Priesthood and Sisterhood

Priesthood and Sisterhood: An Equal Partnership 

Grethe Ballif Peterson 

 

President Kimball spoke more precisely and extensively than ever before to the women of the Church. He described the great possibilities of womanhood and methodically discussed what women need to know and need to do. In the Church's women's conference in the fall of 1979, he stated unequivocally that men and women have full equality as spirit children. Then, quoting Elder John A. Widtsoe, he said, "The place of woman is to walk beside the man, not in front of him nor behind him." President Kimball continued: "Within those great assurances, however, our roles and assignments differ. These are eternal differences, with women being given many tremendous responsibilities of motherhood and sisterhood and the men the tremendous responsibilities of fatherhood and the priesthood." (My Beloved Sisters, Deseret Book, 1979, pp. 35, 37.) 

President Kimball seemed to be making a distinction that I had not heard before. He was talking about the responsibilities of men and women, equating motherhood with fatherhood, which we certainly understand, and then sisterhood with priesthood. He seemed to be talking about a parallel relationship in the function of priesthood and sisterhood, a relationship that is obviously important, but one that we haven't thought much about.

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Spencer W. Kimball

"My Beloved Sisters"

Chapter - "Be Thou an Example"

We had full equality as his spirit children. We have equality as recipients of God's perfected love for each of us. The late Elder John A. Widtsoe wrote: "The place of woman in the Church is to walk beside the man, not in front of him nor behind him. In the Church there is full equality between man and woman. The gospel, which is the only concern of the Church, was devised by the Lord for men and women alike." 

Within those great assurances, however, our roles and assignments differ. These are eternal differences, with women being given many tremendous responsibilities of motherhood and sisterhood and the men the tremendous responsibilities of fatherhood and the priesthood—but the man is not without the woman nor the woman without the man in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 11:11.) Both a righteous man and a righteous woman are a blessing to all those whom their lives touch.

No Progression Between Kingdoms

Spencer W. Kimball

The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball

Page 50

No progression between kingdoms.

After a person has been assigned to his place in the kingdom, either in the telestial, the terrestrial, or the celestial, or to his exaltation, he will never advance from his assigned glory to another glory. That is eternal! That is why we must make our decisions early in life and why it is imperative that such decisions be right. (MF 243-44)    

Stripling Warriors Lesson Quotes

President Ezra Taft Benson

April 1986 General Conference

Priesthood Session

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“You have been born at this time for a sacred and glorious purpose. It is not by chance that you have been reserved to come to earth in this last dispensation of the fulness of times. Your birth at this particular time was foreordained in the eternities.

“You are to be the royal army of the Lord in the last days. . . .

“In the spiritual battles you are waging, I see you as today’s sons of Helaman.

Remember well the Book of Mormon account of Helaman’s two thousand stripling
warriors”.

President Harold B. Lee

October 1970 General Conference

“The power of Satan will increase; we see it in evidence on every hand. . . .

“Now the only safety we have as members of this church is to do exactly what the Lord said to the Church in that day when the Church was organized. We must learn to give heed to the words and commandments that the Lord shall give through his prophet, ‘as he receiveth them, walking in all holiness before me; . . . as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith.’ (D&C 21:4–5.) There will be some things that take patience and faith. You may not like what comes from the authority of the Church. It may contradict your political views. It may contradict your social views. It may interfere with some of your social life. But if you listen to these things, as if from the mouth of the Lord himself, with patience and faith, the promise is that ‘the gates of hell shall not prevail against you; yea, and the Lord God will disperse the powers of darkness from before you, and cause the heavens to shake for your good, and his name’s glory.’ (D&C 21:6.)”.

President Spencer W. Kimball

Women's Fireside Address

November 1978 Ensign

The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball

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“To be a righteous woman during the winding-up scenes on this earth, before the Second Coming of our Savior, is an especially noble calling. The righteous woman’s strength and influence today can be tenfold what it might be in more tranquil times. She has been placed here to help to enrich, to protect, and to guard the home—which is society’s basic and most noble institution. Other institutions in society may falter and even fail, but the righteous woman can help to save the home, which may be the last and only sanctuary some mortals know in the midst of storm and strife”.

