Are You Willing to Carry the Armor?

Are You Willing to Carry the Armor?

D&C 27

Several thoughts on D&C 27 and the priesthood spurred by thoughts of some of the brethren on this section

The Priesthood: Not a Badge, But a Burden

In the quiet echo of the words found in Doctrine and Covenants 27, we are reminded of a radical, even scandalous truth: the priesthood is not a title, not an accolade, not a comforting label bestowed upon a select few to wear as armor against the world’s struggles. It is, rather, a divine force that burns with the fire of creation itself, one that has been given to us—not as a gift, but as a terrifying responsibility. We often speak of priesthood as something “holy,” as something “sacred,” as if those words somehow ease us into a comfortable, tidy understanding of what it entails. But let us not fool ourselves—this is not the priesthood of convenience, of ego, or of the “in-group.” No, it is the priesthood of wrath and mercy combined, of creation and destruction in the name of God’s ultimate plan.

Priesthood: A Trust, Not a Right

We must confront the paradox head-on: the priesthood, this sacred power that has been entrusted to us, is not our possession. The moment we start thinking of it as something to be “held,” we lose sight of its true purpose. It is not ours to control, to claim as a right, or to flaunt as a mantle of honor. It is, rather, an incomprehensible trust from God—one that demands absolute humility. The words of the Savior when He conferred the priesthood upon Joseph and Oliver must haunt us: “Bring forth the power to bring to pass the eternal life of man.” When we say these words, do we even begin to grasp the weight of them? The eternal life of man—it is not a passing comfort, not a mere “helping hand” to ease burdens. It is the fire of creation itself, burning with the weight of eternity. It is the raw, unrelenting power to build and destroy, to save and condemn, all in the name of an unfathomable love.

The Priesthood of Contradictions

We live in a time where comfort is our highest pursuit. The world seeks peace through pacification, ease through convenience, and grace through cheap absolution. Yet the priesthood—this great and terrible power—is none of these things. It does not offer comfort to the weak, but challenge to the strong. To hold the priesthood is to embrace contradiction. It is to live on the razor’s edge, always standing between the eternal and the temporal, between the wrath of God and His mercy, between the absurdity of the world’s demands and the incomprehensible will of the Divine.

A Sacred Trust: Humbling Ourselves Before God

But we are uncomfortable with this—uncomfortable with the idea that the priesthood should terrify us. For in truth, it is not the man who holds it, but the man who becomes the instrument of God’s wrath and mercy—always and constantly on the edge of destruction or creation. We are taught that it is sacred, but sacredness is not comfort. It is the divine discomfort of being a part of something so vast that we can hardly understand it. And yet, we attempt to reduce it to something we can control, something we can compartmentalize and neatly categorize. We approach it as though it is a thing to be displayed in public, a badge to announce our worth. But the priesthood is not about our worth—it is about His.

Forging the Shield of Faith in the Fire of Home

Let us now look at our homes, our families, and the question looms: Do we really believe the priesthood can be forged there, in the fire of our most mundane, human interactions? If we do, then why do we so often neglect it in our quiet, private moments? We love to speak of the “shield of faith,” as though it is something we can simply pick up when we feel the need for protection. Yet, faith is not forged in the heat of battle. It is crafted in the silence of our own hearts, in the unseen moments when no one is watching. Faith is born in the kitchen, not in the pulpit. It is fashioned in the whispered prayers of a mother, the quiet acts of service when no one else sees. The shield of faith is made not in grand declarations, but in the minute, often forgotten choices that shape the heart.

Faith: A Shield Built, Not Borrowed

We must ask ourselves: how many of us truly build this shield? Or do we simply borrow it when convenient, only to cast it aside when the battles seem too distant or too small to warrant its use? This shield is not passive—it is the very act of living with purpose. It requires work, conscious and deliberate work, to carry it day after day, moment by moment.

Testimony: The Battle of Daily Choices

And then we come to the testimony—our “true north.” How flippant we have become with this concept. We speak of it as though it is a feeling, a momentary rush of emotion. Yet, how little we realize that a testimony is not something that just happens. It is the consequence of unrelenting obedience, of sacrifice, of choices made when no one else sees. It is the result of saying no to everything the world offers and yes to the eternal promises of God. It is the quiet battle, fought in the heart, every day.

The Last Dispensation: Are We Ready?

What of our dispensation? Do we truly realize the gravity of what we have been given? Or are we too distracted, too comfortable, to notice that this is the last dispensation? We live in the time when Christ is to return. We are not living merely in a moment of history; we are living in history’s final moment. Everything we do—every choice, every action, every breath—resonates in eternity. This is not a time for complacency, for living as if tomorrow will never come. This is the time to stand—now, with faith, with conviction, and with unyielding commitment to the work of God.

The Final Question: Will We Stand?

