12/20/2017 - Section 70:1-18

December 20, 2018

Section 70:1-18

Giving Your Best, Stewardship, Judgment Day, Lord’s Gifts, Earthly Education,

The Lord begins this section by naming the principle people whom He has “appointed…and ordained…to be stewards over the revelations and commandments which I have given unto them, and which I shall hereafter give unto them.” (v3) (this had to do specifically to the publishing of the D&C—but I think it has far greater ramifications for us)

The Lord also speaks of the basic principles of stewardship in D&C 104:14, 55-56:”I, the Lord, stretched out the heavens, and built the earth, my very handiwork; and all things therein are mine….Behold, all these properties are mine…and if the properties are mine, then ye are stewards, otherwise ye are not stewards.”  He then pointedly let them know that “an account of this stewardship will I require of them in the day of judgment.” ((v4) He also makes sure that we understand that we will all have a stewardship. He then speaks of stewardships over temporal things as well as stewardships over spiritual things. We will each be given responsibilities—but our responsibilities will not all be the same. The important thing for us is to do our very best. I feel these stewardships must be a very important part of our earthly education—for that is what He has said He wants our accounting of at our final judgment.

At first I thought of my callings in the church—those spiritual stewardships. Whether they had to do with being the primary chorister, or the ward newsletter writer, or the young women’s leader—I am expected to do my best, and I will be judged on my performance. But that judgment will not be a comparison between me and someone who has a beautiful voice (speaking of primary chorister). It will, instead, be a comparison between what I am able to do in my current situation and what I actually do. Then I thought of greater stewardships, and I thought of my marriage, and my children, for they are the greatest stewardships I could ever have. And then there are other stewardships: my friends, the way I work in my money earning jobs and the way I treat the people I have worked with and worked for (meaning patient’s, clients, and managers and directors), and then there is the way I treat the general population around me.

This section gives directions as to how stewardships work in the united order. But the members of the church were not able to live a united order at that time, so the Lord allowed us to practice and grow from living the law of tithing. I can do that well. But I want to remember that my stewardship is so much more than tithing. In fact, I think it can even have much to do with how I spend the minutes of each day---for the time I have here on earth is also something given my by the Lord.

…a lot to ponder—and in my pondering, I’m thinking I must remember that working to bring joy and happiness to those around me is also a stewardship—one that benefits those around me as well as myself.

6/24/2021 – D&C 70

In the first 12 days of November 1831, there were four special conferences held at Kirtland. The last of these conferences focused on the Book of Commandments—which was to be the beginning of the Doctrine and Covenants. Joseph refers to that book as being “the foundation of the Church in these last days, and a benefit to the world, showing that the keys of the mysteries of the kingdom of our savior are again entrusted to man.

We can certainly learn much from both the Old and the New Testaments, and the Book of Mormon, and the Pearl of Great Price---but the Doctrine & Covenants is the book distinctly created for our time on earth. It is in this section that the Lord appointed stewards over the Book of Commandments who were to oversee the publishing of the “revelations and commandments”. (v 3) The Lord follows that with this truth: “And an account of this stewardship will I require of them in the day of judgment.” (v4) To me, that makes this calling of stewardship VERY important. 

In our day, almost 200 years later, we benefit from their performing their stewardship so well. I see my stewardship as making sure I benefit, and grow, from reading, and contemplating, the revelations that the Lord saw fit to give to us as the saints in these Latter Days.

If these men who are over the publication of this book find that they have excess funds, they are to give those funds to the Lord’s storehouse to be used for the benefit of the saints who might be in need. The Lord goes on to say in v’s 13 & 14 that we should do the very same thing: sharing with others what we can from both our temporal and our spiritual growth. This not only helps others, but it will also bring us all closer together--and closer to our Heavenly Father.

The Lord ends this revelation with His promise that “For they have been faithful over many things, and have done well inasmuch as they have not sinned. Behold, I, the Lord, am merciful and will bless them, and they shall enter into the joy of these things.”