In this retrospective, Denver recounts some of the many ways the Lord has labored in His vineyard over the past ten years, following the Ten Talks.
We’re reaching the end of another year, and with New Year’s resolutions coming up that are generally looking out to the future, it occurs to me that we ought to take a moment to think about what has happened over the course of the last 10 years since the completion of the Ten Talks that were given (beginning in Boise and ending in the Phoenix area), which has now been a decade. It was in connection with those talks that the declaration was made that the heavens were open and that the Lord had set His hand again a second time to recover His people, Israel.
We tend to look at that in a very narrow lens, as if everything that the Lord has been doing to further His work has occurred within our eyesight or within our area of responsibility. But there are many things that the Lord has done that made possible His work (but wasn't done by us). It was made available to us by the work of other people.
For example, in the last 10 years, we have been the beneficiaries of collaborative, technological tools that make it possible for people located in very different geographic locations to work together in order to complete projects. Most notably, the Restoration Scripture Project was only possible because we have collaborative tools that have been made available that didn’t exist just a short while ago.
We have new digital technology that has been made available, including instant communications and multiple ways to collect and transcribe and preserve, publish, engrave, share, search, and learn from the material that we have that’s sacred and important for us to be able to dispense and disperse.
We have live video conferencing and webinar capabilities that we’ve been able to use to bring people together in ways never before possible and that have enabled conversations to take place about/in the study of the gospel to be achieved in a way that didn’t exist before.
We have live video and audio streaming technology that’s made it possible for covenants to be administered worldwide at the same time, in fulfillment of prophecy.
We’ve been publishing a great deal of material, including:
A restoration of the Testimony of St. John.
We’ve got many revelations from the Lord that have been added to the Teachings and Commandments, including some very important replacements for corrupted Doctrine and Covenants sections, as well as further teachings and commandments that are addressed specifically to our generation.
We have had canonized by a vote of acceptance the Restoration Edition of the Scriptures, including the Book of Mormon and the fullness of the Scriptures. (The Book of Mormon, in the form that it got published by the LDS Church, was really taken from a version that got published in the British Isles that contained many errors and omissions and problems, and the restoration project attempted to recover, correct, and finish up the Book of Mormon in the most correct way that it had ever been printed before.) Joseph Smith also referred to the fullness of the Scriptures as being both the Book of Mormon and the Bible as he had corrected it. We found out in the Scripture project that the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible had never been accurately published, and so the Restoration Edition of the Scriptures includes the fullness of the Scriptures as Joseph Smith described it, with the most complete and accurate Joseph Smith translation of the Bible that has ever been in print.
We have been able to publish the Restoration Edition of the Sc...
We’re reaching the end of another year, and with New Year’s resolutions coming up that are generally looking out to the future, it occurs to me that we ought to take a moment to think about what has happened over the course of the last 10 years since the completion of the Ten Talks that were given (beginning in Boise and ending in the Phoenix area), which has now been a decade. It was in connection with those talks that the declaration was made that the heavens were open and that the Lord had set His hand again a second time to recover His people, Israel.
We tend to look at that in a very narrow lens, as if everything that the Lord has been doing to further His work has occurred within our eyesight or within our area of responsibility. But there are many things that the Lord has done that made possible His work (but wasn't done by us). It was made available to us by the work of other people.
For example, in the last 10 years, we have been the beneficiaries of collaborative, technological tools that make it possible for people located in very different geographic locations to work together in order to complete projects. Most notably, the Restoration Scripture Project was only possible because we have collaborative tools that have been made available that didn’t exist just a short while ago.
We have new digital technology that has been made available, including instant communications and multiple ways to collect and transcribe and preserve, publish, engrave, share, search, and learn from the material that we have that’s sacred and important for us to be able to dispense and disperse.
We have live video conferencing and webinar capabilities that we’ve been able to use to bring people together in ways never before possible and that have enabled conversations to take place about/in the study of the gospel to be achieved in a way that didn’t exist before.
We have live video and audio streaming technology that’s made it possible for covenants to be administered worldwide at the same time, in fulfillment of prophecy.
We’ve been publishing a great deal of material, including:
A restoration of the Testimony of St. John.
We’ve got many revelations from the Lord that have been added to the Teachings and Commandments, including some very important replacements for corrupted Doctrine and Covenants sections, as well as further teachings and commandments that are addressed specifically to our generation.
We have had canonized by a vote of acceptance the Restoration Edition of the Scriptures, including the Book of Mormon and the fullness of the Scriptures. (The Book of Mormon, in the form that it got published by the LDS Church, was really taken from a version that got published in the British Isles that contained many errors and omissions and problems, and the restoration project attempted to recover, correct, and finish up the Book of Mormon in the most correct way that it had ever been printed before.) Joseph Smith also referred to the fullness of the Scriptures as being both the Book of Mormon and the Bible as he had corrected it. We found out in the Scripture project that the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible had never been accurately published, and so the Restoration Edition of the Scriptures includes the fullness of the Scriptures as Joseph Smith described it, with the most complete and accurate Joseph Smith translation of the Bible that has ever been in print.
We have been able to publish the Restoration Edition of the Sc...
