The following are the copious notes/outline I prepared for a talk i recently gave. It is long (i had way too much material) but if you start reading it, i would encourage you to read all of it :)
When I was given this assignment I was told that the focus of stake conference was the basic principles of the gospel. I wondered how the topic “Women’s Roles and the Priesthood” fit into that. I have come to believe that these are some of the most basic ideas of the gospel and of Heavenly Father’s Plan of Happiness, because without these Heavenly Father’s plan would literally fail.
As I was preparing this lesson, I found myself praying for the mothers of my future daughters-in-law, and my future daughters-in-law. That they would be inspired to teach and learn about these principles. I would like to share four of the main ideas that i felt would be important for them.
1. Have the desire to understand the priesthood. Understand that while only men are ordained to offices in the Priesthood, and only a few men hold priesthood keys, all of God’s children who serve in his kingdom are given/use priesthood authority, and all men women and children have access to God’s power in their personal lives.
- Priesthood: the power of God delegated to man by which man can act in the earth for the salvation of the human family. Men are not the priesthood, men are priesthood holders (Joseph F. Smith)
- “Priesthood keys are the authority God has given to priesthood [holders] to direct, control, and govern the use of His priesthood on earth.”4 (Dallin. H. Oaks- church handbook)
- Elder M. Russell Ballard has explained, “Those who have priesthood keys … literally make it possible for all who serve faithfully under their direction to exercise priesthood authority and have access to priesthood power.”5
- A simple explanation of priesthood keys is found in the May 2012 New Era: [Priesthood] keys unlock the door to the power of God. With a set of keys, you can do a lot of things that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to do—enter buildings, drive cars, and open trunks, among other things. Keys, basically, mean authority and access. “The same is true of priesthood keys. They control access to the blessings and ordinances of the priesthood.... Priesthood keys are the right to preside over and direct the Church.... Keys usually apply to a geographic area, like a ward, stake, or mission. They also usually include authority over specific ordinances and activities (for instance, baptism, the sacrament, missionary work, and temple work)
- Jesus Christ holds all the keys, the prophet may use the keys, but not change how they are administered.
- Priesthood authority: Whoever functions in an office or calling received from one who holds priesthood keys exercises priesthood authority in performing her or his assigned duties. (Dallin H. Oaks)
- Joseph Fielding Smith, then President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, said this: “While the sisters have not been given the Priesthood, it has not been conferred upon them, that does not mean that the Lord has not given unto them authority. … A person may have authority given to him, or a sister to her, to do certain things in the Church that are binding and absolutely necessary for our salvation, such as the work that our sisters do in the House of the Lord. They have authority given unto them to do some great and wonderful things, sacred unto the Lord, and binding just as thoroughly as are the blessings that are given by the men who hold the Priesthood.”7
- Priesthood Power and Blessings: D&C 109:21 And when thy people transgress, any of them, they may speedily repent and return unto thee, and find favor in thy sight, and be restored to the blessings which thou hast ordained to be poured out upon those who shall reverence thee in thy house. 22 And we ask thee, Holy Father, that thy servants may go forth from this house armed with thy power, and that thy name may be upon them, and thy glory be round about them, and thine angels have charge over them;
- The blessings of the priesthood are available to women and to men on the same terms. The gift of the Holy Ghost and the blessings of the temple are familiar illustrations of this truth. (Dallin H. Oaks)
- M. Russell Ballard: “When men and women go to the temple, they are both endowed with the same power, which is priesthood power. … Access to the power and the blessings of the priesthood is available to all of God’s children.”16
- Our Father in Heaven is generous with His power. All men and all women have access to this power for help in their lives. All who have made sacred covenants with the Lord and who honor those covenants are eligible to receive personal revelation, to be blessed by the ministering of angels, to commune with God, to receive the fulness of the gospel, and, ultimately, to become heirs alongside Jesus Christ of all our Father has. (M. Russell Ballard)
- Elder Eyring before he was an apostle gave a talk entitled Paul: An Apostle Called of God, in a place where Paul preached. Two live Apostles were in attendance. in his words: Elder Faust took me aside and, with a smile and with softness in his voice, said, “That was a good talk. But you left out the most important thing you could have said.” I asked him what that was. Weeks later he consented to tell me. His answer has been teaching me ever since. He said that I could have told the people that if the Saints who heard Paul had possessed a testimony of the value and the power of the keys he held, perhaps the Apostles would not have had to be taken from the earth.
