The Covenant Path
When I first heard this phrase, I thought it seemed boring and anticlimactic. But as I have often experienced, the Lord hides many pearls, speaking in serious understatement. So we only see the depths, if we take them very seriously.
The Lord uses the term Covenants to describe not only the ordinances we receive, but also teachings and doctrine. I am increasingly seeing greater depths in Pres Nelson’s use of the term. The Covenant Path is not simply Repentance and Baptism. Not simply anyway.
Two things I have heard recently give me much to ponder.
“Our covenants are not merely transactional; they are transformational. Through my covenants I receive sanctifying, strengthening power of Jesus Christ, which allows me to become a new person, to forgive what seems unforgivable, to overcome the impossible.”
Covenants create the kind of relationship that allows God to mold and change us over time and lift us to become more like the Savior, drawing us closer and closer to Him and our Father and eventually preparing us to enter Their presence.
William James Tychonievich
March 17, 2025
How did this phrase become so ubiquitous all of a sudden? It didn’t exist at all when I was in the CJCLDS.
E.C.
March 17, 2025
I’ve been reading a book called In The Language of Adam that has some interesting further reading on the idea of a covenant path and its rather plausible connection to ancient temple rites.
Rozy
March 17, 2025
In answer to WJT — We used to call it The Path to Eternal Life, or The Strait and Narrow Path. When I was in Primary (I’m now 67) we had a whole Sacrament Meeting program about climbing a beautiful stairway, including a song of the same name (found in an older children’s song book). The concepts have been the same, President Nelson has just given it a memorable and more meaningful name.
Marilyn
March 27, 2025
Sister Dalton used the phrase in a talk in 2007 and I just read it in an Elder Christoffersen talk in 2009. So I don’t think it’s that new. But I think a lot of us started using it more often after hearing President Nelson use that phrase when he first got called as prophet. If I remember right, he talked about pressing forward on the covenant path and I think it was just a memorable image. For me, it’s a helpful way to think of covenants rather than something that happens once or all at once. I also really like the idea of “covenant relationship“ which I also hear more lately.
G.
March 29, 2025
It is a powerful way of thinking. It makes me curious about where it came from
G.
March 31, 2025
The Church’s website is hard to use and not designed for searching, but here is what I could find:
2009 https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2009/04/the-power-of-covenants
2007 Sis. Dalton was quoting Elder Holland
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2007/04/stay-on-the-path?lang=eng
2006 Elder Holland https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/liahona/2006/10/what-i-wish-every-new-member-knew-and-every-longtime-member-remembered?lang=eng#p16
2006 Elder Holland may be ground zero.
John Mansfield
March 31, 2025
As a missionary long ago in a faraway land, I read 2 Nephi 31 with people approaching baptism many times. The specific word “covenant” does not there appear, but when I hear “covenant path” my mind always goes back to that Book of Mormon chapter.