Priesthood vs Faith

I know I promised a while ago that I would write a post about the question, "Why is there no maximum wage?" but the more effort I put in to trying to understand my position, the further I get from being able to provide a good answer. I'm still working on it and hope to have my thoughts aligned by the end of the year. :)

In the meantime, I wanted to write about something that has been on my mind recently. For a long time, I have been curious about the relationship between the priesthood and personal faith. This topic is very much related to my beliefs as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and has been a source of minor confusion for myself and others I know. Hebrews 11:1 says that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. It goes on to talk about many people who did righteous things because of their faith. Faith is a principle of belief and action. James 2:17 teaches us that true faith results in action. Faith without action is dead and is just belief which is powerless (and hence dead). The lectures on faith teach us that faith is the foundation of all action. For example, would you get up and go to work in the morning if you had no faith that you would get paid? Would you brush our teeth if you had no faith that it would prevent tooth decay? Would you even open your eyes if you had no faith that something would be there to see. Faith is the foundation of all things we do.

In addition to being a foundation for the things we do, faith is also the foundation of miracles. We find examples of this throughout the scriptures. Many of these or found throughout the records of our Savior's life. Time and time again someone would be healed of an infirmity and the Savior would declare that it was their faith that had healed them. Take the woman with the issue of blood found in Matthew 9 as an example. This woman had some sort of disease that had plagued her 12 years with no cure in sight. She heard that the Savior was going to be passing by and believed that if she could touch his garment then she would be healed. She acted on her belief and as she touched the Savior's garment she was healed. But I find the Savior's response to be one of the most inspiring parts of this story. In verse 22, Christ points out that the woman was healed by her faith. He could have said "by my Father's power" or "by my power" but instead he chooses to focus on the power of her faith. Her faith, the belief and action that led her to touch his garment was the power by which she was healed. It is through our active faith that miracles can happen in our own lives.

Then there's the priesthood. Growing up, I always understood the priesthood as "the power of God on earth given to man". The priesthood is the power by which the earth was formed. The priesthood is the power by which families were sealed together. It is the power of God given to man. In my youthful eyes, I dreamed of being a missionary that could move mountains upon request. I would be able to command the elements to rain hail upon those who opposed us. I'd have the power to jump to the top of large buildings in a single bound... Okay, so maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration but I really thought the priesthood was a source of power to do whatever I was inspired to do. But shouldn't my own faith provide me the same power to do miracles?

That's where things started to get confusing to me. In addition to that, if the priesthood is so important, why was it only given to men and not women? Why wasn't it given to all worthy men earlier in the church? Something with this much power shouldn't be restricted to only a few members of the church, right? So if there's the priesthood that lets me have the power of God and use it as inspired then why do I need faith? If faith is the foundation of all our works and miracles that happen, why do we need the priesthood? For a long time these questions seemed to have no good answer. It was one of those things that I thought I'd just have to wait to die to figure out. Luckily, I think I finally humbled myself enough to be taught what the balance between these two principles are. However, this post is starting to get long and I'm thinking I need to get to bed soon. :) I'll finish up the second half in the next few days and post the thrilling conclusion of what the spirit taught me. Until then I'd love to hear any questions you might have about this topic so I can factor them into my next post.