2. Recognize the divinity of womanhood and the sacredness of motherhood.
- One of your particular gifts is your feminine intuition. Do not limit yourselves. As you seek to know the will of our Heavenly Father in your life and become more spiritual, you will be far more attractive, even irresistible. You can use your smiling loveliness to bless those you love and all you meet, and spread great joy. Femininity is part of the God-given divinity within each of you. It is your incomparable power and influence to do good. You can, through your supernal gifts, bless the lives of children, women, and men. Be proud of your womanhood. Enhance it. Use it to serve others.
- Story from J. Reuben Clark: (read it here: http://www.archive.org/stream/reliefsocietymag1946reli#page/795/mode/2up J.Reuben Clark Our wives and our mothers in the eternal plan) (summary- without women and their ability to bear children, create bodies for Heavenly Father’s children, there would be no “come to earth to get a body”) “This is the place of our wives and of our mothers in the Eternal Plan. They are not bearers of the Priesthood; they are not charged with carrying out the duties and functions of the Priesthood; nor are they laden with its responsibilities; they are builders and organizers under its power, and partakers of its blessings, possessing the complement of the Priesthood powers and possessing a function as divinely called, as eternally important in its place as the Priesthood itself.”13
- “God gives the soul it’s destiny, but mother leads it along the way”- J. Reuben Clark
- Motherhood thus becomes a holy calling, a sacred dedication for carrying out the Lord's plans, a consecration of devotion to the uprearing and fostering, the nurturing in body, mind, and spirit, of those who kept their first estate and who come to this earth for their second estate "to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them." (Abraham 3:25.) To lead them to keep their second estate is the work of motherhood, and "they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever." (first presidency 1942)
- Motherhood is near to divinity. It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind. It places her who honors its holy calling and service next to the angels. To you mothers in Israel we say God bless and protect you, and give you the strength and courage, the faith and knowledge, the holy love and consecration to duty, that shall enable you to fill to the fullest measure the sacred calling which is yours. To you mothers and mothers-to-be we say: Be chaste, keep pure, live righteously, that your posterity to the last generation may call you blessed. First presidency 1942 -
- President Gordon B. Hinckley stated that “God planted within women something divine.” That something is the gift and the gifts of motherhood. Elder Matthew Cowley taught that “men have to have something given to them [in mortality] to make them saviors of men, but not mothers, not women. [They] are born with an inherent right, an inherent authority, to be the saviors of human souls … and the regenerating force in the lives of God’s children.”
- Motherhood is not what was left over after our Father blessed His sons with priesthood ordination. It was the most ennobling endowment He could give His daughters, a sacred trust that gave women an unparalleled role in helping His children keep their second estate. (Sheri Dew)
- As daughters of our Heavenly Father, and as daughters of Eve, we are all mothers and we have always been mothers. And we each have the responsibility to love and help lead the rising generation. (Sheri Dew Are we not all mothers)
- (President Hinckley) Some years ago President Benson delivered a message to the women of the Church. He encouraged them to leave their employment and give their individual time to their children. I sustain the position which he took.
- Nevertheless, I recognize, as he recognized, that there are some women (it has become very many in fact) who have to work to provide for the needs of their families. To you I say, do the very best you can. I hope that if you are employed full-time you are doing it to ensure that basic needs are met and not simply to indulge a taste for an elaborate home, fancy cars, and other luxuries. The greatest job that any mother will ever do will be in nurturing, teaching, lifting, encouraging, and rearing her children in righteousness and truth. None other can adequately take her place.
- It is well-nigh impossible to be a full-time homemaker and a full-time employee. I know how some of you struggle with decisions concerning this matter. I repeat, do the very best you can. You know your circumstances, and I know that you are deeply concerned for the welfare of your children. Each of you has a bishop who will counsel with you and assist you. If you feel you need to speak with an understanding woman, do not hesitate to get in touch with your Relief Society president.
