S5 E12 The Abrahamic Covenant and You (thoughts on the Covenant)

Hello and welcome to our special episode this week where we talk about the covenant. This is something I love to talk about. I'm glad you'll join me. Part one is here. This episode, we've got a second part. It's just the continuation of this, but it gets to be too long. That's on our Patreon website. So please join us there. Even if you just join us for this month for all the fantastic material this month and support the podcast in that way, you will be glad you did it. Just so much good material that we can't do it all here on the podcast. So we're putting it there. In any case, we're going to start out by asking what the covenant is. The reason we're talking about it now is because this covenant is, we're going to read about it. the covenant that was established with Noah that is then reestablished with Abraham. And so let's make sure we understand that. And so I want to start out when what we really want to do is come to understand what the covenant is. And we'll get into the nuts and bolts of it. We're going to do the conceptual and most important elements of it in this episode, but the nuts and bolts of what it really is and what the blessings are and what the obligations are in the Patreon lesson. But in any case, here we are going to talk about what the covenant is. but I want to start out by first asking, why should we care? Why should we even care what the covenant is? And I'm just going to suggest that, well, let's first of all ask this question. President Nelson mentioned in a number of places that Abraham has mentioned more time in Latter-day scripture than in ancient scripture. And we have to ask, why would that be? You would expect it to be the opposite. Why has he mentioned more time in modern scripture than in ancient scripture? And I think the primary reason for that is this is the time when it's restored and fulfilled. It's fully fulfilled in our day. It's being fulfilled all along, but it comes to its fullest conclusion of fulfillment in our day as it's reestablished with us. And we are part of it. It's part of the reason it's mentioned so much in our day is that it's part of our obligation to fulfill the covenant. God will fulfill his part, but we have our part to fulfill. So that's worth noting. I'm also going to suggest that if you are going to be exalted, it cannot be outside of this covenant. And I suspect that you have some interest in being exalted. And so it's worth knowing what this covenant is. By the way, you're part of the covenant. If you've been baptized, if you're part of the church, you are part of this covenant. It's probably worth finding out what you've gotten yourself into. And President Nelson has certainly made it clear that we should know and understand the covenant, that this is important for us. And as I said, I think you probably want to be exalted. So we're going to read a few verses. We're going to jump around in scripture a little bit and read some verses to see if we can understand what this covenant is a little bit. So we're going to start off by going to section, or first of all, the importance of the covenant. This is God talking about why there's a need for a restoration. And he says, for they have strayed from mine ordinances and have broken mine everlasting covenant. So that's one of the reasons why we need a restoration. Now, if we go over to verse 22, he's talking about the reasons he's given the things he's giving to Joseph Smith Jr. One of the reasons he lists is that my everlasting covenant might be established. This is part of the reason for the restoration. It's because the covenant had been broken and God wants to reestablish it. I want to go to a verse I would suppose you're familiar with. We're going to go to 1 Nephi 19.23. and this is a verse that we read all the time and we do some great things with it but not as great as we could do with it so we want to do all sorts of things with this so verse first nephi 19 verse 23 and i did read many things unto them which were written in the books of moses but that i might more fully persuade them to believe in the lord their redeemer i did read unto them that which was written by the prophet isaiah for i did liken all scriptures unto us that it might be for our profit and learning. Now, that's an interesting thing. My guess is that if you're like me, you had a seminary teacher who told you this means you put yourself in the place of everyone in the scriptures. And in fact, they even had me go to 1 Nephi chapter 1, verse 1 and cross out Nephi's name and write my name. And so that it reads, I carry having been born of goodly parents. That is a fantastic application. We absolutely should be doing that. It's a wonderful, fantastic secondary application. We should do it, but it's not the primary application. Nephi himself is telling us what the primary application is. The problem is we quote this out of context. So while we should do that, let's not leave the other undone. If we were to read the verses before this, we'd see he's talking about the house of Israel, but it gets very explicit in verse 24. Notice how many times this year I've been asking us to pay attention to these causal words. So here's another one. Verse 24 starts with wherefore. So remember, he says, I did liken all scriptures unto us that it might be for our profit and learning. Wherefore, because of that, I spake unto them saying, hear ye the words of the prophet, ye who are a remnant of the house of Israel, a branch who have been broken off. Hear ye the words of the prophet, which were written unto all the house of Israel and liken them unto yourselves, that ye may have hope as well as your brethren from whom you have been broken off. For after this matter has the prophet written. Do you see what he's saying? The reason he's likening the scriptures and the way he's likening the scriptures is he's saying, look, Laman and Lemuel, you are of the house of Israel. Isaiah is writing about and to the house of Israel. Therefore, he is very specifically writing about and to you. And what was true for Laman and Lemuel is true for us. You are of the house of Israel. The scriptures are about and are written to the house of Israel. Therefore, they are about you. This should change the way you read the scriptures. This understanding is huge to recognize that the scriptures are about you. It becomes your family history. It becomes your family future. This is a future podcast as well as a historical podcast. We study history and we study future. The scriptures are about the house of Israel. When you identify as a member of the house of Israel, then you read the scriptures differently as you recognize that they're about that covenant. They're about the covenant God made in the past, the covenant he's made with you and how he's fulfilling the covenant and how you're a part of that. That's worth recognizing. That's worth understanding. That