Points to Ponder in Doctrine and Covenants 93

July 25, 2021

To accompany your Come Follow Me study for August 25-31

In addition to reading this section you will want to read:

You may also enjoy the following video:

If you would like a Kahoot game related to this section which you could use with your family or your class, click here:  https://create.kahoot.it/share/doctrine-and-covenants-93/fdfe8d2a-e9a5-470d-ab44-4cb8bae2759b. To use it with a group, after clicking on this link, you will need to log into Kahoot, creating a free account if you have not done so previously, then click on the blue “Host Live” button or the gray “Assign” button, depending on how you wish to use the Kahoot. Some of the Kahoot questions may presuppose that the player has read through the suggested answers to the following Points to Ponder and at least has browsed the Institute student manual as well.

Points to Ponder in Doctrine and Covenants 93

1. Do you believe 93:1 is a promise for this life or the next life?  Why do you think so?

2. Do you believe the “John” mentioned in 93:6-18 is John the Baptist or John the Revelator?  Why do you think so?

3. How can Jesus be said in 93:10 to have made men, when elsewhere it seems clear that our spirit bodies were created by Heavenly Father and our earthly bodies, obviously, were created by our earthly parents? 

4. How could one be able to memorize the entire standard works and do complex mathematical calculations in his head and still be considered unintelligent? 

5. What information in this section is uniquely Latter-day Saint doctrine?

6. Why do you suppose Joseph Smith and other early leaders neglected their families so much that the Lord had to openly chastise them for it in D&C 93?  How can you summarize the lesson from this for us today?

FIND:  (Give the verse(s) for each of the following ideas in D&C 93.)

7. The Lord’s definition of “truth.”

8. We’ll be happier after we’re resurrected than we can be before.

9. Man, like God, can eventually be omniscient. 

10. The only verse in the standard works which speaks of man’s state before his spirit birth. 

Possible answers to Points to Ponder in Doctrine and Covenants 93

1. Do you believe 93:1 is a promise for this life or the next life?  Why do you think so?

Since 2 Nephi 9:38 shows that even the wicked will eventually see God’s face, this promise in D&C 93 would seem to have little meaning if it only referred to an experience in the life to come.  It seems that D&C 93 is speaking of the possibility that, if we qualify, we can see God in this life and/or in the spirit world, prior to the judgment day spoken of in 2 Nephi 9.  I remember President James E. Faust’s saying that he considered this verse the most important verse in all of scripture.

2. Do you believe the “John” mentioned in 93:6-18 is John the Baptist or John the Revelator?  Why do you think so?

Your choice.  Evidence could support either and commentators have differed.  Orson Pratt and John Taylor believed it was John the Baptist.  The heading to the section beginning in 1921 indicated that it contained “The record of John, the Apostle and Revelator.”  The current heading does not take a position but states only, “John bore record that the Son of God went from grace to grace until He received a fulness of the glory of the Father.”   Verses 7-14 are clearly paraphrased from John the Revelator’s account in John 1, but verse 15 seems to be John the Baptist’s first person account of the baptism of Jesus.  Perhaps the references in D&C 93 are to John the Revelator, but he in turn quotes the Baptist.  Someday we will know for sure, when we “receive the fulness of the record of John” (93:18), and in the meantime it really does not matter.

3. How can Jesus be said in 93:10 to have made men, when elsewhere it seems clear that our spirit bodies were created by Heavenly Father and our earthly bodies, obviously, were created by our earthly parents? 

Presumably, this either means that since the Father and Son are “one” in purpose, what one of them did can be said to have been done by the other, or that the Son set up conditions whereby men could be created on this planet and/or literally placed man upon it, even though he did not technically “beget” men in the usual sense of the word.

4. How could one be able to memorize the entire standard works and do complex mathematical calculations in his head and still be considered unintelligent? 

The Lord’s definition of “intelligence” includes the wisdom to use knowledge properly.  Intelligence, or “light and truth forsake that evil one.” (93:37.)  Satan, therefore, can be said to be absolutely without “intelligence” by this definition, though he would get a perfect score on a standardized IQ test.

5. What information in this section is uniquely Latter-day Saint doctrine?

  • That man can see God (93:1)
  • That man can receive of God’s “fulness” (93:19) and someday know all things (93:28)
  • That we, like Jesus, “were also in the beginning with the Father,” living before we were born (93:23, 29)
  • The “intelligence” which predates even our spirit birth is eternal, never having been created (93:29)
  • The physical elements of the universe are also eternal (93:33)
  • Infants are innocent before God.  (93:38)

6. Why do you suppose Joseph Smith and other early leaders neglected their families so much that the Lord had to openly chastise them for it in D&C 93?  How can you summarize the lesson from this for us today?

Clearly, they were very busy, with tremendously weighty assignments.  They did not have the many time and labor-saving conveniences we enjoy today.  Nonetheless, the Lord did not chastise them for not working harder or for not finding more time in the day, but for poor prioritization.  We cannot excuse our lack of attention to our families on grounds that we were so busy doing church work we did not have time for them.  Sometimes Church work can wait better than families can.

FIND:  (Give the verse(s) for each of the following ideas in D&C 93.)

7. The Lord’s definition of “truth.”

93:24

8. We’ll be happier after we’re resurrected than we can be before.

93:33

9. Man, like God, can eventually be omniscient. 

93:28

10. The only verse in the standard works which speaks of man’s state before his spirit birth. 

93:29