The Maxwell Institute

Elder Maxwell was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles when he delivered this General Conference address in April 1994.

In the journey of discipleship we lose our old selves. The natural man and the natural woman are “put off,” and then we find ourselves having become more saintly. We see such saintliness all about us in the Church—quiet, good women and men, not particularly status-full, who are becoming saintly. This is what should be happening in the lives of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I am struck, brothers and sisters, by the apostolic request “Lord, increase our faith” (Luke 17:5). As I study that expression, I find it occurred after the Twelve had already seen Jesus heal Peter’s mother-in-law, a leper, a paralytic, a withered hand, and the centurion’s servant. They had observed Jesus cast out devils, raise from the dead a widow’s son and Jairus’s daughter, still the tempest, cast out a legion of devils, feed the five thousand miraculously, and be transfigured on the Mount. Yet they still asked, “Lord, increase our faith”! That request tells us something about the nature of faith.

Only reform and self-restraint, institutional and individual, can finally rescue society! Only a sufficient number of sin-resistant souls can change the marketplace. As Church members, we should be part of that sin-resistant counterculture. Instead, too many members are sliding down the slope, though perhaps at a slower pace.

Since we have been told clearly by Jesus what manner of men and women we ought to become—even as He is (see 3 Nephi 27:27)—how can we do so, except each of us employs repentance as the regular means of personal progression? Personal repentance is part of taking up the cross daily. (See Luke 9:23.) Without it, clearly there could be no “perfecting of the Saints” (Ephesians 4:12).

You cannot light a fire in another soul unless it is burning in your own soul. You teachers, the testimony that you bear, the spirit with which you teach and with which you lead, is one of the most important assets that you can have, as you help to strengthen those who need so much, wherein you have so much to give.

This collection of new artworks was commissioned for "Approaching the Tree: Interpreting 1 Nephi 8." Published by the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University, this book is an invitation to view again one of the Book of Mormon's best-known texts. From the fresh interactions of an array of artists and scholars from Angola to Portugal and BYU to Oxford, the theological significance of Lehi's dream emerges anew. Together these able guides show, once again, both book and dream to be rich and deep, and worthy of repeated reflection. "Approaching the Tree: Interpreting 1 Neph 8" is co-edited by Jennifer Champoux, Benjamin Keogh, and Joseph M. Spencer.

Congratulations to Laurie Maffly-Kipp—a visiting scholar at the Maxwell Institute in 2019 and 2023—on her appointment as the Richard Lyman Bushman Chair of Mormon Studies at the University of Virginia!

I'm Rosalynde Welch, host of the new Maxwell Institute Book of Mormon Studies podcast. I've been on a lifelong journey not only to understand the meaning of the Book of Mormon, but to let its message change my heart. The words of prophets and the influence of the Spirit have lit the way.