Priesthood Study

Reading Come Follow Me a few weeks back, we read about how the Priesthood was restored. I have a son who is "coming of age" in a few years and just felt a real PRESS to learn and understand more about the priesthood. It was funny as I was doing so, because I seemed to forget that I ALSO have three daughters. One who, after I taught a lesson about Priesthood ,asked, "So... what do women do?"

Basically, I have been on journey since then to learn all that I can about the priesthood and the Relief Society. And while it is not a normal Relief Society Sunday lesson, I did want to share this talk from Elder Oaks with you because I felt it very eye opening and inspiring. And we can all use a little more of that right?

I am just going to share some of my favorite highlights but I will link the full talk here.

One quote I found especially needful to hear and understand is as follows: 

Whoever exercises priesthood authority should forget about their rights and concentrate on their responsibilities. That is a principle needed in society at large. Latter-day Saints surely recognize that qualifying for exaltation is not a matter of asserting rights but a matter of fulfilling responsibilities.

During out stake leadership training this weekend this is something Elder Soares talked about. He said we need to focus less on the things that stress us and divide us like who the next president will be, and focus on the Gospel. Because THAT is what unites us. Being Children of God is something we all have in common whether we know about it or not. 

Do not be distracted on all the voices out there. I firmly believe that that is part of this big push to Hear Him. Focus on the Lords voice and your voice. When He speaks to us and we act, we will do what is right, and we will also be lead to understand. 

The Keys and Authority of the Priesthood

By Elder Dallin H. Oaks Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

The understanding we seek begins with an understanding of the keys of the priesthood. “Priesthood keys are the authority God has given to priesthood [holders] to direct, control, and govern the use of His priesthood on earth.”⁴ 

As Elder M. Russell Ballard has explained, “Those who have priesthood keys … literally make it possible for all who serve faithfully under their direction to exercise priesthood authority and have access to priesthood power.”⁵

In the controlling of the exercise of priesthood authority, the function of priesthood keys both enlarges and limits. For example, a person who holds the priesthood is not able to confer his office or authority on another unless authorized by one who holds the keys. Without that authorization, the ordination would be invalid. This explains why a priesthood holder—regardless of office—cannot ordain a member of his family or administer the sacrament in his own home without authorization from the one who holds the appropriate keys.

The divine nature of the limitations put upon the exercise of priesthood keys explains an essential contrast between decisions on matters of Church administration and decisions affecting the priesthood. The First Presidency and the Council of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve, who preside over the Church, are empowered to make many decisions affecting Church policies and procedures—matters such as the location of Church buildings and the ages for missionary service. 

But even though these presiding authorities hold and exercise all of the keys delegated to men in this dispensation, they are not free to alter the divinely decreed pattern that only men will hold offices in the priesthood.

How does this apply to women? In an address to the Relief Society, President Joseph Fielding Smith, then President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, said this: “While the sisters have not been given the Priesthood, it has not been conferred upon them, that does not mean that the Lord has not given unto them authority. … 

A person may have authority given to him, or a sister to her, to do certain things in the Church that are binding and absolutely necessary for our salvation, such as the work that our sisters do in the House of the Lord. They have authority given unto them to do some great and wonderful things, sacred unto the Lord, and binding just as thoroughly as are the blessings that are given by the men who hold the Priesthood.”⁷

Church work done by women or men, whether in the temple or in the wards or branches, is done under the direction of those who hold priesthood keys. Thus, speaking of the Relief Society, President Smith explained, “[The Lord] has given to them this great organization where they have authority to serve under the directions of the bishops of the wards … , looking after the interest of our people both spiritually and temporally.”⁸

Thus, it is truly said that Relief Society is not just a class for women but something they belong to—a divinely established appendage to the priesthood.⁹

We are not accustomed to speaking of women having the authority of the priesthood in their Church callings, but what other authority can it be? When a woman—young or old—is set apart to preach the gospel as a full-time missionary, she is given priesthood authority to perform a priesthood function. The same is true when a woman is set apart to function as an officer or teacher in a Church organization under the direction of one who holds the keys of the priesthood. Whoever functions in an office or calling received from one who holds priesthood keys exercises priesthood authority in performing her or his assigned duties.

Whoever exercises priesthood authority should forget about their rights and concentrate on their responsibilities. That is a principle needed in society at large. 

Latter-day Saints surely recognize that qualifying for exaltation is not a matter of asserting rights but a matter of fulfilling responsibilities.

The Lord has directed that only men will be ordained to offices in the priesthood. But, as various Church leaders have emphasized, men are not “the priesthood.”¹¹ Men hold the priesthood, with a sacred duty to use it for the blessing of all of the children of God.

(These) are the words of President J. Reuben Clark: “This is the place of our wives and of our mothers in the Eternal Plan. They are not bearers of the Priesthood; they are not charged with carrying out the duties and functions of the Priesthood; nor are they laden with its responsibilities; 

they are builders and organizers under its power, and partakers of its blessings, possessing the complement of the Priesthood powers and possessing a function as divinely called, as eternally important in its place as the Priesthood itself.”¹³

Some years before the family proclamation, President Spencer W. Kimball gave this inspired explanation: “When we speak of marriage as a partnership, let us speak of marriage as a full partnership. We do not want our LDS women to be silent partners or limited partners in that eternal assignment! Please be a contributing and full partner.”¹⁵

In his insightful talk at BYU Education Week, Elder M. Russell Ballard gave these teachings: “When men and women go to the temple, they are both endowed with the same power, which is priesthood power. … Access to the power and the blessings of the priesthood is available to all of God’s children.”¹⁶