D&C 100: Joseph and Sidney Get a Report With No Details

I keep going back to verse 1 of section 100 and not verse 15, which is the one that ends up on bookmarks. Verse 15 is a good verse. It's also been asked to carry everybody's worst week, and it wasn't built for that. Verse 1 is smaller and does more of the work.

Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you, my friends Sidney and Joseph, your families are well; they are in mine hands, and I will do with them as seemeth me good; for in me there is all power.

(D&C 100:1)

What does D&C 100:1 actually tell Joseph about his family?

That they are well, in the present tense. It doesn't say they will be kept from harm or that nothing will go wrong in Kirtland, which is how I'd have remembered it if you'd asked me cold.

The date is October 12, 1833, and Joseph and Sidney are in Perrysburg, New York, in the house of Freeman Nickerson, who had only recently been baptized. They'd left Kirtland on October 5 for Upper Canada, so seven days. Emma was home with Julia, who was two, and Joseph III, who wasn't yet a year old. Julia was one of the Murdock twins the Smiths took in as babies after their mother died, and I wrote about how that came about in D&C 99 and John Murdock's call.

Then there's the clause people hurry past: "I will do with them as seemeth me good." That's a handing over, and nobody gets a forecast out of it. If Joseph was hoping for a report, he didn't get one.

What does "everybody's fine" sound like on the phone?

In February of last year I spent two nights in Charlotte at a vendor's office going through a reconciliation audit, which is as glamorous as it sounds. The second night I called home at eight, Mountain time, so ten where I was. Melissa picked up and said everyone was fine, and behind her Caleb said, loud enough for me to hear, "Tell him about the floor."

She said there was no floor to tell about. Then she told me about the floor. The dishwasher had been leaking under the door for who knows how long, and Ben, fifteen months old at the time, had located the one wet spot in the kitchen and was sitting in it when she walked in. She'd put down every towel we own and run two loads of them, and she'd already called Brent's plumber, who could come at eight the next morning. Everyone was fine. It was a true word and Caleb was also right.

I hung up and lay on top of a hotel bedspread knowing a great deal more than I had a minute earlier, and I slept worse for it. A report is made of details, and details give you things to be anxious about at a distance. Joseph got no details. He got a name for who had them, and the word "well," and a plain instruction in verse 2 to follow and listen. I can see why that would settle a man and I can also see why it wouldn't settle every man. I'd have been up looking at the ceiling with the Charlotte weather channel on.

What was happening in Missouri when D&C 100 was given?

The other worry is in the chapter too, in verse 13, and you need the dates to feel it. That August Oliver Cowdery had come into Kirtland with news from Jackson County. Mobs, men whipped, houses broken into, the printing press destroyed. Section 98 came that same month and I went through it in what happens on the fourth offense.

By the end of October and into early November the Saints were driven out of Jackson County and across the Missouri River into Clay County. That's weeks after Perrysburg. So when Joseph reads that "Zion shall be redeemed, although she is chastened for a little season" (D&C 100:13), the worst of it hasn't reached him yet, and he's hearing the sentence before he knows what it's about to be attached to.

Section 101 comes in December and speaks to the people who were cast out. D&C 101:2 says "I, the Lord, have suffered the affliction to come upon them, wherewith they have been afflicted, in consequence of their transgressions." I have to put the book down for a minute when I read that, and I'm coming back to it at the end.

Something else about the timing. News in 1833 moved at the speed of a rider or a letter, so what Joseph knew about Missouri in October was already weeks old, and what was happening there that very week was something nobody in Perrysburg could have known. The revelation answers a situation that was worse than the one Joseph could see, and it does it without telling him so. I find that either reassuring or a little unnerving depending on the day.

Why does Sidney get ordained in the middle of all this?

Verses 9 through 11 stop everything to settle who does the talking. Sidney is to be a spokesman unto Joseph, Joseph is given power to be "mighty in testimony," and Sidney is to be "mighty in expounding all scriptures." The two of them had been on the road together for a week and had weeks more of it ahead, and I suspect it helped to have the roles said out loud. That's all I have.

Does "all things shall work together for good" mean it all works out?

Look at what verse 15 says when it's whole.

Therefore, let your hearts be comforted; for all things shall work together for good to them that walk uprightly, and to the sanctification of the church.

(D&C 100:15)

Set it next to Romans 8:28, which most of us hear underneath it: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." Paul's group is people who love God. The group in section 100 is people who walk uprightly, and the good is aimed at the sanctification of the church, which is a larger thing than any one family's good week. Both versions have a condition. Mine on the bookmark doesn't.

Verse 14 is right before it, and it's easy to miss because it names two men most of us can't place. "Thy brethren, my servants Orson Hyde and John Gould, are in my hands; and inasmuch as they keep my commandments they shall be saved." Same phrase as verse 1, "in my hands," but with an if attached. The "Therefore" at the start of verse 15 hangs the comfort on that. A fair reading is that the comfort is real and the good isn't a guarantee for anybody who just feels optimistic.

Verse 12, for what it's worth, stands up on its own better than 15 does. "Continue your journey and let your hearts rejoice," with the Lord "with you even unto the end." It asks for something and promises company and says nothing about outcomes.

Frequently Asked Questions

When was D&C 100 given, and where?

October 12, 1833, at Perrysburg, New York, in Freeman Nickerson's home. Joseph and Sidney were a week into a trip to Upper Canada and a long way from Kirtland.

Does "in mine hands" mean nothing bad will happen to my family?

No, and I'd be careful about telling anyone that it does. The verse says the families are well and that they're in God's hands to do with as seems good to him. Those aren't the same as nothing going wrong, and a few weeks later people Joseph knew were walking out of Jackson County.

Who were Orson Hyde and John Gould?

Verse 14 names them as brethren in the Lord's hands and doesn't say what they were doing. Orson Hyde was later one of the Twelve. About John Gould I'd only be guessing, so I won't.

Can I use verse 1 to comfort someone who's traveling?

You can. I wouldn't use it alone. Call home, say what actually happened to the dishwasher, then read the verse.

What I can't get past is where the comfort in section 100 lands. It goes to two men sitting in a stranger's house in New York with a roof over them, whose families were, as the verse says, well. The people in Jackson County had a few weeks left before the riverbank, and no verse addressed to them arrived that week. Verse 13 says "a little season," and they never went back to Jackson County, so the season ran a lot longer than that phrase sounds. I can read section 101 and see an answer in it, and the answer includes "transgressions," which is hard for me to hear said about people who'd been whipped and driven out of their homes. I haven't made my peace with that, and I don't think a verse about hearts being comforted is meant to make it for me.

— D.