should help us get more out of the scriptures as we study the covenant that way. Okay, we're going to go to Moses chapter 5 now. We like the book of Moses. It's all sorts of good fun stuff. So let's go to Moses chapter 5 and we're going to start in verse 9. If I can get there, I'm just a little slow turning my pages. but chapter 5 verse 9 says and in that day the holy ghost fell upon adam which beareth record of the father and the son saying i am the only begotten of the father from the beginning hence forth and forever that as thou has fallen thou mayest be redeemed and all mankind even as many as will you'll remember that we read that and verse 59 and then we went on to read chapter 6 verses 64 through 68 but we'll read verse 59 here and we talked about how all this seems to been adam entering into the covenant with god so if we go to um chapter 6 verse 59 i'm trying to get there um okay verse 59 um this is where we get that by reason of transgression cometh the fall which fall bringeth death and as much as you were born into the world by water blood and the spirit which i have made and so become of dust a living soul even so you must be born again into the kingdom of heaven of water and of the spirit and be cleansed by blood even the blood of mine only begotten now there's more wonderful stuff in there that we could read we're not going to read all of that but we're going to read um verse 64 where it says well i'm just going to make a reference to it adam was caught away by the spirit and he was baptized and it talks about in 65 and he heard in verse 66 a voice saying that thou art baptized with fire and then verse 67 thou art after the order of him who was without beginning of days or end of years from all eternity to all eternity and thus thou art one in me and a son of God, and thus may all become my sons. So this is Adam entering into that covenant. And we've mentioned this before, but I want you to think about it again. You think what it meant to Eve and to Adam to have God be willing to make a covenant with them. Say, yes, you've lost my presence. You've lost the relationship you've had with me that you prized more than anything else. We cannot be together anymore, but I am promising you that you can be with me again. I am covenanting you with you, with my power, that I will send my son and make it so you can be with me again in an even closer relationship. That is a powerful covenant. That's the same thing. Remember, we put ourselves in the place of Eve and of Adam. And so we should also realize that we are wounded by having lost God's presence. And we are overjoyed with the opportunity to come back into God's presence and that he would make that covenant with us. we're going to read next week we'll do more on these verses you we could spend like half an hour on abraham chapter one verses one through three but today we're just going to read a certain part abraham is seeking the covenant and he says very specifically in verse three it was conferred upon me from the fathers it came down from the fathers from the beginning of time yea even from the beginning or before the foundation of the earth down to the present time even the right of the firstborn or the first man who is Adam or first father through the fathers unto me. Do you see what we're establishing here? God made a covenant with Adam and Eve. He renewed that covenant with Noah. He renews, I think he did with Enoch as well, but we know with Noah, well, we saw it with Enoch and we saw it with Noah. Here we see very specifically that the covenant Abraham makes is the same covenant that Adam had made with God. It's the same thing. It's the same covenant that God reestablished with Joseph Smith. All right. So, uh, that that's worth understanding that this is that same covenant. We, it gets different details at different times. Um, so for example, um, Moses could drink wine, but he couldn't have bacon or lobster. I can't drink wine, but I have bacon and lobster. I love bacon. I love lobster. So I haven't had one. So I don't know who's getting the better deal, but I suspect I am because of how much I like bacon and lobster. In any case, those are some details that have changed, but it is essentially the same covenant. I also want to read chapter 22, verse 1, where God says, section 22, sorry, section 22, verse 1, where God says, behold, I say unto you that all old covenants have I caused to be done away in this thing. And this is a new and an everlasting covenant, even that which was from the beginning. So he's talking about how other baptism doesn't count to be part of this covenant. To be part of this covenant, you have to have baptism by his priesthood authority because that makes it really from God. That's what we have to work on and understand. So I hope we can understand that this covenant we've been going through in the podcast this year, the book of Moses, and we're just transitioning now to Genesis and the book of Abraham. We've been doing Genesis as well, but we're working on understanding what the covenant is. I hope we also understand what it has to do with the fall that we've talked about in this podcast and how this is overcoming the effects of the fall. We just spoke about that a little bit and what it has to do with rebirth, which we've also spoken about a little bit. But I hope that you can take all those things we've talked about and tie them together as we talk about the covenant. Talk about the plan, God's love for us, his desire to be closer with us, his creation of this earth so that the plan could move forward. And Adam and Eve choosing to be separated from him through the fall. And then God allowing them to have this promise to regain his presence and to be born again as different creatures and all that we thought about with being born again. I hope all that is tying together so that we can understand, as was taught at the end of Moses chapter six, that's what the covenant is all about, is this rebirth that makes us one with God. All right. Now I want to, I want to read this from president Nelson in his, uh, article. Well, it was first of all, a talk that he gave and the, the leadership section of general conference in April of 2022. And then he turned it into an article that was printed in the Liahona in October of 2022. One of the finest things ever written about the covenant. And he says the new and everlasting covenant and the Abrahamic covenant are essentially the same. Two ways of phrasing the covenant God made with mortal men and women at different times. It's the same thing with the covenant made at Sinai or all, anytime you read about the covenant, and we've already talked about that, the details will change as suited or tailored to the specific circumstances of the people, but the essence of the covenant remains the same. So what is this covenant and why should we care? Well, before we get more into the covenant, let's talk a little bit more about