A Promise for Parents Who Stay True to Their Temple Covenants

The Prophet Joseph Smith

“When a seal is put upon the father and mother, it secures their posterity, so that they cannot be lost, but will be saved by virtue of the covenant of their father and mother” (in History of the Church, 5:530). 

 

President Brigham Young  

“Let the father and mother, who are members of this Church and Kingdom, take a righteous course, and strive with all their might never to do a wrong, but to do good all their lives; if they have one child or one hundred children, if they conduct themselves towards them as they should, binding them to the Lord by their faith and prayers, I care not where those children go, they are bound up to their parents by an everlasting tie, and no power of earth or hell can separate them from their parents in eternity; they will return again to the fountain from whence they sprang” (in Discourses of Brigham Young, 208). 

First Presidency—

Spencer W. Kimball, N. Eldon Tanner, Marion G. Romney

“In a day when the sanctity of the home is being invaded and where the care of children has been regarded lightly, we, by means of the family home evening manual, have endeavored to impress upon the parents the importance of developing a love in the home so that in the future, should those children thus taught stray away, they would eventually return again, lest they lose their place in the eternal family circle” ( Family Home Evening: Love Makes Our House a Home, 2). 

Elder Boyd K. Packer

“It is not uncommon for responsible parents to lose one of their children, for a time, to influences over which they have no control. They agonize over rebellious sons or daughters. They are puzzled over why they are so helpless when they have tried so hard to do what they should.

“It is my conviction that those wicked influences one day will be overruled.

“‘The Prophet Joseph Smith declared—and he never taught a more comforting doctrine—that the eternal sealings of faithful parents and the divine promises made to them for valiant service in the Cause of Truth, would save not only themselves, but likewise their posterity. . . . Pray for your careless and disobedient children; hold on to them with your faith. Hope on, trust on, till you see the salvation of God’ (Orson F. Whitney, in Conference Report, Apr. 1929, p. 110).

“We cannot overemphasize the value of temple marriage, the binding ties of the sealing ordinance, and the standards of worthiness required of them. When parents keep the covenants they have made at the altar of the temple, their children will be forever bound to them” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1992, 94–95; or Ensign, May 1992, 68 ). 

Elder James E. Faust

“There are some great spiritual promises which may help faithful parents in this church. Children of eternal sealings may have visited upon them the divine promises made to their valiant forebears who nobly kept their covenants. Covenants remembered by parents will be remembered by God. The children may thus become the beneficiaries and inheritors of these great covenants and promises. This is because they are the children of the covenant” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1990, 43; or Ensign, Nov. 1990, 35 ). 

Orson F. Whitney

“The prophet Joseph Smith declared, and he never taught more comforting doctrine, that the eternal sealings of faithful parents, and the divine promises made to them for valiant service in the cause of truth, would save not only themselves but likewise their posterity.  Though some of the sheep may wander, the eye of the shepherd is upon them, and sooner or later they will feel the tentacles of divine providence reaching out after them and drawing them back to the fold.  Either in this life or in the life to come they will return.  They will have to pay their debt to justice, they will suffer for their sins and may tread a thorny path, but if it leads them at last, like the penitent prodigal, to a loving and forgiving father’s heart and home, the painful experience will not have been in vain.  Pray for your careless and disobedient children.  Hold onto them with your faith.  Hope on, trust on, ‘til you see the salvation of God.”   He continues,  “You parents of the wilful and the wayward- don’t give them up.  Don’t cast them off; they are not utterly lost.  The shepherd will find his sheep.  They were his before they were yours, long before he entrusted them to your care, and you cannot begin to love them as he loves them.  They have but strayed in ignorance from the path of right and God is merciful to ignorance.  Only the fulness of knowledge brings the fulness of accountability.  Our Heavenly Father is far more merciful, infinitely more charitable than even the best of his servants, and the everlasting gospel is mightier in power to save than our narrow, finite minds can comprehend.”  (April 1929 General Conference address).