-Home Teaching vs Ministering-
-Duty vs Love-
“The Savior’s ministry exemplifies the two great commandments: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” and “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:37, 39). In that spirit, Jesus also taught, “Ye are they whom I have chosen to minister unto this people” (3 Nephi 13:25)… The separate programs of home teaching and visiting teaching are now a coordinated effort referred to as “ministering,” overseen by the elders quorum and Relief Society presidencies under the direction of the bishop. Ministering is Christlike caring for others and helping meet their spiritual and temporal needs.” The First Presidency April 2, 2018. Russell M. Nelson, Dallin H. Oaks, Henry B. Eyring.
“Brothers and sisters, as the work of quorums and auxiliaries matures institutionally, it follows that we should mature personally as well—individually rising above any mechanical, function-without-feeling routine to the heartfelt discipleship articulated by the Savior at the conclusion of His earthly ministry. As He prepared to leave His still-innocent and somewhat-confused little band of followers, He did not list a dozen administrative steps they had to take or hand them a fistful of reports to be filled out in triplicate. No, He summarized their task in one fundamental commandment: “Love one another; as I have loved you. … By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another… The primary purpose in this ministering idea will be, as was said of the people in Alma’s day, to “watch over their people, and … nourish them with things pertaining to righteousness… I should stress that this expansive new view does not include the sorry statement I recently saw on an automobile bumper sticker. It read, “If I honk, you’ve been home taught.” Please, please, brethren (the sisters would never be guilty of that—I speak to the brethren of the Church), with these adjustments we want more care and concern, not less.” Jeffrey R. Holland April 2018
How are we living? Are we striving to live the Higher Law?
Higher Law vs. Lower Law
Consecration vs Tithing
Celestial Marriage vs. Temporal Marriage
Spirit of the Law vs Letter of the Law
Ministering vs Home Teaching
Law of the Gospel vs Law of Moses
Love vs Duty
Priesthood Ministering- TEND TO, CARE FOR, TAKE CARE OF, LOOK AFTER, NURSE, TREAT, ATTEND TO, SEE TO, ADMINISTER TO, HELP, ASSIST AND MORE
The Savior Jesus Christ came to earth to minister to others, spending His days in their service and giving His life for their salvation. Matthew 20:27-28 “And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
What would the Savior do if He was in your Ward? (Minister)
3 Nephi 19:2, 7-8 “And it was noised abroad among the people immediately, before it was yet dark, that the multitude had seen Jesus, and that he had ministered unto them, and that he would also show himself on the morrow unto the multitude. And the disciples did pray unto the Father also in the name of Jesus. And it came to pass that they arose and ministered unto the people. And when they had ministered those same words which Jesus had spoken—nothing varying from the words which Jesus had spoken—behold, they knelt again and prayed to the Father in the name of Jesus.”
Moroni 7:22 “For behold, God knowing all things, being from everlasting to everlasting, behold, he sent angels to minister unto the children of men, to make manifest concerning the coming of Christ; and in Christ there should come every good thing.”
I believe ministering requires a passion. What was the Savior’s passion? (Moses 1:39) We are blessed with the Priesthood and the Gospel, but do we have a PASSION for MINISTERING? Is it Duty or Love? What is your passion? School, cars, dolls, computers, vacations, service, writing? Why are these your passions and how can you make MINISTERING your passion? With the Spirit of the Lord in our hearts, WE WILL BECOME PASSIONATE especially about MINISTERING. They go hand in hand.
My passion is Lamanites, The Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith! I want to minister to them, for them and about them. I am trying to develop this same passion into being a better person.
My parents both served missions in 1951 to the Lamanites, Hopi, Navajo, Apache, and Isleta tribes of Arizona and New Mexico. I served a mission in Fiji among the Polynesian Lamanites. My son served the Lamanites in Alaska. I have a great love for the Lamanites and feel it is my Duty, I mean Love, to share the Gospel with them. Again this Passion requires love, not duty.
How many of you know about Zelph? Or Onandagus? Did you know Onandagus was a Book of Mormon Prophet? I only recognized this story about 7 years ago, and it has added to my testimony of service to the Lamanites. I know Zelph lived and was a great warrior serving the Nephites against all evil. I know Onandagus was a book of Mormon Prophet as Wilford Woodruff described below:
“During our travels we visited many mounds thrown up by the ancient inhabitants, the Nephites and Lamanites. This morning, June 3rd, we went on to a high mound near the river. From the summit we could overlook the tops of the trees as far as we could see. The scenery was truly beautiful. On the summit of {41}the mound were stones which presented the appearance of three altars, they having been erected, one above the other, according to the ancient order of things. Human bones were seen upon the ground. Brother Joseph requested us to dig into the mound; we did so; and in about one foot we came to the skeleton of a man, almost entire, with an arrow sticking in his backbone. Elder Milton Holmes picked it out, and brought it into the Camp, with one of the leg bones, which had been broken. I brought the thigh bone to Missouri. I desired to bury it in the Temple Block in Jackson County; but not having this privilege, I buried it in Clay County, Missouri, near the house owned by Col. Arthur and occupied by Lyman Wight.”
