The Gathering

What comes to mind when you think of the "the gathering of Israel?" Until reading the words of Elder David Bednar several years ago, my understanding of the gathering principle was very limited, mostly focused on the "literal gathering" cited in the Articles of Faith and the general concept taught that we gather in the stakes of Zion. Since reading the article, however, I have learned that the gathering is one of the more all-encompassing doctrines of the restored Gospel, and beautifully expressed in another article I encourage you to read, "The Gathering is All About the Atonement."

Elder Bednar's teachings were cited in an LDS Church News article in 2006 covering a devotional he gave the day of the ground breaking for a new auditorium at BYU-Idaho. The entire manuscript can be found here. For brevity, I include an excerpt from the Church News story:

Elder Bednar said that all things are spiritual unto the Lord (Doctrine and Covenants 29:34) and observed that the Manwaring Center and the auditorium will share a common spiritual purpose; they will both be primarily places of gathering.

"The gathering of Israel is one of the fundamental principles of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. The Lord gathers His people when they accept Him and keep His commandments. The spirit of gathering is an integral part of the restoration of all things in this, the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times."

Elder Bednar used the scriptures to review several basic purposes of gathering, places of gathering and blessings of gathering. He explained how the Lord gathers His people to worship (Mosiah 18:25), to build up the Church (Doctrine and Covenants 101:63-64), for a defense (Doctrine and Covenants 115:6) and to receive counsel and instruction (Mosiah 18:7).

He named the primary places of gathering as into the Lord's restored Church (Doctrine and Covenants 101:64-65), into holy temples (Alma 26:5-6), into stakes of Zion (Doctrine and Covenants 109:59) and into families (Mosiah 2:5). He also discussed the blessing of gathering as blessings of edification (Ephesians 4:12-13), preservation (Moses 7:61) and strength (Doctrine and Covenants 82:14).

Elder Bednar taught how the spirit, purposes and blessings of gathering also occur on campus. "At BYU—Idaho you gather to worship the Father in the name of the Son, to build up the Church and the university, to find defense and protection and to receive counsel and instruction."

This gathering has been discussed since the days of ancient prophets. The first instance in the Bible of the gathering doctrine comes in Genesis 49:10, when the aged prophet Jacob blesses his son, Judah. In that blessing, he promises that the lawgivers will come from his seed, "until Shiloh [Jesus Christ] come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be."

We know from the Pearl of Great Price, restored scripture, that prior to Jacob's time, this principle was taught by Enoch, one of the great and earliest patriarchs.

In addition to the many gathering teachings in the Old and New Testaments, The Book of Mormon's emphasis on the gathering can't be ignored. One of the first doctrines Nephi introduces in his writings is the gathering. To him, the gathering played great significance. One hundred years prior to Nephi in Jerusalem, ten tribes of Israel had been taken and subsequently lost contact with the remaining two tribes of Israel. Nephi's family played a prominent role in the scattering along with Mulek, a son of Zedekiah, as they left Jerusalem at different times for the Americas. And many more of these two tribes were scattered by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.

Early in his record, Nephi wastes no time before introducing the doctrine of the gathering of Israel, a prophecy I'm sure brought great peace to him. Two and a half millenia later, his writings are now central to the gathering that has taken place for the last 181 years.

Elder Russell Nelson in, "The Gathering of Scattered Israel" calls the Book of Mormon "central to this work" of the gathering. He continues by making a bold declaration about the connection between the book and the modern day gathering:

[The Book of Mormon] declares the doctrine of the gathering. It causes people to learn about Jesus Christ, to believe His gospel, and to join His Church. In fact, if there were no Book of Mormon, the promised gathering of Israel would not occur.