Doctrine and Covenants
Week 24: End of the Kirtland period; revelations in Missouri, 1838
D&C 111–112, 114–115, 117–120
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15 April 2021
Lesson Materials
Additional reading and links
BMC Team, “Why Was Martin Harris Cut Off from the Church?”, Book of Mormon Central, 1 June 2021. This brief article explains why Martin Harris, one of the Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, was excommunicated from the Church in late 1837 during a period of mass apostasy.
Stephen C. Harper, “The Tithing of My People,” Church History: Revelations in Context, last modified 13 January 2016. Harper, a historian for the Church History Department, explains how the Saints in Missouri understood how to calculate “one-tenth of all their interest annually” as tithing (D&C 119:4).
E. Jay Bell, “The Windows of Heaven Revisited: The 1899 Tithing Reformation,” Journal of Mormon History 20, no. 1 (Spring 1994): 45–83. The 1963 Church film “The Windows of Heaven” depicts President Lorenzo Snow promising the Saints of drought-stricken St. George that it would rain if they paid their tithing. While President Snow did receive a revelation about the importance of renewed emphasis on tithing, and he made inspired promises for paying tithes, he did not make a promise that paying tithing would bring rain to break the drought. Bell’s article investigates the origins of the folklore on which the film was based.
Videos
Elder Boyd K. Packer, “The Least of These,” General Conference, October 2004. “I remember my servant Oliver Granger; behold, verily I say unto him that his name shall be had in sacred remembrance from generation to generation, forever and ever, saith the Lord” (D&C 117:12).
After completing the construction of the Kirtland Temple and dedicating it in March 1836, Joseph Smith and other leaders of the Church needed to resolve debts incurred because of the construction of the temple and because of other business endeavors they were involved in. Additionally, many Saints who had migrated to Kirtland were destitute and in need of economic opportunities. In response to these challenges, Church leaders resolved to start their own bank which they called the Kirtland Safety Society. Despite a short period of success, the Society collapsed in 1838. This KnoWhy from Book of Mormon Central details the history surrounding the incorporation of the KSS and its eventual demise.