Lesson 2-4 "Obeying Commandments Helps Us Fulfill Our Divine Roles"

It's only four weeks into this manual and already... if my New Year's Resolution was to teach out of the manual as written, I'd be breaking my resolution on this lesson for sure.

Why? Three reasons.

1) The 3 quotes provided in the lesson are from 30, 35, and 37 years ago. Thank heavens for the suggested resource talks, which are all from within the last 3 years, a gold mine of good (updated!) discussions of the divine potential of young women, the importance of choosing to be obedient, and why young women should value and plan for marriage and motherhood.

2) The "workshop" and its accompanying "handout" - do we seriously want to send young women home with an explicit list of how to go about breaking God's commandments? This handout violates a fundamental principle of a good handout, which is to place the most important points last because that's what readers are likely to remember most. All the good and uplifting material is first, followed by a depressing and overly specific list of ways to screw up your life. Poor design.

3) Women's divine roles are listed in the lesson as "wife and helpmate, mother, and teacher." This use of the word "helpmate" as one of women's divine roles: No, no, and no. That word is not in the scriptures! It is not doctrinal to use that word to refer to the female partner in a marriage. It's also ridiculously outdated (a quick search of it in LDS.org finds one single instance of that word being used since 1988, although it was a popular term in the early 1970s).

Let's go to the scriptures:

Genesis 2:18/ Moses 3:18 "It is not good that man should be alone. I will make an help meet for him."

(Note how "help" is a noun and "meet" is an adjective)

Genesis 2:20/Moses 3:20 "but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him."

Abraham 5:14 "And the Gods said: Let us make an help meet for the man, for it is not good that the man should be alone, therefore we will form an help meet for him."

Elder Burton put it this way ("A Marriage to Last Through Eternity," Ensign Jun 1987): "The scriptures do not use the word helpmate or helpmeet, but [the adjective] meet, which means of the same worthiness, the same intelligence, the same quality or nobility, worthy to stand beside the man as a fit companion and helper."

In Camille Fronk Olson's beautiful and substantive new book, Women of the Old Testament, she comments on this phrase (p. 9):

"The first word ('exer), translated 'help,' implies not a subordinate but rather someone who has strength to do what another cannot do for himself. Hebrew scholar Donald W. Parry has argued that the woman's unique strength, or 'help,' is as a 'life giver' or 'life force.' This same Hebrew word, 'ezer translated 'help,' appears numerous times in the Bible. The root... frequently appears in reference to God. For example, God is the One who rescues us in our distress (Ps 70:5)... In this way, women are types of Christ.

"The second word, (kenegdo), translated 'meet,' is a compound of three words that collectively occur only in the Eden account. The root word within this compound is the middle word, kgd, which means 'to be conspicuous' or 'to be apparent.'... Eve was an appropriate and worthy partner for Adam. God's description of marital companionship in Genesis 2 indicates no hierarchical dynamic between Adam and Eve."

She then goes on to point out, as have many others, that Eve was created from Adam's side, not his head or his foot.

The main ideas of the lesson, as I read them, are these:

I. Divine laws and commandments are real. They are not just suggestions. They carry eternal consequences whether we know about them or not. Obeying them--especially knowingly, voluntarily obeying them--keeps us on the life path that our Father in Heaven has for us. Real, heart-humble obedience keeps the channels of communication and spiritual blessing open with our Heavenly parents - in essence, it keeps the Lord free and unbound and able to bless us, guide us, and stay with us.

Relevant scriptures (oddly missing from this lesson) -

D&C 120: 20-21
"There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated— And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated."

D&C 82: 8-10
"And again, I say unto you, I give unto you a new commandment, that you may understand my will concerning you; Or, in other words, I give unto you directions how you may act before me, that it may turn to you for your salvation. I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise."

II. The consequences of disobedience are real and often long-lasting (even with repentance). President Monson's quote about media portrayals of celebrity lifestyle is as spot-on now as it was when he said it in 1980: sinful choices are all too often portrayed as glamorous and happily free of consequences. "Don’t you believe it!," he says, "There is a time of reckoning." Sin sows sorrow, heartache, pain, and puts distance between us and God. The Lord warns repeatedly throughout the scriptures about this, and we should "warn our neighbor" by teaching this plainly to the YW in our stewardship, but (in my opinion) without unnecessarily dwelling on sin by going through all the possibilities. Leave it at what Mosiah said (4:29), "And finally, I cannot tell you all the things whereby ye may commit sin; for there are divers ways and means, even so many that I cannot number them."

III. A true understanding of women's divine roles. I understand the word "divine" here to mean "started before I got here and continuing after I leave." In other words, those roles and relationships that are bound by covenant, which are "bound in heaven" as on earth. Through my baptismal and temple covenants I understand that women's roles include becoming a disciple of Christ, a kingdom builder, a Savior on Mt Zion, a proclaimer of the gospel. I am fulfilling that when I raise my family to the Lord, when I accept and faithfully magnify callings, when I minister as a visiting teacher, when I bear testimony to a nonbeliever. Through my marriage covenant and the covenant under which I was born to faithful parents, I understand that women's roles include being part of an unbroken chain of a human family, sealed for all eternity and with eternal life and exaltation as the horizon goal. Whatever we can do, within our circumstances, to fulfill these roles with faith during our lifetime moves us and our families that much farther along. No one gets all the way there by themselves, we all fall short and are broken and need the Atonement.

Our LDS understanding of Eve (ie the paradigm for all women) means that we believe women are life givers, as opposed to the old (false) Christian understanding of Eve as the bringer of sin, death, and man's fallen nature. Camille Fronk Olson again (p. 7): "If we consider Eve's decision in the Garden of Eden as courageous and faith-driven and the results of that decision to be conducive to God's plan, we are more likely to recognize intelligence, strength, rational thinking, and great ability in women in general."

There are rich and multiple meanings for women's divine role as a "life force." Marriage and motherhood are one path and young women should hope for and plan for that and live worthy of it. Women are life givers by participating in the divine work of creation: for some that is by bearing children (which is not a measure of personal righteousness), and yet that role is available to all in creating goodness and beauty wherever we are, and "bringing to pass much righteousness" (D&C 58:27) - case in point, the previous post, see below.