two spaces we can actually look at today. Okay, sorry, back to you, John. What do you see there? We asked, how do you teach this? And I think seminary teachers bump into this one and it becomes an important lesson at times. What lessons do you see? What are the undercurrents that flow in that verse?

John Bytheway:               00:38:39             Right off, it says at a time when kings go forth to battle. David’s a king, so where is he? But it says David tarried still at Jerusalem not being where he’s supposed to be.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:38:52             Be a person of action. How often was David kept from sin and other times because he was moving forward and then he thinks, I’ve been working really hard. I’m going to send them out. I’m all powerful. I’m going to rest. You might say gratifies his pride, his vain ambition. He’s up late at night doom scrolling or whatever he’s doing.

John Bytheway:               00:39:13              Doom scrolling.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:39:13             Searching the channels, not looking for anything bad but sort of looking for something bad, and then he’s in the wrong place at the wrong time. There’s a lot there in verse one.

Hank Smith:                      00:39:22             You got to be too busy to sin.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:39:24             Yes. Hank, would you do verses two through four for us? And then once we’ve analyzed those verses, we’ll move on and start talking about Solomon.

Hank Smith:                      00:39:33             And it came to pass in eventide that David arose from off his bed and walked upon the roof of the king’s house. And from the roof, he saw a woman washing herself and the woman was very beautiful to look upon and David sent and inquired after the woman and one said, is that not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? And David sent messengers and took her and she came in unto him and he lay with her for she was purified from her uncleanness and she returned unto her house.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:40:03             By the way, Bath-Sheba, the fact that Bathsheba was taking a bath, I used to think that as a teenager, I’m like, whoa, that makes sense. Daughter of the Covenant is what her name means, and she is actually doing a law of Moses ritual there after her cycle, you know, a purification ritual. That’s the moment. I mean, here from all appearances is a faithful woman trying to live her life faithfully in this moment. What do we see there?

Hank Smith:                      00:40:32             Oh, there’s so many places where you would hope something would come to his mind, a scripture story. Does David know the story of Joseph of Egypt, because that would have been a great moment for him to quote his Joseph of Egypt memorized scripture mastery verse, wouldn’t he? He very likely knows what he’s going to see in the evening up on top of the roof. He sees her. He could have walked away right then and thought, oh, I’m invading her privacy. I need to go back inside, but he keeps watching. Then send someone to inquire after her would’ve loved to have someone like a, you know, Naman’s friend who says, hold on a second, let’s think through this. So wouldn’t it have been great to have a friend who would say, wait, wait, what are you doing? I think there’s all sorts of times in this where you would hope he would stop and turn his brain back on and think for a moment and look down that road. For one thing, it’s hard to get teenagers to look further down the road, but David is an adult, he is a fully developed brain. What’s he thinking?

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:41:42             There are consequences to sin, even if we are never caught, those play out in our own lives and our own psyches and our own peace and our own confidence. So for any of us who are going downhill in a way that it takes effort to stop the downward momentum and it’s going to be painful, no, I can’t stop. It’ll hurt too much. If any of us are not strong enough today, then rather than saying, I’m going to pretend that everything’s fine and I don’t need to change, may we get on our knees and say, Heavenly Father, I’m not strong enough today. Give me the strength, change my heart, give me more courage so that I can learn the lesson that is to be learned here in these verses. Because watching David, who we have loved and who we’re going to, like, continue to love, no, David, don’t do it.

                                           00:42:35             It’s like we’re watching it from a distance and you can see it. And there’s that phrase, “He took her.” So it’s his volition, and then you see Nathan accusing him of that. It is painful. And then the chapter continues in ways that we’ve already detailed when he tries to cover his sin. We’ve talked about vain ambition and then that restoration scripture that I started to quote, but then we moved elsewhere or you exercise unrighteous dominion and you persecute others and he certainly ends up persecuting others to cover his sins, to gratify his pride and to exercise unrighteous dominion. Those restoration verses are really powerful in helping frame what’s going on here.

Hank Smith:                      00:43:18             John, correct me if I’m wrong, but earlier this year, Ross Baron taught us that Eliam here, Bathsheba’s father, is one of these 30 men, honorable men that David keeps as kind of a guard. According to 2 Samuel 23, there’s his name in verse 34. There’s another point where he should have stopped and thought, wait, what am I doing here? Eliam, he’s my friend. I have a bunch of teenage boys in my house, so I’m going to read together or listen to Elder Holland’s Place No More for the Enemy of my Soul. If it’s a perfect place to maybe go through this on your own or with your family, Elder Holland says in this talk, he says, “Why is lust such a deadly sin? Well, in addition to the completely spirit destroying impact it has on our souls, I think it is a sin because it defiles the highest and holiest relationship God gives us in mortality, love that a man and woman have for each other and that desire that couple has to bring children into a family intended to be forever.