the caring. this is president nelson who says the covenant that the lord first made to abraham and reaffirmed to isaac and jacob is of transcendent significance now we know that president nelson loved words he loved understanding the meaning of them and using them intentionally when he says it's of transcendent significance i don't think he's goofing around i think he means it is transcendent that it transcends time and space and meaning. It is important in every phase and aspect of who we have been, who we are, and what we want to become. He also says, we are also children of the covenant. This is from a talk called Children of the Covenant We are also children of the covenant Abraham Isaac and Jacob are our ancestors We are of Israel We have to think of it that way You are about to start studying your family history Well you have been studying your family history but even more so as we get into the family of Abraham we are studying our family history So how are we part of this covenant? Well, let's look at how it began. Joseph Smith taught, and we can get this from the manual, Teachings of the President of the Church on Joseph Smith, page 42. Joseph Smith taught this, The everlasting covenant was made between three personages before the organization of this earth and relates to their dispensation of things to men on the earth. These personages are called God the first, the creator, God the second, the redeemer, and God the third, the witness or testator. So the everlasting covenant began even before the world was formed. I believe these talking about even before the plan was presented to us, these three beings covenanted with each other that they would save us. That's how the covenant begins. That is thrilling to think about. We've just been invited to be part of a covenant that the Godhead made with each other. We can now be part of that covenant. John Taylor in his book Mediation and Atonement said this, A covenant was entered into between Christ and his Father, in which he agreed to atone for the sins of the world. And he thus became the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. That's on page 97, but if we go to page 171, he says, The Savior thus becomes master of the situation. The debt is paid, the redemption made, the covenant fulfilled. You see what he's saying, that the Father wanted to have us become so much like him, in the end, to become God-like, that we could have a closer relationship with him. He wanted a closer relationship with us, but it wasn't possible. I can remember looking at my first child when he was just a few months old and loving the relationship we have, but yearning for a greater relationship. But it just could only go so far when he was in that state. The more he became capable, the more he became like me, the closer our relationship could grow. And I think our father looked at us and wanted us to have a closer relationship because he knew that would give both of us more joy. But the only way for it to happen was for us to become more like God. When we become God-like, then we can become one with God, and he and we have a fullness of joy together. He already has a fullness of joy. We can enter into that with him, which will give him joy. And so he came up with this plan. He made a covenant with the Son and with the Holy Ghost, so with Christ and with the Holy Ghost, that they together would save us. It seems to me that then they presented that plan to us in that covenant and we all had the chance to enter into the covenant there and here. I don't know about there. I know we have that opportunity here and I suppose we did there. And Christ's purpose is to fulfill the covenant. His purpose is to fulfill the Father's plan and make it possible for us to return to him and be one with him, having become like him. That is why Christ came. It is why the Holy Ghost comes. All right. So with all of that in mind, let's think about what the covenant is. All right. And I want to start out by asking this question. What is our greatest obligation under the covenant? What is the thing that governs the covenant that is your greatest obligation under the covenant? The Jews know it very well. It's the most important verse in the Old Testament and the most important verse at all to them. And Christ will say it's the most important thing. Well, let's read it here in Deuteronomy 6, verse 5. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might. Now, the word that is translated as might, it's the word ma'od, which is how you say very. Like today, tov ma'od, very good. Ma'od just means very. So really what they mean here is with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your veryness. everything that is you. So when they translate that into Greek, uh, for the Greek version of the old Testament, and then that gets used in the new Testament, it will be, they'll, they'll change that to all of my mind and might, but it's, it's the, all of everything that you are. You love God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all of everything that you are as very, as you can get in loving him with your heart and your soul. That's what you're supposed to do. This is the great commandment. Our great obligation under the covenant is to love God with everything we have and are. This is so important that in the book of Deuteronomy, where Moses just is kind of recounting their covenant story and getting them to reenter into the covenant together, the second generation, he talks about the covenant a number of times and the need to love God in the covenant. We're just going to read three more times. Chapter 30, verse 6, and the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul. Or in verse 10, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God to keep his commandments and his statutes, which are written in this book of the law. And if thou turn unto the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, then the next verse goes on with all the blessings. But that's the if phrase of the covenant. This is what we have to do to get the blessings of the covenant. Keep the commandments and turn to the God with all of our heart and with all of our soul. Now we read in verse 16 of chapter 30, in that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments that thou mayest live and multiply. And the Lord thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it. But it begins with this idea in that verse to love the Lord thy God. So we should ask, why is that the greatest obligation? And what should we learn from that? Is it the greatest obligation because God just wants us to love him? Is that really what it is? And I would say no. It's not because God needs us to love him. It's because we need to love God for a few reasons. One reason is that whatever we love the most is what we will turn to the most. And God is the only being that can exalt us. And so we have to love him the most and turn to him the most. Everything