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Have you ever seen those pictures where they show two images that look really similar and you have to spot the differences between them? That’s how I felt when I recently read Doctrine and Covenants 15 and 16. If you take a look at these revelations, you’ll see that they are almost identical. One revelation was given to John Whitmer and the other to his brother Peter, each of whom would later become one of the Eight Witnesses of the Book of Mormon. In each case, they were given words specifically from Jesus Christ.
Both John and Peter wanted to know what would be of the most worth to them, and the answer the Lord gave to both was identical. He said, “The thing which will be of the most worth unto you will be to declare repentance unto this people, that you may bring souls unto me, that you may rest with them in the kingdom of my Father.” (Doctrine and Covenants 15:6 and Doctrine and Covenants 16:6)
What can we learn from the fact that the Lord gave an identical revelation to these brothers? One small lesson I see from these similar revelations is that sometimes the Lord has the same message for his children—we don’t need to be troubled if a message we receive is similar to one received by another person.
Commenting on these verses from Doctrine and Covenants 15 and 16 Elder Theodore M. Burton taught an additional lesson: “Why would the Lord give two identical revelations—and have them published in the Doctrine and Covenants—one following the other word for word, unless they were especially intended to be given not only to them but to all of us?”
Perhaps we see in these revelations an important message for us, individually. Is there any greater work you or I could do than to bring souls to Christ? We probably intuitively know that it’s really important for us to share the message of Jesus with others, but maybe we don’t always act like it. That’s definitely happened to me. Let me share a little story with you.
When I was serving as a full-time missionary, my companion and I would ride our bikes to the grocery store every Monday to purchase our supply of cold cereal and frozen pizza for the week. On the Monday after Easter, I noticed that the Easter candy was on sale. On closer examination, I discovered that it was on a great sale. A bag of jellybeans, usually costing $1.50, was on sale for ten cents. Ten cents! I couldn’t believe it! And there were also bags of chocolate eggs—big bags for ten cents. All kinds of candy was on sale for just ten cents a bag. I was so excited! I showed my companion and we each got some. I wound up buying 27 bags.
All the time I was shopping I wanted to run up and down the aisles and tell every shopper that they could buy big bags of candy for only ten cents. And as I was riding my bike home, laden down with candy, I wanted to flag down cars and tell them to go straight to the grocery store! Suddenly it dawned on me that I was more excited about candy for ten cents than I was about the gospel. [Insert faceplant symbol.] I made it a point from then on to get more excited about the gospel message, which, when you really understand it, is even better than 10 cent bags of candy. In fact, I still have today one of those bags of jelly beans I bought to remind me of this experience. This bag of jelly beans is more than 20 years old! Every time I see it, I remember what matters most.
In our day, speaking to both John and Peter Whitmer, Jesus Christ personally said, “The thing which will be of the most worth unto you will be to declare repentance unto this people, that you may bring souls unto me, that you may rest with them in the kingdom of my Father.” This is what will be of the most worth to us. What could you and I do today to bring people to Christ?
