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121:41 No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned;
This question came to me while discussing Elder Uchtdorf’s recent talk and related past discussions: If it is not right (as our modern culture may say) to question the direction given by our current leaders, does that constitute improper “influence by virtue of the priesthood [position]”?
I realize such a perspective, if popular, could make leading the church an extremely difficult task; but what is the point of this verse?
In my opinion if persuasion, long-suffering, gentleness and meekness, and love unfeigned are the top priority of church leaders (and they often are) then those leaders become easy to follow and work with. If on the other hand if leaders are more authoritative and want their directions followed without questions, and don’t want their vision of what has been revealed for the good of the church to be tinkered with – they end up constructing barriers to the progress that they clearly want.
I believe in being charitable and giving the benefit of doubt, and it may be easier when you are actually working closely with someone and can have a discussion. Conference messages can be difficult when they come across as “this is the word of the Lord to you and your job is to humble yourselves and accept it” because this type of message seems to violate verse 41. But here also the best response may be to increase our charity toward the speaker, and try to understand the heart of the message and what nuggets we may pick out of it for our benefit.
I’m just thinking out loud here.
Orson wrote:This question came to me while discussing Elder Uchtdorf’s recent talk and related past discussions:
If it is not right…to question the direction given by our current leaders, does that constitute improper “influence by virtue of the priesthood [position]”?…In my opinion if persuasion, long-suffering, gentleness and meekness, and love unfeigned are the top priority of church leaders (and they often are) then those leaders become easy to follow and work with. If on the other hand if leaders are more authoritative and want their directions followed without questions, and don’t want their vision of what has been revealed for the good of the church to be tinkered with – they end up constructing barriers to the progress that they clearly want… Conference messages can be difficult when they come across as “this is the word of the Lord to you and your job is to humble yourselves and accept it” because this type of message seems to violate verse 41.But here also the best response may be to increase our charity toward the speaker, and try to understand the heart of the message… loud here… Personally I don’t believe the Church Presidents and Apostles are generally intentionally trying to throw their weight around or pull rank in order to push their own opinions as much as simply being much more confident in how reliable revelation supposedly is as a source of truth and the will of God than I am. Also, it seems like they generally have much more confidence in previous Church leaders (especially Joseph Smith) and inherited scriptures than they do in their own relative authority and judgment to seek their own answers. So basically they will start out with selected scriptures and what previous Church leaders have already said when looking for answers and work around that and when they see or hear something that doesn’t agree with this then they are likely to assume it is automatically wrong or there must be some misunderstanding and dismiss it in their mind. For example, I think the following quotes pretty much say it all about the way they really operate most of the time:
Joseph B. Wirthlin wrote:To those who have strayed because of doctrinal concerns,
we cannot apologize for the truth. We cannot deny doctrine given to us by the Lord Himself.On this principle we cannot compromise. Gordon B. Hinckley wrote:Now
we don’t need a lot of continuing revelation. We have a great, basic reservoir of revelation.But if a problem arises, as it does occasionally, a vexatious thing with which we have to deal, we go to the Lord in prayer. We discuss it as a First Presidency and as a Council of the Twelve Apostles. We pray about it and then comes the whisperings of a still small voice. And we know the direction we should take and we proceed accordingly. “Almost all” means, to me, “almost all”. I believe it isn’t intentional, as DA said, and I don’t see most of the apostles (now or over time) throwing their weight around and demanding to be obeyed, but those who do are the piccolos whose voices are heard more piercingly than the clarinets, trumpets, triangles, etc.
Finally, “obey me without question” is a good summary of Lucifer’s plan. I see the pre-mortal description of that confrontation as metaphorical, and I see it played out all the time in every aspect of my life – including within myself.
That last part is critical to keep in mind. We are “them”, as well.
I assume we are leaving Bruce Mckonkie out of the list of guys not throwing their weight around 😀 Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2
Parts of D&C 121 should be part of the constitution of the church if we had one. While agree that most of our leaders (worldwide and local) try to be kind and understanding, I also think they all (me included) have bad days and get tired of persuasion and sometimes say “just do it my way.” To me it’s also a reminder that I as a father and leader sometimes need to ask for forgiveness. johnh wrote:I assume we are leaving Bruce Mckonkie out of the list of guys not throwing their weight around…
Right, I was mostly thinking about Church Presidents and Apostles after Ezra Taft Benson and Bruce R. McConkie when I said that. However, even with them I still think the bigger problem than any intentional use of their own assumed authority to influence or control people in an overbearing way was simply overconfidence in “revelation” to deliver reliable and accurate truth and direct input from God.
Quote:121:41 No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned;
Funny anecdote about this scripture. When I was in grad school (not at a church school) we were having a lesson in EQ about this scripture. A counselor in the Stake Presidency happened to be attending. I asked what I thought was a sincere question with no motives of questioning authority whatsoever. I asked if this means that we can never – as a leader – say I’m your priesthood leader and I was inspired to tell you XYZ. The counselor in the Stake Presidency went on a 5 minute tirade directed at me about how I need to stop getting into the “technicalities” and start understanding the intent of the scriptures. It really hurt my feelings and it took me a little while to realize how ironic the response was…
Yeah, irony is a real . . . I’ll let everyone fill in the blank for themselves.
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