else will fail us. I would say it's also going to be our greatest source of joy. I think for most humans, the greatest joy we have is from loving. It's not from being loved. We do love to be loved. It's important. We need to feel loved. But you think of when you're happiness, happiest. Is it when you're filled with other people loving you? Maybe even people you don't know or people that love you, but you don't love them or something. No, it's when you are filled with love for others. When you are full of love for others, that's when you're happiest. And so we need to learn about that. But I would say, as we think about the notion that the greatest obligation is to love God, that the reason for that is so that we can be one with him, then we ask ourselves, what is the crux of the covenant? and let me just tell you kind of how i came to understand this i'd been teaching about the covenant for 20 something years uh in college settings when i decided to write a book about it well i felt very strongly prompted to write a book about this and as i was doing so i was going through lists that i'd made i started out um really the first time i taught this i spent going through the scriptures i just made bullet point lists of everything i could find that had to do with the covenant. And I had a transparency to begin with. Eventually it became a Corral presentation and then a Microsoft PowerPoint, but always just bullet points of all the things that we had to do in the covenant and all the blessings we got and so on. But when I was writing a book, I thought I can't just have a random list of bullet points. And so I tried to order them. And as I said, okay, these parts go together and they seem to lead to these parts and these go together and they seem to lead to these parts and so on. I suddenly realized that there is one thing that gave rise to everything else in the covenant. There was one governing element that everything else flowed from, and that is relationship. God wants a closer relationship with us, and everything in the covenant flows from that. It is about relationship. That's the crux of the covenant. I've been writing about it. President Nelson's been teaching about it. Lots of other people are talking about it now. This is the crux of the covenant. God wants a unified, complete, and whole relationship with us. That's beautiful. So remember that we read in verse 68 of Moses chapter 6, Behold, thou art one in me, a son or a child of God, and thus may I all become my children. Amen. That's what it's about, having that unified relationship. President Nelson, in the article in the Liahona we spoke about, said, Adam and Eve accepted the ordinance of baptism and began the process of being one with God. They had entered the covenant path. That's what it's about. He also said in that article, When you and I also enter that path, we have a new way of life. We thereby create a relationship with God that allows him to bless and change us. The covenant path leads us back to him. If we let God prevail in our lives, that covenant will lead us closer and closer to him. all covenants are intended to be binding. They create a relationship with everlasting ties. That's what the covenant is about. He also said in that article, if we let God prevail in our lives, that covenant will lead us closer and closer to him. All covenants are intended to be binding. Oh, we just read that. In any case, we need to understand that. This is what the covenant is about, about binding us to God and changing us to be more like him so that we can become one with him. But in between now and when we become fully unified and fully one with him, we still draw closer and closer to him with a closer and closer relationship that is forged by the connections created in the covenant. That's the purpose of the covenant. My friend, Dr. Janet Erickson, who gave a fantastic devotional in November of 2022 at BYU. It's called Design for Covenant Relationships. I highly recommend you listen to that. Again, it's a BYU devotional, November 2022, designed for covenant relationships by Janet Erickson. She said this, we are deeply relational beings. She is a professor that has focused on family relationships, but she reaches out for more than that. She says we are deeply relational beings designed not for independence, but for radical dependence and connection. It's in our nature to need that connection with each other and with God. President Nelson said this in the Liahona article, Once you and I have made a covenant with God, our relationship with him becomes much closer than before our covenant. Now we are bound together. Each of us has a special place in God's heart. He has high hopes for us. He also said making a covenant with God changes our relationship with him forever. It blesses us with an extra measure of love and mercy. It affects who we are and how God will help us become what we can become. Beautiful. So then remember what President Nelson taught us. He taught us about our primary identities, the way we need to think of ourselves more than anything else. First of all, as a child of God. Second, as a child of the covenant. This is how we become a child of God in a different way. And third, as a disciple of Christ. I would not have expected that he would teach us that second is child of God and third is disciple of Christ. But that is how he taught it. And he is prophetic. And I can see the wisdom and the understanding why it's that way now, but it surprised me to begin with. So let's make sure that we always remember at the core of who we are, that we are children of God who have covenanted with him and love him. That is how you think of yourself as a covenant person. it's in the heart of everything you do and everything you are is that you are someone who loves God and has a relationship with God forged by the binding power of Christ's atoning sacrifice it's beautiful now part of that is this phrase that you've probably heard the Hebrew word chesed you kind of have to spit a little bit when you say chesed And that is a covenantal love and loyalty. That's what that is. There's a special mercy and loyalty and love available inside the covenant that isn't available outside of the covenant. Now, that may seem weird to us. We may think, wait, I thought God loves everybody. God does love everybody, but it's inevitable that there are special bonds or special kinds of love and mercy and loyalty that are only available in a close relationship. Think of it this way. My wife loves everybody. Everyone who knows her knows that. She loves everybody. But I have to say that I kind of hope she loves me differently than she loves everybody. And she tells me she does and that I don't have to keep saying that, but it's useful for teaching. Of course, because we made a covenant, a binding promise with each other, and then have spent a tremendous amount of time together serving each other and working together to serve others, of course that creates a kind of love and loyalty and mercy that doesn't exist outside of that kind of relationship. Chesed is the kind of love that is only available in a special kind of relationship. It a kind of mercy that extended that is only available in a special kind of relationship It means that God will never ever ever give up on someone who is in a covenant relationship with him This is how Isaiah said it Well it Isaiah speaking on behalf of God in Isaiah chapter 54, verse 10. For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy or chesed on thee. Isaiah is telling us that it is far more likely that the mountains pack their bags and leave than it is that he stops, that God stops having this special mercy for us. Jeremiah said it this way. Well, it's speaking on behalf of God. Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving kindness or chesed have I drawn thee. Because of his everlasting love, he will have chesed or the special loyal mercy that he will keep doing to draw us to him. President Nelson put it this way, chesed is a special kind of love and mercy that God feels for and extends to those who have made a covenant with him, and we reciprocate with chesed for him. Now, here's the good and the bad news. I've said for about 25 years now, 27 years now, God, or once you may enter into a covenant with God, you leave neutral ground forever. God has chesed for you, which means he will not leave you alone when you sin. You don't just go back to where you were. He will keep extending mercy to you, but sometimes that comes in the form of humbling. So we'll have to keep that in mind. That's a key to understanding what happens in the Old Testament. Back to chesed. President Nelson says, a celestial marriage is such a covenant relationship. A husband and wife make a covenant with God and with each other to be loyal and faithful to each other. So that helps us understand chesed. He then says the covenant path is a path of love, that incredible chesed, that compassionate caring for and reaching out to each other. It's beautiful. Now, we know that our second great obligation under the covenant is to love each other, to love your neighbor as yourself. Those are the two great commandments. Commandments are our obligation under the covenant. So our two great obligations are to love God and to love each other. And there's a cyclical nature in this. the more you love God, the more you will naturally love his children. And the more you love and serve his children, the more you will love God. It's just, it's cyclical. It's natural. It happens that way. This is again from Janet Erickson in her devotional we spoke about. And she says, the Lord's covenant relationship with us is the truest intimacy. It is the experience of perfect love with a being who we know sees all that we are responsible for in all our weakness and our sins and reflects it back to us in the light of his purity, which expands our agency and leads us to a better way through his redeeming love. It is from the intimacy of our relationship with him that we learn the path of intimacy, of pure love for others. Can you see the cyclical nature? God teaches us how to love purely. That allows us to be better at loving others. So again, we will love them naturally because he loves us. As we serve them, it increases our love for him. He teaches us how to love better, so we love them better. That increases our love for him, and it just keeps cycling back on itself. She went on to say, Within the intimacy of his healing, guiding, purifying, strengthening covenant relationship, we learn that in our families, in our marriages, with our children, in our ministering relationships, and in all our relationships, and then this is a quote, perfection isn't possible, intimacy is. I don't remember who that quote is from, sorry. In fact, intimacy with Christ is perfection. We find that our perfectionism, our fearing and hiding from our nothingness, weakness, sin, and suffering, only interferes with intimacy, blocking our ability to receive his love and to see, know, and love others. This is beautiful. It helps us understand the cyclical relationship. And so I hope we understand that the covenant is about Christ. It's about relationship and about covenant connections, connections with God through Christ, connections with others through Christ. That is what this covenant is all about. So I will note again what President Nelson said. The covenant path is a path of love. That incredible chesed, that compassionate caring for and reaching out to each other. That's what this is all about in a very wonderful cyclical relationship. So that allows us then to have covenant power. A power that's available to us in a way that is not true outside of the covenant. So, for example, President Nelson teaches us every man and every woman who participates in priesthood ordinances and who makes and keeps covenants with God has direct access to the power of God. Of course, that happens naturally when you're in a closer relationship with him. As soon as you're in a closer relationship with him, you just have greater, in the same way that I have greater access to my wife and who she is and what she does because she's my wife and the relationship we have. As I establish that kind of relationship and hopefully even higher with God, then I naturally have better access to who he is and his power. It's just natural. It flows from the relationship. This is what Ezekiel said in chapter 11, verses 19 through 20. But he's speaking on behalf of God. And he said, and I will give them, meaning the covenant people in the last days when they come to Christ again, I will give them one heart. And I will put a new spirit within you. And I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and will give them a heart of flesh that they may walk in my statutes and keep my ordinances and do them. And they shall be my people and I will be their God. That phrase is the phrase that is used most often in the scriptures to denote a covenant relationship where we are God's people and he is our God. That's a phrase about relationship. And it's the most common phrase used to denote the covenant. Just keep your eye out for that phrase. anytime you see that phrase, you know you're talking about the covenant. Now, in the Patreon lesson, we're going to talk a little bit about covenant phrases and how to recognize when the scriptures are talking about the covenant. It's talking about it far more often than you think, and we'll teach you how to recognize that. It will change the way you're able to read all scriptures and especially the Old Testament. But notice what God is saying here. When we're in this covenant relationship, he can change us so that we have that closer relationship and we have his power in being changed. As President Nelson put it, those who keep their covenants with God will become a strain of sin-resistant souls. Those who