The Leadership of Joseph Smith

The major religions of the world base their foundations upon specific scriptures.  These scriptures have their origins with individual leaders, speakers, writers or “prophets” who teach by example.  In the past and in the present, people, who are willing,  follow certain leaders because they sense that the words and the teachings of a particular person are genuine with regard to spiritual things.  The body of people who believe and follow the teaching and example of a specific person comprise a group who become a “church-body”, a holy body of people, who follow the teaching of the leader.  All religions begin in this manner.  The teaching and the leadership is provided by human beings who are the “stars” of the scriptures with familiar names like Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Baha’u’llah, etc.  Evidently, the leader was in a position to know something which the followers did not know.  The followers are attracted to a Spiritual Leader so that they might be led in a direction and come to know what is known by the leader to achieve a goal that is accessible to the follower. The goal may have been available in the past; if it was available and attainable in the past, it should be available in the present.  When the goal is achieved, the person becomes enlightened in the present.  We live in the present.

A relatively new modern day leader was Joseph Smith, Junior, who lived from 1805 to 1844.  He was the Founder and First President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  The body of the followers of Joseph Smith are commonly called Mormons.  This name originates from scriptures written on metal plates which were found on the hill Cumorah in New York State and translated by Joseph Smith.  The scriptures relate the record written upon metal plates by Nephi and his descendants including a person named Mormon; hence, the Book of Mormon.  The tribe of Nephi were descendants of the house of Israel.  This is the same Israel of the Old Testament of the Holy Bible who was the son of Isaac and the grandson of Abraham.  Israel was called Jacob at his birth and he changed his name to Israel when he discovered a new spiritual identity.  Israel had twelve children and he became the patriarch of the children of Israel. The children of Israel became the leaders of the 12 tribes of Israel in the Book of Genesis.  One of the twelve sons of Israel was Joseph, who was sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers.  The writings of a person called Nephi, an ancestor of Mormon, directly connects the Nephites to Joseph of the house of Israel and to Abraham of the Old Testament.  It was Abraham who worshipped the One God and entered into a covenant with the Lord.  The covenant between God and man was known in prior generations, but this spiritual covenant has been lost or forgotten.  The descendants of Abraham, his seed, may have forgotten the covenant, but God has not forgotten; the potential remains available to be experienced.

The Book of Mormon, translated by Joseph Smith, provides a bridge between the Old Testament and the New Testament.  As the story in the Book of Mormon unfolds, three separate groups from the Old Testament converge:  two of the groups, unbeknown to each other, leave Jerusalem prior to its capture and destruction at approximately the same time; and the third group are the descendants of the survivors of the tower (of Babel) in the Book of Genesis whose history of their destruction is told on metal plates.  In addition, the birth of Jesus Christ was predicted and foretold 600 years before the event of his birth. 

In the New Testament, the same God of Abraham was extended to both Jews and Gentiles through the ministry of Jesus the Christ.  It was Jesus who made the invisible God of Abraham visible in his own body.  The purpose of the ministry of Jesus was to reveal that the potential of the invisible God (the Father) could by actualized in a human form (the Son on earth) and radiated outward to others to form a living body of people who experienced the covenant of Old Testament.  This living body of people should include both Jews and Gentiles (non-Jews).  It should include everybody.  God excludes nobody.

The purpose of various religions is to lead a willing individual to express the available radiation from the invisible God through one’s own human form.  This radiant spirit from God is the Christ Spirit which can manifest through a living body of people to reveal the Kingdom.  Let us consider The Symbolic Version of the Book of Mormon.