Some great posts on D&C 25, the revelation to Emma

Every January FMH invites several men to contribute posts of interest to the women who read their blog. This January, my husband Joe was invited and has posted his research and thoughts on D&C 25. If you've ever wanted to know more about Emma, about her place in the church, about what the revelation does or does not say to us, now's your chance to get some great, detailed information! The first post comments on the words, structure, and history of the section. The second post builds on the first, and asks questions and offers interpretations. For a little taste, here's part of the second post:

The Lord doesn’t say to Emma that she had murmured and so done wrong, that she has murmuring to repent of. Rather, the Lord simply tells her not to murmur. All that is implied here, strictly speaking, is that Emma faced a real—and, frankly, obvious—temptation. She would unquestionably have been tempted to murmur. But the crucial question is: Tempted to murmur because of what? Because, as the Lord puts it, of her marginalized status: “Murmur not because of the things which thou hast not seen.” Emma has, despite her unfailing support for Joseph, been left out of things, and the Lord explicitly recognizes the fact. It’s crucial to see that it’s in direct response to this recognition on the Lord’s part—to this recognition of Emma’s marginal or marginalized status—that certain appointments and responsibilities are given to her. This revelation thus serves as a kind of call to Emma to move out of the margins, assuming responsibilities that have hitherto been entirely the work of men, as I’ll explain below.

Verse 4 is thus, I want to suggest, indeed the key to understanding the revelation. But it isn’t the key in the sense traditionally assumed. It doesn’t give us to see that Emma was a “proud, fearful, murmuring woman.” It gives us rather to see that she faced a real—and perhaps unavoidable—temptation to wallow in self-pity, to sulk on the margins, if not to use her marginalization as an excuse not to have to take up any serious responsibilities. The Lord cautioned her against such self-congratulatory murmuring, inviting her instead to move out of the margins and into the beating heart of the Church, appointing her to a remarkable position in the young movement.