- Sisters, your sphere of influence is a unique sphere—one that cannot be duplicated by men. No one can defend our Savior with any more persuasion or power than you, the daughters of God, can—you who have such inner strength and conviction. The power of a converted woman’s voice is immeasurable, and the Church needs your voices now more than ever. (M. Russell Ballard)
It is my opinion that to the extent that Satan can convince us to focus on what we don’t have, he convinces us to forget and neglect what we do have, and thus prevents us from ever reaching the potential and power within us.
3. We need each other “neither the man without the woman nor the woman without the man” Corinthians 11
- most significantly, the fulness of the priesthood contained in the highest ordinances of the house of the Lord can only be received by a man and woman together. Said President Harold B. Lee: “Pure womanhood plus priesthood means exaltation. But womanhood without priesthood, or priesthood without pure womanhood doesn’t spell exaltation.” (Sheri Dew)
- As stated in the family proclamation, the father presides in the family and he and the mother have separate responsibilities, but they are “obligated to help one another as equal partners.” Some years before the family proclamation, President Spencer W. Kimball gave this inspired explanation: “When we speak of marriage as a partnership, let us speak of marriage as a full partnership. We do not want our LDS women to be silent partners or limited partners in that eternal assignment! Please be a contributing and full partner.” (Dallin H. Oaks)
- “Our Church doctrine places women equal to and yet different from men. God does not regard either gender as better or more important than the other. … (Dallin H. Oaks)
- The greatest power God has given to His sons cannot be exercised without the companionship of one of His daughters, because only to His daughters has God given the power “to be a creator of bodies … so that God’s design and the Great Plan might meet fruition.” (Dallin H. Oaks)
- April 2013 general conference: “In our Heavenly Father’s great priesthood-endowed plan, men have the unique responsibility to administer the priesthood, but they are not the priesthood. Men and women have different but equally valued roles. Just as a woman cannot conceive a child without a man, so a man cannot fully exercise the power of the priesthood to establish an eternal family without a woman. … In the eternal perspective, both the procreative power and the priesthood power are shared by husband and wife.” (M. Russell Ballard)
- Men and women have different gifts, different strengths, and different points of view and inclinations. That is one of the fundamental reasons why we need each other. It takes a man and a woman to create a family, and it takes men and women to carry out the work of the Lord. A husband and wife righteously working together complete each other. Let us be careful that we do not attempt to tamper with our Heavenly Father’s plan and purposes in our lives. (M. Russell Ballard)
- The Lord has told us that it is the duty of every husband and wife to obey the command given to Adam to multiply and replenish the earth, so that the legions of choice spirits waiting for their tabernacles of flesh may come here and move forward under God's great design to become perfect souls, for without these fleshly tabernacles they cannot progress to their God-planned destiny. Thus, every husband and wife should become a father and a mother in Israel to children born under the holy, eternal covenant. (First Presidency 1942)
- By bringing these choice spirits to earth each father and each mother assume towards the tabernacled spirit and towards the Lord Himself by having taken advantage of the opportunity He offered, an obligation of the most sacred kind, because the fate of that spirit in the eternities to come, the blessings or punishments which shall await it in the hereafter, depend, in great part, upon the care, the teachings, the training which the parents shall give to that spirit. (first Presidency 1942)
- No parent can escape that obligation and that responsibility, and for the proper meeting thereof, the Lord will hold us to a strict accountability. No loftier duty than this can be assumed by mortals. (first presidency 1942)
- In my opinion, members of the Church have the most effective cure for our decaying family life. It is for men, women, and children to honor and respect the divine roles of both fathers and mothers in the home. - James E. Faust
- Both men and women are to serve their families and others, but the specific ways in which they do so are sometimes different. For example, God has revealed through his prophets that men are to receive the priesthood, become fathers, and with gentleness and pure, unfeigned love they are to lead and nurture their families in righteousness as the Savior leads the Church (see Eph. 5:23). They have been given the primary responsibility for the temporal and physical needs of the family (see D&C 83:2). Women have the power to bring children into the world and have been given the primary duty and opportunity as mothers to lead, nurture, and teach them in a loving, spiritual environment. In this divine partnership, husbands and wives support one another in their God-given capacities. By appointing different accountabilities to men and women, Heavenly Father provides the greatest opportunity for growth, service, and progress. He did not give different tasks to men and women simply to perpetuate the idea of a family; rather, He did so to ensure that the family can continue forever, the ultimate goal of our Heavenly Father’s eternal plan. (Elder Ballard- equality through diversity oct. 1993)
- Men and women are equal in God’s eyes and in the eyes of the Church, but equal does not mean they are the same. The responsibilities and divine gifts of men and women differ in their nature but not in their importance or influence. Our Church doctrine places women equal to and yet different from men. God does not regard either gender as better or more important than the other.