In the words of the Lord: “Take upon you my whole armor, that ye may be able to withstand the evil day, having done all, that ye may be able to stand” (Doctrine and Covenants 27:15). And He continues: “Ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked” (Doctrine and Covenants 27:17). These words should not comfort us—they should challenge us. They should drive us to action, to a life lived on the edge of greatness and calamity, with the full understanding of the weight of the priesthood and the responsibility it entails.

The Weight of the Priesthood: A Call to Action

In every moment, we are confronted with a simple question: Do we accept this weight, this calling, this terrifying responsibility of the priesthood? Will we stand firm with our armor of faith, even as it cuts into our very soul? Will we choose to carry the shield of faith, even when it seems too heavy to bear? Or will we, once again, seek comfort, avoiding the discomfort that is the essence of discipleship? The decision is ours—and ours alone.

The Book of Mormon Mention Dragons

“And it came to pass that the people of Limhi began to drive the Lamanites before them; yet they were not half so numerous as the Lamanites. But they fought for their lives, and for their wives, and for their children; therefore they exerted themselves and like dragons did they fight.” Mosiah 20:11

The Know

One aspect of the Book of Mormon that sometimes turns heads is its four usages of the word dragon. Two of these occurrences are in quotations from Isaiah, which is perhaps not surprising since the word can be found in many passages of the King James Version of the Bible. However, the term is also used in two passages unique to the Book of Mormon, both times appearing as a simile for fierce fighters (Mosiah 20:11; Alma 43:44). Readers may be surprised by these occurrences and ask why dragons, mythical creatures, are mentioned in the Book of Mormon.

Because the Nephite conception of dragons may have been originally derived from the Israelite view, it is worthwhile to summarize what dragons were in the Near East and in the Hebrew Bible particularly. The Hebrew word translated as “dragon,” tannin, is a broad term describing reptilian creatures of various sizes: snakes, crocodiles, and even legendary sea serpents. Though tannin is sometimes translated as “whale” in the King James Version, the approximation is somewhat conjectural, and tannin is regularly reptilian.

Tannin is occasionally described on land; however, it is primarily associated with water and is typically described in or with water. Similar to other Near Eastern “dragons,” it represents the watery chaos that preceded Creation. Many Near Eastern cultures thus connect the slaying of a primordial sea monster to the dawn of Creation. Several biblical passages seem to make reference to Jehovah slaying a great sea monster (tannin) as part of the Creation and use proper names like Rahab for the monster.

The Hebrew conception of tannin may also be behind some of the Book of Mormon’s usages of the word “monster.” After quoting an Isaiah passage about God slaying a tannin, Jacob repeatedly personified death, hell, and the devil as an “awful monster” from which God “delivereth his saints.” The tannin could also be the conception behind the “monster of the sea” Moroni differentiated from whales in Ether 6:10.

As Latter-day Saint scholars like John L. Sorenson and Matthew Roper have noted, many of these Old World conceptions of a tannin could have easily translated to both the biological and cultural environment of the New World. Speaking of Mormon’s mention of dragons in Mosiah 20:11, Sorenson explained:

What kind of “dragons” did he have in mind? The reference was probably to the crocodile or caiman. … But this “dragon” was much more than a dangerous bit of the natural world. In Mesoamerican mythology a giant creature of crocodilian form was thought to float on the supposed subterranean sea. His back was the surface of the earth, and his connection with earth and waters tied him symbolically with productivity and fertility. This “earth monster” is repeatedly shown at the base of relief carvings. … We can at least note two things about Zeniff’s dragon imagery: (1) it had powerful meaning to his listeners—beyond being a mere literary phrase, and (2) the complex of ideas is represented not only in the Book of Mormon but in Palestine and in Mesoamerica as well.

Several species of crocodilians (including crocodiles, alligators, and caimans) can be found in the Americas. Many of these regularly attack humans and sometimes cause fatalities—their ferocity is noted in some of the earliest descriptions of them. The Americas are also home to dangerous serpents like pit vipers as well as many aquatic or semi-aquatic serpents such as water snakes, garter snakes, and the venomous yellow-bellied sea snake.

While the biological underpinnings of an Old World tannin or dragon can be nicely mapped onto New World animals, there is also a conceptual overlap with the mythological idea of a dragon in the New World. Indeed, ancient American societies had many cultural and mythological parallels to the tannin as a supernatural, aquatic, and violent reptilian monster.

New World cultures associated many different themes with serpents and crocodiles, but these reptiles were frequently associated with water—like the Hebrew tannin. Water itself seemed to be personified as a serpent. Similarly, images from Tulum and the Dresden Codex depict a cosmic flood of water pouring from the mouth of an enormous crocodile.

In a Creation story from the New World, a giant crocodile or caiman was killed, and its body was used to form the earth and the sky—similar to the Creation stories of Near Eastern cultures, in which a monster living in a primordial ocean was slain. In the New World story, the earth itself was considered to be the back of either a giant crocodilian or turtle. Thus, crocodilians became a symbol not only of water but also of the earth and fertility, and they were sometimes portrayed with trees growing from them. The Popul Vuh recounts how the Hero Twins defeated a giant crocodilian monster who could form mountains. The term dragon is sometimes used to describe these creatures and the animals they are based upon in modern scholarship.

