D&C 31

Section 31 introduces a new character, at least I think he’s new, I can’t remember that far back, Thomas B. Marsh. He is an interesting man and his story is pretty interesting as well, lots of lessons and insights and counsel for ourselves, he is, it seems, a man much like the rest of us. DJR gives an introduction as Brother Marsh as follows: “Born on November 1, 1799, Thomas left his parents’ home at age 14, and then wandered for many years from city to city, and finally tried to find success in the grocery business, but failed. During this time, he joined the Methodist Church, but it never did seem to ‘take’ in his soul. In the course of events, he ended up in western New York, where he heard of Joseph Smith. He pursued his interest in Joseph Smith and his ‘golden book’ and finally ended up at E.B. Grandin’s printing shop in Palmyra, New York, where the Book of Mormon was in the process of being printed. He met Martin Harris there, who gave him proof sheets of the first sixteen printed pages of the Book of Mormon.” Brother Marsh was soon afterward baptized, and then here in this section was called on a mission, but not one to the Lamanites like OC and Peter Whitmer. I think that we could note beforehand, that he was excommunicated on March 17, 1839, but later returned to the Church and was rebaptized on July 16, 1857. He was without the Church for 18 years, the 18 hardest years, and I remember hearing an Ensign article written about him where he is quoted as saying, “You cannot break the commandments, you can only break yourself against them.” The story of his excommunication begins in Far West, Missouri when his wife had agreed with the wife of George W. Harris agreed to exchange the milk from their cows in order to make more cheese than they could make alone. Part of this arrangement was to exchange all the milk to include the strippings, whatever that was. It turns out that Sister Marsh, according to Apostle George A. Smith, “saved a pint of strippings from each cow and sent Mrs. Harris the milk without the strippings.” This seems to be a pretty straight forward case, she agreed to give the strippings and she didn’t, but the counsels of the Church had to get involved and every time that she was convicted, Brother Marsh appealed to the next higher court until finally the case was heard by the Prophet Joseph Smith himself and his counselors in the First Presidency. Their verdict was the same as everyone else’s, she had not upheld her end of the agreement. Elder Smith continues, “This little affair, you will observe, kicked up a considerable breeze, and Thomas B. Marsh then declared that he would sustain the character of his wife, even if he had to go to hell for it.” When we get to this point in the story, I have to ask, what was he expected to do? I understand that his wife was clearly in the wrong, but was he supposed to rebuke her? Chastise her or disown her if she didn’t confess and repent? I’m not saying that’s what he should have done, I’m just curious what he was expected to do. This is a situation that would be a good example about what to do about a wayward spouse, but because he apparently acted in a way that was not what he should have done, I would like to know what he was supposed to do. Elder Smith finishes, “The then President of the Twelve Apostles, the man who should have been the first to do justice and cause reparation to be made for wrong, committed by any member of his family, took that position, and what next? He went before a magistrate and swore that the ‘Mormons’ were hostile towards the State of Missouri. That affidavit brought from the government of Missouri an exterminating order, which drove some 15,000 Saints from their homes and habitations, and some thousands perished through suffering the exposure consequent on this state of affairs. Do you understand what trouble was consequent to the dispute about a pint of strippings?” Everything escalates, and what went from a disagreement eventually went to excommunication and contempt. DJR comments, “Remember, Brother Marsh did return to the Church, a reminder that the mercy of the Lord in constantly extended to us, but he paid a bitter price for pride and for nor following the Lord’s counsel regarding his family, in this revelation.” It’s interesting that the Lord talks about the hardship that he’s had with his family in verse 2 because I think that the issue with his wife is probably not the first time that this has happened, something just absolutely insane that didn’t make any sense, and he’s probably learned through experience to “stand by your wife.” So this probably wasn’t his first rodeo and he believed that going against his wife was going to be more painful than going against the Church. 