If God’s plan, and assigned roles, is the best possible way for growth and progress, what effect are we having on ourselves and/or our spouses when we either choose to, or make decisions that place us in a spot where we have to live in a manner not in accordance with this?
4. Be willing to say “I believe in Jesus Christ and am willing to do all he asks”
- If we are to be true to our eternal covenants, we ourselves must believe that the highest of roles, patterned after the highest of heavenly roles, are those of father and mother. Latter-day prophets have taught that there are important, unchangeable differences between men and women. Parents, by aspiring too much outside the home or through too much self-focused achievement, risk teaching their children that the roles of father and mother are not very desirable-desirable—or less so than the attainment of material goods, the honors of men, or even educational diplomas. President Joseph F. Smith aptly explained:
- “After all, to do well those things which God ordained to be the common lot of all man-kind, is the truest greatness. To be a successful father or a successful mother is greater than to be a successful general or a successful statesman. One is universal and eternal greatness, the other is ephemeral. It is true that such secondary greatness may be added to that which we style commonplace; but when such secondary greatness is not added to that which is fundamental, it is merely an empty honor, and fades away from the common and universal good in life, even though it may find a place in the desultory pages of history. Our first care, after all, brings us back to that beautiful admonition of our Savior: ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you’ (Gospel Doctrine manual pg 285)
- M. Russel Ballard: Our Heavenly Father created both women and men, who are His spirit daughters and sons. This means that gender is eternal. He has a plan designed to help all who choose to follow Him and His Son, Jesus Christ, achieve their destiny as heirs of eternal life.
- If our eventual exaltation is Their essential goal and purpose and if They are omniscient and perfect, as we know They are, then They understand best how to prepare, teach, and lead us so that we have the greatest chance to qualify for exaltation.
- There are some questions about the Church’s position on sensitive issues that are hard to answer to anyone’s satisfaction. However, when we seek the Lord in prayer about how to feel and what to do in these situations, the impression comes: “Do you believe in Jesus Christ and do you follow Him and the Father?” I believe most everyone in the Church at one time or another will wonder if they can do all they are asked to do. But if we really believe in the Lord, the reassurance comes: “I believe Jesus Christ, and I’m willing to do whatever He needs me to do.” So we move forward. How powerful are the words “I believe Jesus Christ”!
- Our testimonies and our peace of mind and our well-being begin with the willingness to believe that our Father in Heaven does indeed know best. (Elder Ballard- last three bullet points)
- By appointing different accountabilities to men and women, Heavenly Father provides the greatest opportunity for growth, service, and progress. He did not give different tasks to men and women simply to perpetuate the idea of a family; rather, He did so to ensure that the family can continue forever, the ultimate goal of our Heavenly Father’s eternal plan. (Elder Ballard- equality through diversity oct. 1993)
- “Do we believe that this is the Lord’s Church? Do we believe that He has organized it according to His purposes and wisdom? Do we believe that His wisdom far exceeds ours? Do we believe that He has organized His Church in a manner that would be the greatest possible blessing to all of His children, both His sons and daughters?”
- “When all is said and done, each of us has the privilege of choosing whether or not we will believe that God is our Father, that Jesus is the Christ, and that They have a plan designed to help us return home to them. This of course requires faith, which is why faith is the first principle of the gospel,” he said. “Our testimonies and our peace of mind and well-being begin with the willingness to believe that our Father in Heaven does indeed know best.” (Elder Ballard- last three bullet points)
I know that Heavenly Father loves us, that he has designed things the way he has to give us the best possible chance to return to Him again. I dont know why things are the way they are, but i know i can trust him, and you can too.
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