“The arrowhead referred to is now in the possession of President Joseph F. Smith, Salt Lake City, Utah. “Brother Joseph,” continues Wilford, “feeling anxious to learn something of this man, asked the Lord, and received an open vision. The man’s name was Zelph. He was a white Lamanite, the curse having been removed because of his righteousness. He was a great warrior, and fought for the Nephites under the direction of the Prophet Onandagus. The latter had charge of the Nephite armies from the Eastern sea to the Rocky Mountains. Although the Book of Mormon does not mention Onandagus, he was a great warrior, leader, general, and prophet. Zelph had his thigh bone broken by a stone thrown from a sling, but was killed by the arrow found sticking in his backbone. There was a great slaughter at that time. The bodies were heaped upon the earth, and buried in the mound, which is nearly three hundred feet in height.” Wilford Woodruff History of his Life and Labors as Recorded in his Daily Journals by Matthias F. Cowley Release Date December 19, 2014 [EBook #47703]
This knowledge of Zelph and Onandagus has inspired me with a new passion of love to share with others this amazing yet seldom told story. You can read more about it in the Joseph Smith Papers Here.
Thomas Mayhew Patriarch to the Indians 1593-1682
I am a direct descendant of Governor Thomas Mayhew, the Elder (March 31, 1593 – March 25, 1682) through my father’s mother. Mayhew established the first English settlement of Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket and adjacent islands in 1642. He is one of the editors of the Bay Psalm Book, the first book published in British North America. His assistant Peter Foulger was the grandfather of Benjamin Franklin.
The Mayhews had great success in regard to Indian policy. Because of the fair treatment of the Indians there, the colony was protected from the bloodshed that occurred elsewhere, in King Philip’s War. In 1646, the General Court of Massachusetts directed the religious leaders of the colony to select two among them to serve as missionaries to the natives. Three prominent names appear. They are: John Eliot (known as the Apostle to the Indians); Thomas Mayhew (Patriarch to the Indians); and Eleazar Wheelock, who established “Doctor Wheelock’s Academy for the promotion of Christianity and civility among the savage Indians of this continent” (now known as Dartmouth College).
There is a stained glass window in the baptismal font in the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. depicting Rev. Thomas Mayhew Jr. baptizing an Indian named Hiacoomes. Experience Mayhew (1673-1758) was a New England missionary to the Wampanoag Indians on Martha’s Vineyard and adjacent islands. He is the author of Massachusett Psalter (a rare book like Bay Psalm Book and Eliot Indian Bible). He married Thankful, daughter of Thomas Hinckley, Governor of Plymouth Colony. This heritage has rubbed off on me and instilled a Passion, not a Duty to Love the Indians and serve them and teach them. Wow what a passion I have for these wonderful ancestors. I am sure each of you can find a deep passion of love to overtake that feeling of duty we ofttimes feel.
SIGNERS OF THE BOOK OF THE LORD’S COMMANDMENTS
Joseph Smith needed someone to step up and testify of his revelations. Eleven men had testified earlier to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. All 11 had seen the plates. Three had seen an angel, handled the plates and heard the voice of God. But in November of 1831 there was a new need for boldness. Who would put their names and reputations on the line? Who would stand up and let the world know that they knew that a collection of Joseph’s revelations, the Book of Commandments, was true? For 178 years the names of these testifiers were unknown. Their names were erased from memory. Now, with the publication of the latest volume of the Joseph Smith Papers: “Revelations and Translations: Manuscript Revelation Books,” their names are made known to the world. I am thankfully related directly to one of those signers, Peter Dustin through by mother’s mother. Because of this, my LOVE not Duty give me the passion to represent Peter Dustin as he bore his witness of Joseph’s divine revelations.
In my opinion the desire and faith necessary to testify about Joseph’s Revelations was possibly more difficult than seeing an angel and the plates. The signers of the Book of Commandments had to have a solid faith in the Lord to feel the Spirit and absolutely know these Revelations were not of Joseph, but of the Lord himself. They based their witness of things they could not see. That is similar for us today. We haven’t seen the plates, but we have felt the Spirit and that Spirit has borne witness to us of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. Even some of the Apostles thought they could write Revelations on their own in similar words that the Savior used. they failed miserably. See D&C 67:4-9
Below is the testimony that was signed by these faithful brethren.