keep their covenants will have the strength to resist the constant influence of the world. Oh, how we need that. We so, so, so need that. He also says, each person who makes covenants in baptismal fonts and in temples and keeps them has increased access to the power of Jesus Christ. Please ponder that stunning truth, that through making and keeping covenants, you have increased access to the power of Christ. He also said covenant keepers are entitled to a special kind of rest that comes to them through their covenantal relationship with God. You see what happens as we have this special relationship with God? He also said this, we stay on the covenant path and are blessed with spiritual strength, personal revelation, increasing faith, and the ministering of angels. Those are the blessings. That's the power that comes from this relationship with God. Everything in there flows naturally from having a closer, higher relationship with God. Again, spiritual strength, personal revelation. Of course, you are able to communicate more with someone you have that kind of relationship with. Increasing faith and the ministering of angels. It's all natural from having this relationship with God. He said, Consumed with love for God and for all his children. And that brings true peace, comfort, confidence, and joy. I want you to think about that. How much do you want comfort, peace, confidence, and joy? I would assume you want it very, very much. Now, as we think about access to the power of God and the relationship we have with God, I have some closing thoughts that I want to jump into on that. But I want to remind you to consider joining us in a lesson where we'll go through what are the actual, the rest of the obligations, the rest of the blessings. What has God promised us? What do we have to do? How can we recognize this as we find it in the scriptures? That's on our Patreon website. That'll be the lesson that will be there. Please join us there. This is wonderful stuff. to kind of prime us for how important this is. I just want you to know that as you read the rest of the Old Testament, you have to be able to recognize when it's talking about the covenant, all scripture, the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, all of it presupposes that you know what the covenant is and that you'll recognize the covenant language when it's being talked about. And so please join us so you can do that. You won't understand the Old Testament if you don't understand this. It is really the central theme of the Old Testament. Now, that means it is Christ because Christ is the one who fulfills the covenant. But if you don't understand the covenant, you will not get how much is the central theme. You just won't get so much of the Old Testament. It is referenced over 1,300 times in the Old Testament. Don't miss out on 1,300 times of God speaking about the covenant or his prophets speaking about the covenant. It defines man's relationship with God. defines our relationship with God, especially that chesed thing. So please, please join us for that. But I want to read something from Jeremiah and then actually something from my book, God Will Prevail, which is about the covenant that can be how we end this so that we recognize kind of the crux of the covenant, which we've already talked about, and how that relationship and this bond that's forged with God gives us God's power. I want to read what we will find in Jeremiah 31. He says, and by the way, these are the verses Christ is referring to when he establishes the sacrament and says that it's a New Testament or a new covenant. That's a better translation than New Testament, New Covenant. Verse 31, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. He's talking about our days, by the way. So you need to have this verse being fulfilled in you. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they break, although I was a husband unto them, saith the Lord. But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts and will be their God and they shall be my people. You see what he's saying? The things that are part of the covenant, it won't be stuff that we have to do. It will be part of who we are. We'll do it because we love God. And when we love God, we just naturally do these things. We naturally serve him. We naturally help other people. We naturally become more holy or more godly because that's what we want to be. That's what we want to be like. That's what this covenant is all about, is having the covenant become part of us in our hearts, in our inward parts. And we can do that better as we study the covenant and how God works through the covenant throughout the Old Testament. It's going to be a fantastic year of understanding how God works with us through a covenant. So I want to kind of end by reading a couple of things through, and I just want to read from my books because I worked really hard to phrase these just right. So first of all, I say that loving God is the defining duty of covenant holders and that we have to remember what God has done for us and be grateful for it. And then we will serve God. And then I say this, but above all, both in terms of duty and how it defines them, covenant holders are to love God. This love is to be the primary feeling of their heart, the central emotion of their consciousness, the consuming core of who they are. I'm going to say this again. But above all, both in terms of duty and how it defines them, covenant holders are to love God. This love is to be the primary feeling of their heart, the central emotion of their consciousness, the consuming core of who they are. Ultimately, this love for God is the fullest realization of what it means for Abraham, Sarah, and their seed to have God as their God and to be his people. That's what it's all about. That's what the rest of this study of the Old Testament is going to be about, is about us loving God, his love for us, and having that relationship so that he truly is our God and we truly are his people. Now, there's one other thing that we want to do with you today. You have perhaps heard that the church is encouraging us to consider translations that may sometimes make it easier than the King James translation. and we've actually been contacted by as podcasters asking us to both encourage you and to kind of demonstrate that so we will from time to time not that we should abandon the King James Version and that what we going to want to use when we all quoting scriptures together but to help us recognize that sometimes other translations might help you catch some other nuances. That's an important thing, and since I would like to be helpful in that, as they've asked me to be, we have a roundtable discussion on this. I'm also going to encourage you, we'll mention in the roundtable discussion. Dr. Ken Jackson has just created his own translation of the book of Genesis, where he takes into account the Joseph Smith translation, but