31:1-2 – The Lord begins by referring to him as “Thomas, my son, blessed are you because of your faith in my work.” DJR reminds us that “my son” is “a term of tenderness and endearment.” The IM comments on Thomas’s faith, saying, “Thomas B. Marsh had embraced the gospel on the testimony of the Spirit concerning sixteen pages of the Book of Mormon, and he moved to Palmyra in order to join the Church. This was faith. Many ‘inquirers’ cannot be moved, though they have an entire library from which to draw information. God commends him for his faith.” That’s really profound, I like that a lot. The Lord continues, in a way that kind of gives condolences because “you have had many afflictions because of your family; nevertheless, I will bless you and your family, yea, your little ones; and the day cometh that they will believe and know the truth and be one with you in my church.” Like I said, this apparently isn’t Thomas’s first rodeo with crazy, it seems to be a pretty constant thing, but when the Lord promises that his family and little ones would come to “believe and know the truth and be one with you in my church,” that’s all I’ve ever wanted in my life, that’s what I would work and die for, for my family, my children to believe in the truthfulness of the gospel and to embrace it. Interestingly, the June 2015 Ensign’s First Presidency message is entitled “Family Can Be Together Forever” in which President Eyring teaches, “my assurance to you is that, with the Lord’s help and with repentant hearts, we can catch a glimpse in this life of the kind of life we want to have forever. Heavenly Father loves us. He wants us back with Him. The Savior, through the power of His Atonement, makes possible the change in our hearts we need to make in order to enter holy temples, make covenants we can then keep, and in time live in families forever in celestial glory.” The message that I got from this article is that the family is the organization in which we can grow spiritually the most, it was created and ordained of God so that we can reach out for and become more like the Savior. The IM quotes Elder Bruce R. McConkie as teaching, “The great work of every man is… to create and perfect an eternal family unit… Salvation is a family affair.” Like I said, I don’t know exactly what Thomas was supposed to do with his wife’s breaking of her promise about the milk, but surely whatever way would have been advised would have had the potential to strengthen both Thomas and his wife and bring them closer to the Lord, because that’s the whole purpose of families. 31:3-8 – The Lord continues with the mission call, though it is not to anywhere exotic, and as far as I can tell, it’s pretty non-specific because all it says is “and your tongue shall be loosed, and you shall declare glad tidings of great joy unto this generation.” Maybe the Lord is giving him the opportunity to reach out and counsel with the Lord on where he should go or what he should do. Maybe this is an example of how to be a member missionary, surely Thomas still had responsibilities to his wife and children, maybe he was to continue on in his daily life and then do the work also. There is also a reminder to us that the gospel, or the sharing of the gospel isn’t a burden, truly the gospel is “glad tidings of great joy.” Because we have the gospel, we can live with hope and happiness and comfort and joy and guidance, the gospel provides all these things. I routinely ask myself, “how would I be able to deal with this circumstance if I didn’t have the gospel? How do other people do it?” I even ask other people that same question sometimes, “how do people live this life without the gospel?” Because honestly I don’t think that I would be able to. Concerning the loosening of Thomas’s tongue, the IM teaches, “As long as Thomas B. Marsh was faithful he was an eloquent speaker. At the time of the troubles in Clay County, Mo., he was elected a member of a committee to lay the grievances of the Saints before the authorities of the State. On that occasion he spoke to impressively that General Atchison, who was present, shed tears, and the meeting passed resolution to assist the Saints in finding a new location.” We have another instance of the analogy of the “fields are white” when the Lord says, “Therefore, thrust in your sickle with all your soul, and your sins are forgiven you, and you shall be laden with sheaved upon your back, for the laborer is worthy of his hire.” Again we have to consider that when we are talking about the laborer who is doing the reaping, the only things that are promised are improvement of self, there are no promises of great temporal reward or validation. But I also think it’s interesting here that the Lord seems to be telling Thomas that he will be successful in bringing others into the gospel, and while it’s critical to grow yourself spiritually through whatever endeavors we might undertake, it’s also nice