Timestamps:
00:29 – Three grand keys on the nature of ministering angels and spirits.
02:04 – Joseph Smith offers corrections to Elder Hyde’s sermon clarifying, in part, that God has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s. Heavenly Father’s physical nature has been lost in traditional Christianity.
07:55 – God resides on a globe like a sea of glass and fire.
09:20 – Joseph asks the Lord about the timing of the Second Coming.
10:36 – Truth learned in mortality will rise with us in the resurrection. Blessings are predicated upon obedience to law.
12:55 – Section 130 is preparing the Saints for truths that are revealed in the temple.
13:49 – The crowning blessing of the gospel is to seal families for eternity. There are two requirements for making marriage eternal.
18:42 – Elder Howard’s story of the silver as it relates to eternal marriage. If you want something to last forever, you treat it differently.
24:27 – 1st Scenario: If we choose to neither be married nor given in marriage in the eternities, we will remain separately and singly without exaltation. The compensatory grace of Jesus Christ will make this blessing available to all who were deprived of it through no blame of their own.
28:34 – 2nd Scenario: If our marriage is not sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise then it is not valid neither of force when we are out of the world.
30:12 – 3rd Scenario: If we marry in the temple and strive to keep the covenant, we shall inherit the highest degree of the celestial kingdom and have continued increase. We shall be as God is and participate in His divine nature. The covenant allows for mistakes, repentance, and forgiveness.
37:10 – Section 132 addresses plural marriage. The practice of plural marriage contributes to Joseph’s martyrdom in 1844.
39:01 – Plural marriage can be compared to Abraham’s test.
41:25 – Plural marriage was practiced by the Patriarchs in Genesis.
43:09 – The historical background of Section 132.
45:47 – The RLDS Church (now The Community of Christ) had two main issues with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the 1800’s: They contended that the President of the Church should be a direct descendant of Joseph Smith and that plural marriage was never taught by Joseph Smith. This letter to Emma (D&C 132) was effectively used by Brigham Young as a polemic against the RLDS movement.
47:04 – The Temple Lot Case was a property dispute where women testified under oath that they were married to the prophet Joseph Smith. These legal proceedings provide a wealth of information about plural marriage in the Nauvoo Era.
48:57 – Plural marriage is not a requirement for exaltation. Marriage of one man and one woman is the Lord’s standing law of marriage.
51:49 – In D&C 132 the Lord gives several reasons why plural marriage was commanded.
54:01 – Baruch Spinoza’s advice in our quest to understand the past.
54:52 – Joseph Smith wrestled with plural marriage as early as 1830 or 1831 as he worked on his translation of the Bible. The details of his marriage to Fanny Alger during the Kirtland Era.
59:56 – During the Nauvoo Era Joseph taught several close friends about plural marriage. Estimates are given of how many members lived this law.
1:01:56 – The Saints during this time thought differently about temple sealings than we do today. They believed that the law of adoption and dynastic ties increased their glory.
1:07:53 – Wilford Woodruff saw that adoption theology wasn’t right and he worked to bring the Church into a greater understanding of what it means to seal families for eternity.
1:08:46 – There were 3 types of plural marriage: time, time and eternity, and adoptive/dynastic/eternal only. Some examples of Joseph’s dynastic marriages include Elizabeth Rollins Lightner and Helen Marr Kimball.
1:15:28 – A timeline of how long plural marriage was practiced. The Reed Smoot Hearings.
1:17:45 – None of Joseph Smith’s plural wives ever accused him of abuse or deception. Despite the difficulty of understanding plural marriage, we testify that Joseph was a prophet.
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You both have helped my husband and I so much. We have listened to you for 2 years. Mike and Bryce, you have made Come Follow Me Come alive with so much background information.
You both are the best teachers we have ever had. Thank you for all you do! We pray that you both are truly blessed for sharing such important information.
Thanks for this great lesson. I loved how you discussed section 132 and how you both aren’t afraid to broach all the hard topics. The law of adoption was something one to me and really increased my understanding of a lot of what was occurring then.
Quick question. Any guesses/thoughts on verse 50? I love Christ acknowledging that He had seen all of Joseph’s struggles and active with this commandment. What do you think the “escape” he has prepared for him was? Emma certainly didn’t come around to adoring plural marriage. And the command wasn’t rescinded. Was death his escape from this difficulty then!? I know we don’t know. But it’s certainly interesting!
The “escape” may be related to the previous verse. His promised exaltation is one possibility. Joseph Fielding McConkie and Craig Ostler provide another possibility. They write:
“Early in the spring of 1844, the Prophet was apprised by two young men, Denison L. Harris and Robert Scott, the latter living in the family of William Law, of a secret movement then on foot to take his life, and the lives of several other leading men of the church; among them the Prophet’s brother, Hyrum. These young men were invited to the secret meetings by the conspirators, but before going conferred with the Prophet, who told them to go, but to take no part in the proceedings of these wicked men against himself. They carried out his instructions, and at the risk of their lives attended the secret meetings three times, and brought to President Smith a report of what they had witnessed— the hatching of plots to take the life of the Prophet and his brother Hyrum” (Roberts, Comprehensive History of the Church, 2:223-24). See: Revelations of the Restoration, p. 1075.