The serpent was a sacred symbol in ancient Israel, and several Old World cultures deified the serpent or portrayed it as a supernatural being. New World cultures also often deified the serpent, and many New World deities appear in serpentine or even crocodilian form. Not all reptilian deities were water related, nor were they always warlike. Likewise, not all water deities were warlike, but there certainly was overlap between each of these themes. Deities like K’uk’ulkan and Tlaloc could be portrayed as both reptilian and aquatic. The sea itself was sometimes depicted as a place of violence. One of the primary supernatural beings associated with war was the War Serpent, which was associated with the water deity K’uk’ulkan.

Combat in ancient Mesoamerica seems to have been sometimes conceptualized as fighters transforming into zoomorphic supernatural beings during conflict. Mayan royalty were sometimes accompanied in processions by battle beasts, representatives of spiritual animals (called wayob), into which the kings were thought to transform in combat. These spiritual animals were sometimes depicted as serpentine creatures. The wayob were typically depicted as jaguars, though some have argued that the associated imagery is actually crocodilian or some combination of jaguar and crocodile. Serpents and crocodiles were also featured on Mayan headdresses. Perhaps these ideas helped create the Nephite imagery of fighting “like dragons.”

The Why

Knowing that all these conceptions of the Hebrew tannin—serpents, crocodiles, and legendary primordial sea monsters—were familiar in a New World setting helps dispel accusations that the word dragon is out of place in the Book of Mormon. Rather, the term could well designate a number of powerful creatures that the Lehites would have been familiar with and that were spoken of in ancient American cultures. This understanding also helps elucidate what the Book of Mormon authors probably had in mind when describing those who fought “like dragons.”

It may also seem strange to readers that some ancient Israelites and Nephites, individuals whom we claim were enlightened by God’s prophets, may have believed in the existence of fantastical creatures. Yet, while some within Israelite and Nephite society may have literally believed in mythical creatures, many mentions of these creatures in Hebrew and Nephite scripture appear to be figurative or polemical. n some cases the terms could perhaps have been mistranslated and may refer to a very real creature without supernatural connotations. Scripture teaches that God speaks to all nations according to their own language and that He is able to accommodate the cultural worldviews of all peoples, giving them as much truth as He sees fit and in ways they can understand (Doctrine and Covenants 1:24; Alma 29:8).

Though the dragon (from the Greek drakon) later became a symbol for the devil in the Revelation of John and in Christianity generally, the Book of Mormon usage—and incidentally, the Mesoamerican usage—was somewhat more neutral. The Nephites who were inspired by a higher cause than their enemies were said to have fought “like dragons.” Though peace should always be assertively promoted, readers will nonetheless inevitably have spiritual combat with their trials and temptations and can “fight the good fight” against the devil with the same legendary fierceness as a caiman, crocodile, or sea serpent.

Further Reading

Matthew Roper, “Anachronisms: Accidental Evidence in Book of Mormon Criticisms, Part 1: Animals” (forthcoming).

John L. Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon (Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1985), 187–188.

Return Missionaries Not Married With In Six Months

RM IF YOU ARE NOT MARRIED WITH-IN 6 MONTHS YOU ARE NOT FAILURE

President Harold B. Lee “I am not trying to urge you younger men to marry too early.

I think therein is one of the hazards of today’s living.

We don’t want a young man to think of marriage until he is able to take care of a family, to have an institution of his own, to be independent.

He must make sure that he has found the girl of his choice, they have gone together long enough that they know each other, and that they know each other’s faults and they still love each other.

I have said to the mission presidents (some of whom have been reported to us as saying to missionaries, ‘Now, if you are not married in six months, you are a failure as a missionary’), ‘Don’t you ever say that to one of your missionaries.

Maybe in six months they will not have found a wife; and if they take you seriously, they may rush into a marriage that will be wrong for them.’ “Please don’t misunderstand what we are saying; but, brethren, think more seriously about the obligations of marriage for those who bear the holy priesthood at a time when marriage should be the expectation of every man who understands the responsibility; for remember, brethren, that only those who enter into the new and everlasting covenant of marriage in the temple for time and eternity, only those will have the exaltation in the celestial kingdom.

That is what the Lord tells us” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1973, 120; or Ensign, Jan. 1974, 100).

Church Bulletin “When full-time missionaries return home, they should be counseled concerning such matters as continuing their education or employment, strengthening family relationships, participating actively in the Church, paying tithes and offerings, and preparing for temple marriage.

It is unwise, however, to ‘recommend that missionaries be married within a specific time. The decision to marry is so important that it should be made only after the most prayerful and careful consideration by the individual.’

(Mission President’s Handbook [31153], 1990, p. 23)” (Bulletin, 1993, no. 1, 2).

- President Harold B. Lee