                                           00:44:20             Someone once said that true love must include the idea of permanence. True love endures, but lust changes as quickly as it can turn a pornographic page or glance at yet another potential object for gratification walking by male or female. True love, we are absolutely giddy about, as I am about Sister Holland. We shout it from the housetops, but lust is characterized by shame and stealth, you see that here and is almost pathologically clandestine. The later and darker the hour the better, with a double bolted door just in case. Love makes us instinctively reach out to God and other people. Lust, on the other hand, is anything but godly and celebrates self-indulgence. Love comes with open hands and an open heart. Lust comes only with an open appetite.” I would go through this entire talk maybe with a Sunday school class or a seminary class. It fits really well with this story, I think.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:45:22             One of the things we didn’t mention that we could have mentioned when we’re reading those verses is this moment when David decides that Bathsheba is an object that he can look upon her as an object rather than seeing an eternal soul there. And by the way, that’s going to lead us towards the end we’ll talk about Solomon. Unfortunately, his downfall is connected to what the Bible describes as 800 wives and 200 concubines. Lots of wives and lots of concubines. It comes to a thousand. I think that’s an oddly even number. There’s some maybe hyperbole or just some rounding off of those numbers going on there. But Solomon’s sin may have been connected, there may have been lust connected to that. There may have been control connected to that, but more so he is still seeing women and these marriages. This is what Kings did. You make alliances with foreign powers through marriage.

                                           00:46:20             It turns marriage into a, I’m going to get this. This is, I’m going to gain this from this relationship. I don’t know how he treated his wives or his concubines. There’s just no way to know those things, but certainly he puts him into a space that is very different than what Elder Holland is describing about the giddiness that comes in a covenant relationship. I feel this when I feel the spirit in my covenant relationship with the Lord gives me incredible joy, my covenant relationship with my wife, with my children and we’re imperfect people and I’m sort of annoying sometimes, but ah, I feel this way about, because it’s not transactional. I’m married to an eternal being and I am so deeply blessed to be blessed by her and by my children day by day. That’s different than what Solomon is going to end up experiencing with these, this multitude of wives that he’s doing for foreign alliance reasons.

Hank Smith:                      00:47:21             This is also tragic, isn’t it? Just so sad.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:47:25             Let’s turn this a little bit brighter if we could. I wrote actually a chapter in Aaron Shade and Dan Belnap’s Old Testament. It’s their volume two that was just published just a few months ago. This is a bad form to read something that I wrote, but then I’ll say it better than I would if I just said it. So I’m going to read the final paragraph of this chapter that I wrote. David’s story is one that warns of sin but also that speaks of God’s willingness to use imperfect humans to do his work even more so when that imperfect vessel was devoted to God amid an ancient society that battled and regularly lost the battle against the temptation of polytheism. David’s life against much that was damaging, self-serving and prideful. And I’ve already referred to, we won’t go back to it again this towards the end of his life here he’s doing this census thing where he’s seeking to gratify his pride.

                                           00:48:16             Oops, then there’s a plague and he’s continuing to circle back to the same challenges. And so as sincere as his repentance is, he has a hard time actually changing this willfulness in his character. But David’s life also portrayed much that was faithful at times charmingly, exuberantly faithful in the face of great and grave challenges. David rose above his human nature so often in life, lifted there by his faith in the power of Jehovah. It is fitting that God should use this human as a type of the coming Messiah, a being whose complete devotion to God would also involve bearing the burden of human imperfection as he took upon himself the sins of all, including the sins of David, his mortal progenitor. Although the stark warning of David’s fall is crucial for its readers to understand the witness of God’s understanding of his flawed children and his mercy with them can still appropriately serve as the overarching theme of David’s life.

