Digital Only
The Lord Guides His Church According to Our Language and Understanding
Throughout history, the Lord has revealed changes to policies regarding ordinances and gospel worship.
Photograph by Mary Alice Grover-Bacher
In the Book of Mormon, Nephi concludes his record with an important insight about how the Lord teaches and instructs His people: “For the Lord God giveth light unto the understanding; for he speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding” (2 Nephi 31:3; emphasis added).
“According to Their Language”
Most of us recognize that God speaks to all His children in their own language. We have likely seen how He communicates with us in our language and how He communicates with others in their own language. This is especially noticeable if we have had the opportunity to live in a country other than our own. I initially became aware of this principle as a young missionary when my first companion and I taught the gospel of Jesus Christ in standard Italian, a language that was not our native tongue.
During our time together in Lugano, Switzerland, my companion and I found and taught a family from Sicily, Italy. We spoke Italian, but the family spoke Sicilian, which is distinct enough from standard Italian that it is considered a separate language. The local branch members spoke a different variation of Italian that is even less well-known: Swiss Italian. Yet the branch members used their native Swiss Italian to help us fellowship and teach this young family.
Despite the differences between standard Italian, Swiss Italian, and Sicilian, the Lord spoke to and through each of us by the Holy Ghost, according to our language and understanding. Eventually, this young family entered the waters of baptism and were confirmed members of the Church.
As He did with my experience in southern Switzerland, the Lord speaks to each of us in our language. When the Lord speaks to an eight-year-old elementary school student in Lima, Peru, He speaks in the language the child understands. The same is true when He speaks to a university professor in Tokyo, Japan; He speaks in the language the professor understands.
What may not be as familiar to us is that the Lord also speaks in the cultural context of the life and time of a person or people. He communicates according to their understanding.
“Unto Their Understanding”
I have discovered that in different times and places throughout the ages, the Lord has always spoken to His children according to their language and understanding as He shared His message, ordinances, and truths in the language and culture of the people. Even though God’s children are limited in their language (no language is perfect) and limited in their cultural understanding (cultures adapt, borrow, and change over time), the Lord kindly condescends to communicate His will in their language and culture so He can instruct and succor them. In Doctrine and Covenants 1:24, the Lord says:
“Behold, I am God and have spoken it; these commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding” (emphasis added).
Therefore, when a culture dramatically changes over time, we should not be surprised that the Lord, who is the same today as He was in ancient time (see Hebrews 13:8), reveals His mind in a new cultural context based on the time, place, and understanding of the people.
An Holy Kiss and Salutation
For example, when the Apostle Paul wrote to the Saints in Rome, Corinth, and Thessalonica, he invited them to “salute one another with an holy kiss” (Romans 16:16; see also 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:26). This instruction made perfect sense in the ancient Mediterranean culture where men greeted each other with a kiss.
Greeting someone in all cultures—ancient as well as modern—has always been a sign of affection, friendship, recognition, and reverence. The precise form of those greetings, however, often depends on what is appropriate or expected for the specific occasion and the culture; in some times and places, this may take the form of bowing, handshaking, hugging, kissing on the lips or cheek, or rubbing noses.
Paul’s injunction for the Saints to greet one another “with an holy kiss” would have felt like a comfortable and familiar sign of fellowship in his ancient Mediterranean context. But in the Western cultural context of America in the 1800s, the Lord inspired Joseph Smith to adapt this New Testament command to “salute one another with an holy salutation,”1 perhaps as a way to apply this concept to His people living in a different time and place in which kissing was not viewed as a comfortable form of greeting within a church community.
As the situation of God’s children changes over time, this context may be one way the Lord speaks to His people so “that they might come to understanding.”
Changes within Cultural Context
This might also partially explain why we may find certain scripture stories challenging to understand, even when the scriptures have been translated in our own language. Our cultural context is often so dramatically different from the time the scriptural event occurred that the result can make it difficult to understand the story today (see 2 Nephi 25:1).