he's translating from the Hebrew. He does a fantastic job. I think it's a really wonderful translation. So he's only done the book of Genesis so far. I think he's going to work on Isaiah next, but it's great and takes into account Latter-day Saint points of view. So that's one you may be interested in. I don't get any kickback from it or anything like that. But what you're going to hear now is a roundtable discussion about translations of the Bible, and there will be tons of helpful information for you in here. I think you're going to enjoy this. This is our Old Testament roundtable discussion, and I have with me Dr. Kent Jackson and Dr. Joshua Sears from BYU's Ancient Scripture Department, and I'm Kerry Mielstein. And we've been talking about things that help us understand the Old Testament better or things that may make it difficult and ways to overcome that. One of the things I want to point out is a new book by Dr. Joshua Sears. This is called A Modern Guide to an Old Testament. And it has lots of fantastic things in here about genres and so on. But understanding the covenant, I like that chapter. But one of the chapters is about reading in translation. And the translation of the Bible is something that can be a difficulty for us. I love the King James Version. I find it poetically beautiful. I find the language powerful. I find people who study it know their English better. I also love kind of some of the literalness that they sometimes put in the translation. But all of that also makes it more difficult. Let's be clear, we're dealing with a language that is several hundred years out of date. And so that makes it difficult. So we should also point out that Dr. Jackson has a new translation of Genesis that people can read that you translated. Would you tell us about that and your reasons behind that? There are some things about the King James translation that are hard to understand. And so there is value to using modern translations sometimes. And so my objective was to put the Hebrew Bible in a translation that's in contemporary modern English. That doesn't mean that it's in street talk or anything like that. It means that it's in the language of English that we speak today. because there is some virtue in making passages of the Bible more easy to comprehend for modern readers. Yeah, and yet your translation is still faithful to the Hebrew text. Not all translations are, but yours still is. Yeah, translations can either be on the literal end of the spectrum or on the figurative level of the spectrum. And the King James translation is quite literal, which is good. And my translation fits about into the same category. It's not meant to be figurative. It's meant to display the Hebrew words into modern English. And sometimes I have church members say, well, am I even allowed to use another translation? They hesitate about that. So I thought it'd be helpful to point out what the church's official policy is on this. So I'm just reading from the general handbook that is on the gospel library app, section 38.8.40.1 talks about editions of the Holy Bible. And this is what the church councils members. And it starts off by saying that the church has some official editions of the Bible that it produces. So in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, it's got its own LDS edition. And that there's other languages where the church recommends certain translations to members. so it suggests when possible members should use a preferred or church published edition of the bible in church classes and meetings this helps maintain clarity in the discussion and consistent understanding of doctrine so that's the recommendation is that when you're at church generally speaking if people are using the same edition just helps facilitate the conversation but then it says other editions of the bible may be useful for personal or academic study So right there, that's not only permission to use other translations in our personal study, it suggests that they may be useful advantages to doing that. And you'll even hear time to time in general conference, apostles will quote from other translations. So they're very much aware of this and the advantages they have. And I've looked for why they will sometimes quote other translations in conference. And usually when I check the King James for that verse, it's because the King James is nigh incomprehensible and doesn't communicate the point they want. And then they'll use another one. So I have found very much the same thing that if I have the King James version, for me, it's on my left and then a modern translation on the right. And I'm confused about something I can glance over at the new one, go, oh, that's what it means and go back. And now I reread the King James with even greater comprehension. This actually makes it so I appreciate King James language even more because I get what it was trying to say a few hundred years ago. Instead of being frustrated with it or liking it less, using both hand in hand just enhances my appreciation for both. Wonderful. I love that approach, and I often will use that approach of having several translations at once. In fact, I'll even recommend, you can find several places online where you can find tools that will put several of them in front of you at once. I use one called netbible.org, but you can find all sorts of them online where you can get, like, say, five, for one verse, five different translations displayed all at once. I know the first time I felt like I understood Isaiah was on my mission. I had the King James translation of Isaiah. I had one by a Latter-day Saint that had been done. And then I had, I think, the NRSV. I can't remember. Just something that I'd found in the house I was living in. There was another translation of the Bible there. And I read what I would read passages from the King James version and ask, OK, what was that? How did this work for people in Isaiah's day? And then I would read the other translation and I'd ask, OK, how does this work in a different way, like just for the church today? And I'd read another translation and ask, how does this apply to me personally? But looking at the different translations was really helpful for me. And the biblical language is so rich that what you've described there is a really good way to approach it. Because sometimes just expressing it in a different way brings out something that you wouldn't notice. Yeah, each translation looks at it from a slightly different angle. And we should clarify, too, it's not just that the words are modern English. One of the big advantages of modern translations is that they'll use modern conveniences of reading, such as formatting, putting things into paragraphs or poetic stanzas. So you can see how sentences are grouped together and how the text of one line relates to the text of another line. And even something like modern punctuation, quotation marks were not invented when