                                           00:49:14             David apparently continued to walk forward in very flawed ways at times, but what if he had just said, oh, my story’s over. I’m done. No, he continued to give it his shot to be a man of action and to move forward and God used him. God doesn’t wait for us to have perfect motives. We are all people of mixed motives and he can use us. Now, the more pure our motives are, the better it’s going to be for us and everyone around us. But he can use us in the meantime. Keep loving the Lord and walking forward. I’m talking to myself here. Keep loving the Lord and walking forward and try to seek after him and be more and more holy, but keep serving, keep moving forward and God will walk with you and use you for great good notwithstanding your imperfections. That’s the hope I think that all of us have.

Hank Smith:                      00:50:04             I think that’s well said. Your worst moment does not have to define you.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:50:08             It doesn’t. We highlight these fatal flaws, but do these really define who we are? Not when there’s a Savior, not when there is a being who has descended below it all to lift us and to heal us and to comfort us and to chastise us too and to help us if we will turn to him. To me, that’s the theme I want to end with as far as David goes. Yeah, I think you can tell I love him. The things he did are really painful. May we avoid each one of us those spaces in our lives to the best of our ability by seeking after the Lord.

Hank Smith:                      00:50:48             Oh, I love it. We live in a world of temptation. These stories can serve as wonderful warnings without us coming down on David in a way that can create shame for anybody hearing the lesson. Good job, Shon. That’s a difficult thing to do.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:51:04             Well, I appreciate navigating this with the two of you. It’s heavy at times.

John Bytheway:               00:51:09             President Hinckley was speaking about the honor code at BYU once. This is in 1992. He said, “I think I can hear a student, perhaps a number of them saying to a bishop, why do we have to sign these codes? Don’t they trust us? I’m reminded of what I heard from a man, a great, strong, and wise man who served in the presidency of this church years ago. His daughter was going out on a date and her father said to her, be careful, be careful how you act and what you say. She replied, daddy, don’t you trust me?” Now, here is the best response I have ever heard to that question that President Hinckley is relating about this man, I think it was President J. Reuben Clark. “He responded, I don’t entirely trust myself. One never gets too old nor too high in the church that the adversary gives up on him.”

                                           00:52:04             For those that struggle, Satan does not play fair. He first tempts you to do it and then he beats you up if you do and makes you feel so low and terrible. He doesn’t play fair at all. When Hank read those verses, I think of all the times, who is that? Could have stopped right there. Could have stopped when he saw her. Go in the house, sing a hymn. Brad Wilcox says, “No, not there is beauty all around, something else.” But then there’s another step. We’ll go inquire after her. You can kind of see this slowly leaving your stronghold type of a thing. But that idea from President Hinckley, not from a bishop, not from a stake president, from somebody in the First Presidency who said, “I don’t entirely trust myself, one never gets too old or too high in the church that the adversary gives up on him.” I love the humility and the honesty in that statement right there.

                                           00:53:05             If you’re listening and you’re struggling with this, keep fighting every day, follow him. Keep coming back to him. What’s the old story about the grandfather told a son, I’ve got two wolves fighting inside of me and the good and evil and the grandson says which one wins? And he says, the one that I feed. Make progress. Keep trying. I think all of us ache for each other when we know how we are all fighting our own battles. Maybe not on this topic, but we’ve got, we’ve got an ally. And I love what you said, Shon, that after this, David kept trying and did some good things and so can you. Keep, just keep going and let the Lord keep using you and maybe that other wolf will get stronger.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:53:51             You do not wait until you’re perfect before you become a man or a woman of action. And yes, sorrow for our sins and walk it forward. Joab does David a real service. When he has conquered the ammonite stronghold, he calls David and says, you’ve got to come and be the one to take it. It pulls David back into the storyline and reinitiates his place, I am moving forward with my life. It’s his friend that helps him do that, and sometimes we need friends to help us get back up, move forward. Your sins don’t define you in a universe that has a savior. Trust and walk forward and keep doing all the good you can and God will turn the sins that you turn over to him into these threads woven through your tapestry that give you strength and wisdom and nobility. You would rather never have them and yet if you turn them over to Christ, he will use them to teach you lessons that will give you incredible wisdom. And he will take your flaws and your weaknesses and make them into these beautiful things that can actually help change the world. Don’t wait until you’ve got it all figured out. Keep walking forward.

Hank Smith:                      00:55:09             Yeah. There’s a point where it says, “The Lord sent Nathan unto David.” This story could be even different right there if it could say David went to Nathan. And we all have priesthood leaders that we can go to and mentors that we can go to and say, I need help. I need a friend like that. You both think like Joseph Smith. He said, “God does not look on sin with allowance. But when men have sinned, there must be allowance made for them. The nearer we get to our Heavenly Father, the more we are disposed to look with compassion on perishing souls, to take them on our shoulders and cast their sins behind our back. If you would have God have mercy on you, have mercy on one another.”