to have some sort of encouraging results as well along the way. The Lord gives encouragement saying, “I will open the hearts of the people, and they will receive you. And I will establish a church by your hand. And you shall strengthen them and prepare them against the time when they shall be gathered.” The IM teaches, “The principle of gathering had just been revealed. Marsh was to be one of the servants of the Almighty whose duty it would be to strengthen and prepare the people for gathering. It takes both strength of character and preparation to gather to Zion, and this will be still more the case, when the City of Zion is to be built up, and the laws of God must be observed. Marsh, in the autumn of 1832, led a company of Saints to Jackson Co., Mo.” 31:9-13 – The Lord gives more counsel, and I found this to be quite accurate for me with one of the problems that I am facing personally right now. The Lord says, “Be patient in afflictions, revile not against those that revile, Govern your house in meekness, and be steadfast.” I think that this advice comes back to the question, what should Thomas have done when the issue came up about his wife. The Lord’s counsel is pretty vague, but I guess that’s the point of personal revelation. Maybe the point is that, I believe Thomas was the one who kept instigating the appeals to higher church authorities, even after they had passed their judgment on the case, and so that might have been what the Lord referred to as “revilers” even though it was a Church court, he could have felt persecuted. This is similar to a February 2009 Ensign article that I heard entitled “A Battle of Pride” in which the author talks about a lawsuit that he was served with and how he was bankrupting his company to fight it. Even though it seemed not to be his fault, he turned to the Lord for counsel, which came through Ether 15, and the author understood “why the gruesome battles between Coriantumr and Shiz were included in the scriptures. Now I understood that, among other things, this story could teach me important lessons about conflict and priorities. Through them, I realized that my own pride was clouding my ability to weigh the costs of fighting this legal battle. I learned that sometimes settling a conflict can be more important than winning it.” Even though I think that it was apparent that Sister Marsh was in the wrong, even if she wasn’t, and I guess that this counsel could have gone for Sister Harris as well, instead of fighting it tooth and nail, just relinquish your claim on any stance and move forward. This is a lesson that I learned back about 14 years ago when I was in the army and doing ambulance runs with the city paramedics. There was a night when there was a miscommunication between our team and the dispatcher and the dispatcher was angry with us because she said that she told us to tell her when we got to a certain spot so that she could send another team back home, and of course we didn’t ever tell her when we made it there because she never told us to do it. I was ready to argue to the death about it, but the main paramedic simply said, “I didn’t do it and I’m sorry, my bad.” I knew that he wasn’t wrong because I was there and didn’t hear her tell us, but instead of fighting about it and working up all this drama, he just apologized and she accepted it and that was that, the issue was squashed. This was a lesson that has stuck with me ever since and I have tried to keep close to me because I found it to be quite valuable, and this man very wise. I am definitely a “revile against the revilers” type of person, I can be quite hostile and aggressive and I’m a fighter especially if someone gets in my face, but I know that that is wrong, that that is not a Christ-like way to be and I need to work on that. I was in this particular mood when I read this the first time, so this hit me a little close to home. The Lord also calls Thomas to “be a physician unto the church, but not unto the world, for they will not receive you.” This is a pretty interesting topic, the IM teaches, “there are many recorded instances of Thomas B. Marsh’s giving his time to help members of the Church resolve their problems. Elder Marsh also participated in many Church disciplinary councils as the presiding authority. Here, through the rules and laws of the Church, he offered hope to the repentant. Even though Thomas B. Marsh had acquired some skills in the use of mild herbs and was able to help people with his knowledge, his greater calling was the healing of souls.” I think it’s interesting that Elder Marsh has been on the very councils that saw the types of cases that he insisted on bringing for his wife. This is the sort of case where someone’s strength can also turn into their weakness if they can’t keep it out of their blind spot. Great counsel for all of us.