“The testimony of the witnesses to the Book of the Lord’s Commandments, which he gave to his church through Joseph Smith, Jr., who was appointed by the voice of the church for this purpose.
We, the undersigners, feel willing to bear testimony to all the world of mankind, to every creature upon the face of all the Earth and upon the islands of the sea, that God hath borne record to our souls, through the Holy Ghost shed forth upon us, that these commandments are given by inspiration of God and are profitable for all men and are verily true. We give this testimony unto the world, the Lord being our helper; And it is through the grace of God, the Father, and his son, Jesus Christ, that we are permitted to have this privilege of bearing this testimony unto the world, in the which we rejoice exceedingly, praying the Lord always, that the children of men may be profited thereby. Amen.”
Signers and Witnesses of the Book of Commandments below:
Sidney Rigdon
Orson Hyde
Wm. E. McLellin
Luke Johnson
Lyman Johnson
Reynolds Cahoon
John Corrill
Parley Pratt
Harvey Whitlock
Lyman Wight
John Murdock
Calvin Beebe
Zebedee Coltrin
Joshua Fairchild
Peter Dustin My 2nd Cousin 2 times removed.
Newel Knight
Levi Hancock; never to be erased
Thomas B. Marsh
Deseret News Article Here
This article below was shared with me by a good friend named Ron Mann. Four of the five books written by William George Jordan were quoted in the Improvement Era at the request of the Prophet Joseph F. Smith. He had been introduced to them when he was in New York City. In fact he borrowed the Kingship of Self-Control from the person he was visiting and read it seven times that night. It was after that he had the four books printed in the Improvement Era. This article gives amazing insight to the Duty, vs Love idea. It all comes down to our own Self-Control, and what spirit is guiding us.
Heber J. Grant, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints said it best in a letter to WGJ about one of his books, the Power of Truth, when he wrote: “I know of no book of the same size that has made a more profound impression upon my mind, and whose teachings I consider of greater value.” Article here
About Ron Mann Here: Now, I want you to think about this. Ron worked directly for the leadership of both Houses of Congress. He worked directly for the President of the United States. He worked directly for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He worked directly for the President of the one of the largest corporations in America. And he worked directly for the President of the LDS Church. I bet no one in this room can think of another person who can claim what I’ve just described about Ron Mann.
By William George Jordan as printed in the The Improvement Era, Volume 11, page 751 January 1, 1908 Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association
Duty is the most over-lauded word in the whole vocabulary of life. Duty is the cold, bare anatomy of righteousness. Duty looks at life as a debt to be paid; love sees life as a debt to be collected. Duty is ever paying assessments; love is constantly counting its premiums.
Duty is forced, like a pump; love is spontaneous, like a fountain. Duty is prescribed and formal; it is part of the red tape of life. It means running on moral rails. It is good enough as a beginning; it is poor as a finality.
The boy who “stood on the burning deck,” and who committed suicide on a technical point of obedience, has been held up to the school children of this century as a model of faithfulness to duty. The boy was the victim of the blind adherence to the red tape of duty. He was placing the whole responsibility for his acts on some one outside himself. He was helplessly waiting for instruction in- the hour of emergency when he should have acted for himself. His act was an empty sacrifice. It was a useless throwing away of a human life. It did no good to the father, to the boy, to the ship or to the nation.
The captain who goes down with his sinking vessel, when he has done everything in his power to save others, and when he can save his own life without dishonor, is the victim of a false sense of duty. He is cruelly forgetful of the loved ones on shore that he is sacrificing. His death means a spectacular exit from life, the cowardly fear of an investigating committee, or a brave man’s loyal, yet misguided, sense of duty. A human life, with its wondrous possibilities, is two sacred an individual trust to be thus lightly thrown into eternity.
They tell us of the “sublime nobleness” of the Roman soldier of Pompeii, whose skeleton was found centuries afterward, imbedded in the once molten lava which swept down upon the doomed city. He was still standing at one of the gates at his post of duty still grasping a sword in his crumbling fingers. His was a morbid faithfulness to discipline from which a great convulsion of Nature released him. An automaton would have stood there just as long, just as boldly, just as uselessly.
The man who gives one hour of his life to loving, consecrated service to humanity is doing higher, better, truer work in the world than an army of Roman sentinels paying useless tribute to the red tape of duty. There is in this interpretation of duty no sympathy with the man who deserts his post when needed; it is but a protest against losing the essence, the realness of true duty in worshiping the mere form.
