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Giving God Counsel?

Giving God Counsel?

Last updated on: July 1, 2016 at 3:12 am by James E. Faulconer

Giving God Counsel? 2016-07-01T03:12:51-06:00 James E. Faulconer

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Larry Walters, my home teacher, stopped by the house Sunday evening for a chat. We talked for at least an hour on our front porch, though I know that Larry was anxious to get back to his family.

Ulysses_Grant_and_Family_at_Long_Branch,_NJ_by_Pach_Brothers,_NY,_1870

Image via Wikipedia By Pach Brothers, NY – Heritage Auctions, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9938687

He had grandchildren coming in from out of town last night, but he made more than a quick nod at a visit. We talked about many things, but toward the end of our visit, he talked about what he has learned from scripture study recently.

Larry read these words in Doctrine and Covenants 88:

This [meeting together to pray to know the will of the Lord regarding building Zion] is pleasing unto your Lord, and the angels rejoice over you; the alms of your prayers have come up into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, and are recorded in the book of the names of the sanctified, even them of the celestial world.

His attention was caught by a strange phrase, “the alms of your prayers.”

alms

Image via Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/en/peach-fruit-hand-give-812717/

My guess is that it is part of an implicit reference to a longer phrase in James 5:4:

Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.

The Hebrew word ṣĕbāʾôt is most often translated “hosts” when used as part of the Lord’s name. That explains the use of the term in James: the Lord, who has a divine army at his disposal, hears the cries of those who have been defrauded, not paid for their work. His army includes the heavenly bodies: the sun, the moon, and the stars (e.g. Isa. 40:26). Of course it includes the angels who serve as his messengers. And it includes his heavenly council (2 Chr 18:18; Abraham 3:19, 21; 4:1-5:14). The militaristic associations of the name are difficult to ignore, along with their implied threat: God, backed by celestial armies, hears the cries of workers who are cheated.

What does it mean, then, to say that the Lord of hosts has heard the prayers that eventuated in D&C 88? The key, I think, is in the phrase that caught Larry’s attention, “the alms of your prayers.” It is reminiscent of what the Lord says to Cornelius, the unbaptized Roman believer:

Thy prayers and thy alms are come for a memorial before God (Acts 10:4) and Thy prayer is heard, and thine alms are had in remembrance in the sight of God (Acts 10:31).

Cornelius’s prayers and alms were recognized by God; he had been judged and not found wanting. In fact, he may have stood as an unknowing remonstrance to Peter.

But, though the phrase in Acts may help us understand the similar phrase in D&C 88:2, the difference is sufficient that the first and the second don’t mean the same.

The Oxford English Dictionary gives this definition of alms: “Charitable relief given to the poor or needy, usu. (now only) in the form of material gifts, typically of money or food; (in later use esp.) the goods given in this way.” That’s the first definition, material relief of the needy, one attested for 400 years or more.

Using that definition we might paraphrase Larry’s phrase in this way:

The charitable giving of your prayers has come up into the ears of the Lord who gives vengeance to the poor

But how can prayers be charitable giving? The context of this revelation is important to understanding the answer to that question: the prayers of those to whom God responded with D&C 88 concerned “the upbuilding of Zion,” and in Zion there are to be no poor:

And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them. (Moses 7:18)

Those who pray to build Zion make cause with the Lord to create a world in which workers are paid fairly, in other words, where there are no poor. The God who would avenge the poor hears these prayers for Zion as gifts for the poor. They cannot replace material alms, but they make one part of God’s army or council. Those who pray that Zion will be built in intention, thought, and deed are among those whom God will hear. He takes their counsel.

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