the King James version came out. So it doesn't have a good way to signal when direct speech starts and stops. They usually have a comma and a capital letter and that's, that's it. But even just putting in quotation marks can be a big help so that you can see in the modern translation, oh, here's where this character starts and stops speaking. And now when I'm looking back at the King James, I can make better sense of when one character starts talking and the next character starts talking, it just makes much more sense. And much of the prophetic material is in poetry, as you mentioned there. And in modern translations, the poetic lines are put in poetic lines, right? Instead of in paragraphs, which was the printing style at the time the King James translation was made. And so seeing the poetry set as poetry makes it easier to understand. Yes. In practical terms for our audience, I don't know that we're necessarily recommending everything you read for this whole year in the Old Testament, you should read five translations of it. I know for me personally, I'm reading the King James version. And if I find a verse that is a little bit tricky to understand or something, and I'm not talking about when I'm often I'm reading in Hebrew, but that's not what we're talking about here. So if I'm just looking at English, if I find a verse or a passage that's difficult, that's when I start looking at other translations. That may be one very practical approach. And like you said earlier with websites, people should understand, you don't have to spend a lot of money on this or any money. There's free websites that will pull up a bunch of them. There's several free apps that you can have on a phone or a tablet. So you don't need to spend money necessarily. And you can look at just one alternative translation or five. It's your personal preference, but the flexibility is there. And a lot of them, in fact, I teach my students how to do this. And with zero Hebrew background, they can do it. A lot of these websites, you can pull up the translation and click on a word. And on the other side, it's bringing up the Hebrew and you can click on the Hebrew definition of that word and you can gain some insights. If there's a passage you really want to know something about, even as someone who's never studied Hebrew, you can start to get Hebrew insights by going into these online tools. So they're helpful. Because it'll show you how that same word is used in all kinds of different contexts in the Bible. I referred earlier to netbible.org, but there are a lot of others that some people find easier to use. Each person finds one that is useful for them. What are some of the ones you would recommend, Josh? Oh, there's several. I mean, there's so many people wanting to read the Bible. you'll find different things. There's Bible Gateway. You can pull up lots of different translations. And like you said, set them in parallel side by side. There's Bible Hub. There's Blue Letter Bible. And a lot of these will have app versions as well. So it's not hard to Google some keywords, you know, Bible translation comparison. You'll find a bunch of these. Okay. And what are some ideas if people want to buy a physical translation and have it with them, or if they just want to get online and read a specific Bible translation, what are some that you might suggest? Well, the new international version has been very, very popular, and it's nicely translated. The new revised standard version is the one that's typically used in academic contexts. And people will call those NIV and NRSV for short. Exactly. And the English standard version, ESV, I think is an excellent translation that does a very, very good job. And in my mind, it's probably closest in its philosophy to the King James translation, even though it's in modern English. And I also like the new King James version. That's also a nice version. There's pluses and minuses to all of these. So what I usually recommend to people is by reading a chapter, see if you like it, read a different translation of their chapter, and you can kind of figure out what you like. There are also some really goofy ones that I wouldn't recommend. So if you go on Bible Gateway or something, you're going to see some there that just sounds silly. Yeah, some are more by design. This is what they're open about. It's more of a paraphrase than a translation. Yeah, and we generally don't recommend those. Yeah, or I've seen one that's in Pidgin English and so on. I don't recommend it either. So again, there's pluses and minuses to all of these. Like the NIV is probably the most popular translation in terms of sales right now in the U.S., but it is evangelical. And sometimes that means that there's a bit of an evangelical flavor. So we just want to be aware of that. In the New Testament. Yeah. And a little bit in the Old Testament, but yeah. And an advantage of the NRSV being, like you said, the academic standard is that it was produced by people from a variety of faith backgrounds who all had to kind of agree on what they were going to do. And there's disadvantages to that, but there's also advantages. It means you're not getting as much of a theological agenda. I will say, too, one advantage of both the ESV and the NRSV, as opposed to NIV, is that they are revisions of revisions of revisions of the King James Version, whereas the NIV was more of a from scratch thing. So if you're comparing the King James to some of these, those that are descendants of the King James Version will often look a little closer in their syntax, and they're easier to compare. Because they're in the family tree. Yeah, they're like a great-great-grandchild of the King James through series of revisions, whereas the NIV is sometimes more different. Right. Just if you're comparing, that's handy to have things that are more genetically related. But very easy to read and very helpful. All right. Well, we hope that this helps people. Again, I would recommend when you're in church, I mean, there's nothing wrong with bringing up another translation saying this translation says this. But you'll find knowing at least the KJV is helpful to have read that. But we hope that as you're struggling with different versions that are different verses, different passages, that these other tools will be a blessing to you in understanding the Old Testament better. We hope you've enjoyed this episode. We hope that you'll help share the goodness from this in a number of ways. please do like and download and share and comment and help people learn about this podcast so that they can get more out of the Old Testament. And please reach out to someone in person, whether in person or via text or however you can. Take something you've learned and uplift and edify them and study the gospel together or just bless people's lives with something you've learned today. This has been The Scriptures Are Real, a Beehive Broadcast production. Music