Analyze, if you will, any of the great historic instances of loyalty to duty, and whenever they ring true you will find the presence of the real element that made the act almost divine. It was duty,—plus love. It was no mere sense of duty that made Grace Darling risk her life in the awful storm of sixty years ago, when she set out in the darkness of night, on a raging sea, to rescue the survivors of the wreck of The Forfarshire. It was the sense of duty, warmed and vivified by a love of humanity, it was heroic courage of a heart filled with divine pity and sympathy.
Duty is a hard, mechanical process for making men do things that love would make easy. It is a poor understudy to love. It is not a high enough motive with which to inspire humanity. Duty is the body to which love is the soul. Love, in the divine alchemy of life, transmutes all duties into privileges all responsibilities into joys.
The workman who drops his tools at the stroke of twelve, as suddenly as if he had been struck by lightning, may be doing his duty,—but he is doing nothing more. No man has made a great success of his life or a fit preparation for immortality by doing merely his duty. He must do that—and more. If he puts love into his work, the “more” will beeasy.
The nurse may watch faithfully at the bedside of a sick child as a duty. But to the mother’s heart the care of the little one, in the battle against death, is never a duty; the golden mantle of love thrown over every act makes the word “duty” have a jarring sound, as if it were the voice of desecration.
When a child turns out badly in later years, the parent may say, “Well, I always did my duty by him.” Then it is no wonder the boy turned out wrong. “Doing his duty by his son,” too often implies merely food, lodging, clothes and education supplied by the father. Why a public institution would give that! What the boy needed most was deep draughts of love; he needed to live in an atmosphere of sweet sympathy, counsel and trust. The parent should ever be an unfailing refuge, a constant resource and inspiration, not a mere larder or hotel, or wardrobe or school that furnishes these necessities free. The empty boast of mere parental duty is one of the dangers of modern society.
Christianity stands forth as the one religion based on love, not duty. Christianity sweeps all duties into one word,—love. Love is the one great duty enjoined by the Christian religion. What duty creeps to laboriously, love reaches in a moment on the wings of a dove. Duty is not lost, condemned or destroyed in Christianity; it is dignified, purified and exalted, and all its rough ways are made smooth by love.
The supreme instance of generosity in the world’s history is not the giving of millions by some one of great name; it is the giving of a mite by a widow whose name does not appear. Behind the widow’s mite was no sense of duty; it was the full, free and perfect gift of a heart filled with love. In the Bible “duty” is mentioned but five times; “love” hundreds.
In the conquest of any weakness in our mental or moral makeup; in the attainment of any strength; in our highest and truest relation to ourselves and to the world, let us ever make “love” our watchword; not mere “duty.”
If we desire to live a life of truth and honesty, to make our word as true as our bond, let us not expect to keep ourselves along the narrow line of truth under the constant lash of the whip of duty. Let us begin to love the truth, to fill our mind and life with the strong white light of sincerity and sterling honesty. Let us love the truth so strongly that there will develop within us, without our conscious effort, an ever-present horror of a lie.
If we desire to do good in the world, let us begin to love humanity, to realize more truly the great dominant note that sounds in every mortal, despite all the discords of life, the great natural bond of unity that makes all men brothers. Then jealousy, malice, envy, unkind words and cruel misjudging will be eclipsed and lost in the sunshine of love. The greatest triumph of the nineteenth century, is not its marvelous progress in invention; its strides in education; its conquests of the dark regions of the world: the spread of a higher mental tone throughout the earth; the wondrous increase in material comfort and wealth,-—the greatest triumph of the century is not any nor all of these; it is the sweet atmosphere of Peace that is covering the nations; it is the growing closer and closer of the peoples of the earth. Peace is but the breath, the perfume, the life of love. Love is the wondrous angel of life that rolls away all the stones of sorrow and suffering from the pathway.” Read more from William George Jordan here.
William George Jordan 1864-1928 was an editor for The Ladies Home Journal, after which he edited The Saturday Evening Post (1888–89). From 1899 to 1905 he was the editor and vice-president of Continental Publishing Company. He was the editor of the publication Search-Light between 1905 and 1906.
The Lord speaking of a Bishop who has a duty to serve but more importantly, “he shall be set apart unto this ministry” D&C 107:74. Again Love as a minister is more important than duty.
As a full time missionary I was set apart as a minister of the Gospel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After accepting my call I now had a duty to serve. However, my love and passion to serve is far more important than duty only.
