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The office of high priest; the United Firm (D&C sections 78, 80–83, 85, 92, 104)
by Mike Parker
(Mike Parker is a long-time FAIR member who has graciously allowed us to use materials he originally prepared for the Hurricane Utah Adult Religion Class. The scripture passages covered in his lessons don’t conform exactly to the Come, Follow Me reading schedule, so they will be shared here where they fit best.)
Additional Reading
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Max H. Parkin, “Joseph Smith and the United Firm: The Growth and Decline of the Church’s First Master Plan of Business and Finance, Ohio and Missouri, 1832–1834,” BYU Studies 46, no. 3 (2007): 5–66. Parkin sheds light on how the United Firm was organized and operated and the role it played in early Church history.
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David J. Whittaker, “Substituted Names in the Published Revelations of Joseph Smith,” BYU Studies 23, no. 1 (Winter 1983): 103–12. Whittaker explains Joseph Smith’s use of code names when he published the revelations related to the United Firm.
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D. Michael Quinn, “Jesse Gause: Joseph Smith’s Little-Known Counselor,” BYU Studies 23, no. 4 (Fall 1983): 487–93.
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Joseph Smith’s 27 November 1832 letter to William W. Phelps, an extract of which was canonized in 1876 as section 85.
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Bill Shepard, “‘To Set in Order the House of God’: The Search for the Elusive ‘One Mighty and Strong’,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 39, no. 3 (Fall 2006): 18–45. Shepard traces the various interpretations of and claimants to the “one mighty and strong” mentioned in D&C 85:7.
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First Presidency statement on the “One Mighty and Strong,” Improvement Era 10, no. 12 (October 1907): 929–43. This statement—written and signed by Presidents Joseph F. Smith, John R. Winder, and Anthon H. Lund—suggests two possible interpretations of D&C 85:7.
Mike Parker is a business and marketing analyst with over twenty years’ experience in the financial services and cellular telephone industries. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in Management Information Systems from Dixie State University (now Utah Tech University) of St George, Utah. He also has eight years’ experience in corporate training and currently teaches an adult religion class in southern Utah. Mike and his wife, Denise, have three children.