John Bytheway:               00:55:54             Beautiful. And if you’re a young person, man, boy, you’ve got help. Go, go to the bishop, get a blessing. Both of you face this together. Both of you fight it together and have an accountability partner, they call it sometimes. That’s what we’re supposed to do. We’re going to help each other and we’ve got an ally in the Lord.

Hank Smith:                      00:56:16             Shon, thanks for letting us take time on that. I think it’s relevant and helpful and we hope that everyone will leave with hope. Warning, yes, but also hope for the future. Shon, what are we going to do next?

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:56:27             1 Kings chapter three. We now have a young King Solomon who is coming into his kingly role and is terrified that he is going to do it poorly. And I really appreciate how the prayer that he gives where he talks about what he needs and what he’s desiring from the Lord. Let’s pause and read a couple of verses from 1 Kings chapter three. And John and Hank, if you’d be willing to read again. John, why don’t you do verses seven and eight and then Hank, why don’t you do verse nine?

John Bytheway:               00:57:12             And now, oh Lord, my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of David, my father. And I am but a little child. I know not how to go out or come in. And thy servant is in the midst of thy people which thou hast chosen, a great people that cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude.

Hank Smith:                      00:57:33             Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people that I may discern between good and bad, for who is able to judge this so great a people.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             00:57:44             And then God is going to be pleased with that and he’s going to say, because you asked for this and not for riches or power, you might say, I’m going to grant you an understanding heart, then you’ll be blessed with the other things. And along the lines of Jacob 2, our Book of Mormon scripture that says, seek ye not, seek ye first for the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you. Well, a couple of quick Hebrew insights here. I know not how to go out or come in. This is tzeit v’lavo. That’s a Hebrew idiom for leadership, specifically military and civic administration. I don’t know how to go out or come in before the people. The ability to lead people in a way that they trust the leader and desire to follow the leader and then to bring them safely back home from battle.

                                           00:58:36             Go out with courage and with trust and then come home safely. And then this, give me an understanding heart. This is actually a Lev Shomeah, a hearing heart, a heart that hears. If we think of President Nelson’s encouragement to hear him and the power of being heard by our leaders, a leader who listens, but then also a leader who can listen to what the Lord is saying. You see then Solomon doing this throughout the rest of the chapter and there’s this famous story where he’s judging between two women who have brought, there’s a child and the other child is dead and he listens to them. He discerns, with a discerning heart and then it seems clear to me anyway, that the Lord gives him insight. He’s trying to hear, how do I move forward? I’ve been in situations at times that feel very thorny in a leadership kind of way, where there’s conflict, where it’s hard to know how best to resolve issues.

                                           00:59:45             It’s so tiring to be in a situation where you don’t know how to move forward and it just sort of roils and continues. There have been times when I think, oh, that’s the right thing to say. That’s the right thing to do. That’s the right way to move. And I almost sense how to walk forward. And all of a sudden I have energy again. The Lord gives me a way forward. It takes listening and listening is hard. Listening takes energy. And if you’re listening to competing voices but really trying to honor the goodness in those and understanding heart, a listening heart, a hearing heart to hear others, then okay, Lord, I’ve heard, I’ve listened, I haven’t just tried to dominate or put my will forward. Now, how do I walk forward? And you see, I believe, Solomon getting that it’s almost like it’s clever but it’s wise, it’s brilliant.

                                           01:00:41             It helps him know how to walk forward in a way to untie the thorny knot. And I think we see this at times where there are these thorny challenges. The correct solution is there, but you’ve got to find it. And then when someone finds it, you’re in awe. And then so quickly it just becomes, oh, well, that’s an obvious solution, but it wasn’t obvious. An understanding heart, a listening heart. Oh, may God give us an understanding heart. And it doesn’t need to be formal leadership. It is in all of our interactions as we’re listening to someone to actually listen and then what can I say? What can I do here? Or maybe I don’t say anything that is exactly what this situation needs and calls for. How can I give the balm of Gilead? How can I give some wisdom here that isn’t aggressive or doesn’t take away agency but that honors agency?

