D&C 25 - Intro

Section 25 is a little bit different in that it is initially addressed to Emma Smith, Joseph’s wife. The IM gives background information as follows: “It had been just over three years since the Prophet Joseph Smith and Emma Hale had been married in the small village of South Bainbridge, New York. Joseph was now twenty-five years of age and Emma twenty-six. The seventh of nine children born to Isaac and Elizabeth Hale, Emma was born on 10 July 1804 in Harmony, Pennsylvania. There the Prophet met and courted her while he was working for Josiah Stowell. It is reported that Emma was a beautiful woman with an attractive personality, and he had the reputation of being a refined and dignified woman who was an excellent housekeeper and cook. Her Methodist upbringing had helped her develop a great love of music. The first three years for the newly married couple were indeed tense and trying ones. Eight months after their marriage Joseph received the golden plates from the angel Moroni. From that moment on their lives were punctuated with persecution and trial. Emma passed through these trying experiences with her husband. She was at his side during those agonizing months when Joseph lost the gift to translate. She served as his scribe for a while. Her heart must have ached with the Prophet was arrested on trumped-up charged again and again. She traveled with the Prophet on many of his missionary journeys and shared with him the joy and sorrow associated with the preaching of the gospel. Emma was a woman of great courage and strong will. Of her the Prophet’s mother, Lucy Mack Smith, wrote: ‘I have never seen a woman in my life, who would endure every species of fatigue and hardship, from month to month, and from year to year, with that unflinching courage, zeal, and patience, which she has ever done; for I know that which she has had to endure… she has breasted the storms of persecution, and buffeted the rage of men and devils, which would have borne down almost any other woman.’ Now, in July of 1830, the Lord directed to Emma a revelation known as section 25 of the Doctrine and Covenants.” DJR has some really interesting insights into Emma, saying, “she was about five feet nine inches tall, used excellent English grammar, had dark hair and brown eyes and was a school teacher in the area. Joseph continued to court her over time and eventually asked her father for permission to marry her. He refused, expressing concerns about Joseph’s lack of education and involvement with ‘gold digging.’ As a result, Joseph and Emma eloped and were married in South Bainbridge, New York, on January 18, 1837, after which they lived for a time with Joseph’s parents in Manchester, New York. They stayed in Manchester until after Moroni delivered the gold plates to Joseph, on September 22, 1827. In fact, Emma accompanied her husband to the Hill Cumorah on that occasion and waited at the bottom of the hill while Joseph climbed up the hill to his meeting place with Moroni.” A couple of things that I find fascinating about this passage is that first, Joseph and Emma eloped because her father didn’t approve of the marriage. Knowing what JS had to go through for the rest of his life because of the restoration, and what the early saints endured, his wife would have had to be remarkably strong, both physically, emotionally, and spiritually. One story that I heard about Emma was that as a child, her father only became religious after happening to hear Emma in the woods praying for him, at that his heart was softened and he joined his family in their religious life. That is a naturally strong woman, she had to have had enormous inclinations toward the spiritual from a very early age in order to be who she was and do what she did. I went to a Relief Society dinner once and the program was about Emma Smith, and they said something about, while the Church loves and reveres Joseph Smith, Emma Smith is a taboo subject within the Church. It was really an incredible program and I came away with a respect and admiration for her that I had not known before. I found it interesting that the eloped, and when I heard this the first time, I had actually been wondering to myself if the Lord only condoned relationships where the parents approved, but when I heard this, I had my answer. Human parents are flawed, but with the guidance of Heavenly Father, we are good to go. The other thing that I found interesting about DJR’s paragraph was that Emma was the one who accompanied JS to retrieve the plates from Moroni. They both knew that evil men were waiting to assault Joseph and steal the plates, and yet he didn’t take any of his brothers or male friends with him, he took his wife, and while there she kind of “stood guard” for him while he went to get the plates. This was kind of a “Bonnie and Clyde” moment for me, and I felt a kinship to her. Emma Smith is the ultimate “ride or die chick” and that’s how I am and I can’t help but have immense respect for that. Of Emma’s spiritual strength and help in the work, DJR comments “On 22 September 1827 Emma was privileged to be the first to know that Joseph had acquired the plates from the angel Moroni. The plates ‘lay in a box under our bed for months,’ she said, ‘but I never felt at liberty to look at them.’ Emma was a scribe for the Book of Mormon translation, and said of her experience, ‘It is marvelous to me… when acting as his scribe, he would dictate to me hour after hour; and when returning after means, or after interruptions, he could at once begin where he had left off, without either seeing the manuscript or having any portion of it read to him.’ She bore a continuing testimony, even in her seventy-fourth year, of her husband’s prophetic calling: ‘I believe he was everything he professed to be.’ Once while Emma was serving as Joseph’s scribe as he was translating the gold plates, she said that he dictated something about the walls of Jerusalem, upon which he stopped and asked, ‘Emma, did Jerusalem have walls around it?’ Thus, she bore record that her husband did indeed translate the Book of Mormon plates.” Emma had the opportunity to look at the gold plates pretty much at will, but she didn’t, not because she wasn’t interested but because the permission hadn’t been given to her and she recognized God’s will concerning the plates and the work. That is some incredible faith and obedience to desperately want to view something that is only a couple of feet away from you while you sleep, and still not do it because you honor and obey the Lord, self-control at its finest. That’s an interesting insight. Further background is given concerning this revelation when DJR says, “At the time section 25 was given, in July of 1930, persecution was beginning to mount in Harmony and the time was approaching where it would be necessary for Joseph and Emma to move to Fayette, New York, to escape it. Emma’s uncle Nathaniel (a minister) and others had tried to poison her mind regarding her ‘prophet’ husband. Attempts were being made to persuade her to leave Joseph and to stay in Harmony when he was forced to leave, where she would be well taken care of by family and friends. It is in this setting that she was given this revelation.”