Marriage and Family

This page summarizes the topic sentences of the talk's major paragraphs, organized by theme, followed by key doctrinal quotations and scripture citations. Bracketed commentary and asides from the original talk have been condensed and paraphrased throughout; quoted passages are kept short and attributed.

Marriage as the image of God

• "Male and female created he them" is read as the literal image of God: the divine pattern is inherently a partnership, so that the promises of exaltation in D&C 132 are given consistently to "they," a couple, never to a solitary individual.
• In the creation account, Adam and Eve are clothed together, taught sacrifice together, baptized in the same events, and receive the Holy Ghost together — modeling shared, equally yoked responsibility rather than a husband mediating for a silent wife.
• The distinct roles given to Adam (prophesying, i.e. declaring truth) and Eve (interpreting by wisdom what the prophecy means) are presented as complementary gifts, neither of which is superior to the other.
• D&C 121:44 ("reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love") is applied directly to marriage: correction between spouses is legitimate only when it is immediately followed by visible, increased love.

A nondelegable duty to teach children

• D&C 68:25 places the sin directly "upon the heads of the parents" if children are not taught repentance, faith in Christ, baptism, and the Holy Ghost — a responsibility Denver says cannot be outsourced to a curriculum or a three-hour block.
• Correlated, repetitive church instruction is criticized as inadequate to inoculate children against later doubts; parents are urged to actively supplement and challenge their children with real content rather than assume institutional exposure suffices.
• Hyrum Smith's revelation to "wait a little longer" before preaching (D&C 11) is used to argue that parents, like Adam and Eve before their own children were grown, must first become qualified themselves before they can effectively teach.
• God's promise to "unveil his face" only "in his own time, and in his own way, and according to his own will" once minds are sanctified and "single to God" (D&C 88:68) is cited as the pattern parents themselves must follow before children can be brought to the same experience.

Setting your own house in order

• Rather than waiting for a single figure to fulfill the "one mighty and strong" prophecy of D&C 85:7, every listener is invited to become that person within their own household — holding the "scepter of power," being "clothed with light," speaking eternal words to their own family.
• Zion cannot be built in a community until it is first achieved inside individual marriages and homes; a family modeling persuasion, gentleness, and non-domination is the necessary starting increment.
• D&C 124:91-96, describing Hyrum Smith's patrilineal claim to the office of Church Patriarch "from generation to generation," is cited as an example of how seriously God's house of order treats family lines and inheritance — a seriousness meant to extend to how every family treats its own line and legacy.