Keywords

holy nation, building Zion, Old Testament

Document Type

Article

Abstract

I’m so pleased to be invited to speak at this year’s Sperry Symposium and especially on a theme I care deeply about: “A Covenant of Compassion: Caring for the Marginalized and Disadvantaged”—particularly examples from the Old Testament. The scope of the topic I have chosen tonight is too big to be confined simply to Old Testament times, but that is where I am going to start. The expansive vision of a covenantal kingdom of priests as a holy nation has animated prophets since Enoch actually achieved it in his day, and the promise of it has everything to do with what President Russell M. Nelson is teaching in our day—for the benefit of all, including the poor, the disadvantaged, and those who have not. So let me start with Moses and move through other prophets before linking this covenant of compassion to the latter days and the potential for the faithful to become, by covenant, kings and queens, priests and priestesses.