When the Lord establishes His covenants and ordinances with His people it is in the context of a specific culture at a specific time and place. “Any adjustments made to ordinances and procedures do not change the sacred nature of the covenants being made.”2 The Lord always preserves the eternal nature of His promises found in His covenants with His children.
Brigham Young University professor Mark Alan Wright observes, “Language is not limited to the words we use but also entails signs, symbols, and bodily gestures that are imbued with meaning by the cultures that produced them.”3 The scriptures provide examples of how this works.
Old Testament Examples
In the Old Testament context of the ancient Near East, it is not surprising to discover that putting one’s hand under the thigh of another person to swear an oath is mentioned in Genesis 24:9 and 47:29. At the time, this practice was a culturally appropriate way to make a promise or to swear loyalty to someone, including between a father and a son.
Another common practice in the ancient Near East was dividing animals and birds in half so that people could walk between them as they made a covenant—a ritual gesture made by Abraham and others in the Old Testament.4
Additionally, the Abrahamic covenant included circumcision, a sign of the covenant (see Genesis 12–17).
In the Old Testament world, the Lord often revealed His eternal covenant in the form and terminology resembling the treaty agreements in the surrounding ancient Middle East. This makes sense since the Lord speaks to His people in their cultural context so that “they might come to understanding.”
Sacramental Practices
During the Savior’s mortal ministry, He revealed His covenant in a new way. In this instance, Jesus took the emblems of the Passover and gave them new meaning and significance during the Last Supper. These symbols included unleavened bread and wine, which they drank from a single cup (see Matthew 26:20–29).
In a time and place significantly different from His mortal ministry in the first-century eastern-Mediterranean world, the Lord revealed the following to Joseph Smith in the nineteenth-century North American world:
“Listen to the voice of Jesus Christ, your Lord, your God, and your Redeemer, whose word is quick and powerful. For, behold, I say unto you, that it mattereth not what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink when ye partake of the sacrament, if it so be that ye do it with an eye single to my glory—remembering unto the Father my body which was laid down for you, and my blood which was shed for the remission of your sins” (Doctrine and Covenants 27:1–2).
Unleavened bread and wine were no longer required for the sacrament. The use of a common cup, however, continued. Justin Bray from the Church History Department observed how using a single cup was typical at the time: “Beyond religious settings, sharing a cup was a common practice in 19th-century America. Drinking fountains in public schools, parks, and railroad cars often came with a chained cup or dipper on which everyone placed their lips.”5
Eventually, the Lord inspired His prophets and apostles to discontinue the use of a common cup in offering the sacrament in 1912.6 Even though there was a beautiful symbolism of unity and solidarity in drinking from the same cup, where everyone shared the sacrament together regardless of their differences, the culture had changed. The Lord spoke again to His people “in their weakness … that they might come to understanding.”7
Roles of the Savior and of His Followers
Nevertheless, the Lord warns men and women that it is not their prerogative to change the means or words in how we make sacred covenants that He has revealed.8
Only Jesus Christ has the right to modify the ordinances and procedures by which we receive His covenants based on the time, place, and circumstances of His people. We only have the right to accept those covenants, not to change them or the ordinances. As a result, the Lord’s people accepted His right to end circumcision and all animal sacrifices. 9 They accepted His changing of the Sabbath day from Saturday to Sunday as a sign of the Christian covenant. It is likewise our opportunity to follow Him however He reveals through His prophets that His work be performed today.
Revelation to Living Prophets, Including in Temple Worship
We have witnessed how the Lord has inspired His modern prophet, President Russell M. Nelson, to reveal His teachings, covenants, and ordinances in our “language” according to our “understanding,” including with witnesses for baptisms10 or the age for Aaronic Priesthood ordination.11 This is particularly true in temple worship.
Inspired adjustments made by the First Presidency in recent years—according to our circumstance, place, and time—were revealed “in order to improve the temple experience for members and help all who enter to feel a closer connection to God within these sacred spaces.”12
As we have humbly received the unique blessing of heavenly inspiration and revelation through a modern prophet, may we remember, with new appreciation, the ninth article of faith that states, “We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God” (emphasis added).