Women and the Priesthood: What One Mormon Woman Believes by Sheri Dew

Author:Sheri Dew [Dew, Sheri]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Deseret Book Company
Published: 2013-11-05T07:00:00+00:00

A Legacy of Service

Eve led the way when she took the step that freed men and women from eternal stagnation by making it possible for us to be born into mortality,11 gain a body, and experience this period of probation. It is because of Eve’s courageous act, and it is through her daughters, that every soul who receives a body is escorted through the veil that separates us here on earth from the premortal world. Even Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten of the Father, came to earth through the sacrifice of a woman.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks taught: “It was Eve who first transgressed the limits of Eden in order to initiate the conditions of mortality. Her act, whatever its nature, was formally a transgression but eternally a glorious necessity to open the doorway toward eternal life. Adam showed his wisdom by doing the same. And thus Eve and ‘Adam fell that men might be’ (2 Ne. 2:25). Some Christians condemn Eve for her act, concluding that she and her daughters are somehow flawed by it. Not the Latter-day Saints! Informed by revelation, we celebrate Eve’s act and honor her wisdom and courage in the great episode called the Fall.”12

It was Eve who uttered what is surely the most magnificent single-sentence sermon about our Father’s plan for His children: “Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient.”13

President James E. Faust declared that “we all owe a great debt of gratitude to Eve. . . . The choice [of Adam and Eve] was really between a continuation of their comfortable existence in Eden, where they would never have progress, or a momentous exit into mortality with its opposites; pain, trials, and physical death in contrast to joy, growth, and the potential for eternal life. . . . If it hadn’t been for Eve, none of us would be here. . . . Mother Eve left a lasting legacy that comes down through the ages to bless the lives of all men and women.”14

Surely “our glorious Mother Eve”15 was one of the most revered of all our Father’s spirit sons and daughters. Though Adam was ordained to the priesthood, he could not by himself fulfill the measure of his creation or further the purpose of the creation of the earth. Together Adam and Eve opened the way for us to continue to progress,16 and in the process Eve established a righteous pattern for all women. She modeled what all faithful mothers do by facilitating the progression and growth of her children, which in her case includes all of us.

A host of magnificent women have followed in Eve’s footsteps. Consider the following: Sarah had the faith to believe she could bear a child when she was past age, “because she judged him faithful who had promised.”17

An inspired Egyptian woman responding to her maternal instincts retrieved the infant Moses from the bulrushes.

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