                                           01:01:34             We can do so much good if we plead for and allow the Lord and then listen to him to give us wisdom, how we move forward in our relationships with each other. So I love seeing Solomon’s tender good heart. Please help me know I’m such an idiot. I don’t know how. Back to my story of wearing the suit with the big flap open in the back, you know? I did not know how to go in or come out before the people clearly. The Lord blessed Solomon beyond his ability. He has power to bless us beyond our abilities. I testify of that.

Hank Smith:                      01:02:11             Isn’t it interesting in our church, both of you, that we take these wonderful, ordinary men and women and we throw them into leadership and you can see almost everybody who gets a calling, a Relief Society President or Bishop it’s I have no idea how to do this. It reminds me a little bit of Mosiah 26. Do you remember this moment where Alma the Elder, has to make some difficult decisions? It says, this is Alma 26:13. The spirit of Alma was troubled. He went and he inquired of the Lord what he should do concerning this matter, for he feared that he should do wrong in the sight of God. I just, I love the way the church is organized that, you know, I don’t like it when it happens to me, but I love watching it in other people where we take our neighbor here and we’re going to put him in charge or her in charge for the next couple of years and you watch people grow in wisdom. It’s really a beautiful thing, I think.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             01:03:09             Hank, you know, you and I have been in situations in our department that are challenging and thorny and trying to figure out how to move forward and all of us together seeking wisdom. It is beautiful to see those moments when the Lord just says, here’s what we’re going to do. Here’s how we walk forward. We have a new stake president in my home stake well, new about a year ago. I loved the previous stake president. This new stake president, he was 37 when he was called and to watch the Lord pour out his spirit upon him and him lead with energy and enthusiasm with the talents that God has given him, it’s so fun to watch this. I mean, I’m 52 now, so this young man, 15 years younger than I am, lead with wisdom and power. It’s really beautiful to see God works things. For those of us who are, are willing to say, please give me an understanding heart. Give me wisdom. Help me to know how to go out and come in before the people.

John Bytheway:               01:04:11             We all remember that Moses said, I’m slow of speech. We all remember that Enoch said, I’m but a lad and all the people hate me. And here’s Solomon, verse seven, “I am but a little child.” As you taught us what it means to go out or come in. And then this question, who is able to judge this thy so great a people? I love the difference between willing and able, and the Lord requires the heart and a willing mind, but Jesus is able and God is able and he’ll help you. Who is able? God is. He’ll inspire you. Part of getting that inspiration is that kind of humility that you know you need it. But I’ve never done this calling before. How am I supposed to do this? Good, that’s perfect. Can you ever imagine anybody receiving a calling and getting up, yeah, I’m totally qualified for this. I think I’m the right person. Glad they called me. I hope they’d get that inspiration. I was just waiting, you know, you’d never see that.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             01:05:06             Did, you did in a previous podcast talked about this moment with Moses where he’s like, I can’t do this. My mouth, I’m of stammering lips. And I sort of like the way they do it in Prince of Egypt where God just gets a little bit feisty with him. Who made your mouth? Didn’t I make your mouth? Now go. Like, what are you talking about? Your lips don’t work. I made your lips. Like I can make this work out. Trust in me, but you got to move. You got to move forward. And there is, by the way, a space in Jerusalem. Just to the north of Jerusalem is a hill called Nabi Samuel, which is the traditional burial place of the prophet Samuel. But just below there is Gibeon, is biblical Gibeon. We think that’s the correct place where Solomon is doing these sacrifices where the Lord appears to this humble young man.

                                           01:05:59             It might actually be on that what is a taller hill of Nabi Samuel. Some speculate that, no, that’s the higher place and he would’ve gone up there, but he leaves Jerusalem. That’s where the ark is at that point, so that’s the Holy Space. So he goes up there, the temple hasn’t been built yet to worship and to offer sacrifice and the Lord apears to him. And I just want to bear my witness that God speaks to his children today and that he is willing to make himself known to us when we come to him in holiness of heart, humility of heart, most importantly. And he does it in his own way and in his own time, whatever’s appropriate for the time and the need. God lives and God speaks and that is the Latter-day Saint message that I hope will reverberate throughout the world. There is a God who lives and there is a God who speaks still today as he spoke to Solomon.

Hank Smith:                      01:06:55             Coming up in part two.

Dr. Shon Hopkin:             01:06:57             Let’s go even further than that. We use other human beings in the place of God like a king. Oh, when I get married then I will know that I have value. We persecute like roommates or, you know, my parents are supposed to fill this hole in my soul. And if they don’t do it perfectly, then they’re to blame. And the reality is there’s only one king who will fill our soul.