{"id":46907,"date":"2024-04-03T09:07:23","date_gmt":"2024-04-03T15:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.timesandseasons.org\/?p=46907"},"modified":"2024-04-03T10:17:23","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T16:17:23","slug":"the-heart-of-the-matter-a-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2024\/04\/the-heart-of-the-matter-a-review\/","title":{"rendered":"The Heart of the Matter: A Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Heart of the Matter<\/em><\/a>, by President Russell M. Nelson, is a book to live by. It serves as a collection and presentation of his core messages as president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and provides guidance for both belief and living as a member of that church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The book primarily pulls together many of President Nelson\u2019s major general conference addresses into a framework of principles that he has learned to be good to live by during his 99 years of life. The addresses incorporated into Heart of the Matter <\/em>include \u201cLet God Prevail,\u201d \u201cHear Him,\u201d \u201cThe Correct Name of the Church,\u201d \u201cSisters\u2019 Participation in the Gathering of Israel,\u201d \u201cA Plea to My Sisters,\u201d \u201cThe Book of Mormon: What Would Your Life Be Like without It?,\u201d \u201cJoy and Spiritual Survival,\u201d \u201cTeach Us Tolerance and Love,\u201d \u201cThe Temple and Your Spiritual Foundation,\u201d along with others. There did seem to be some new material also woven into the text, including an experience of being taken hostage while in Africa, so it isn\u2019t just a collection of general conference addresses. Rather, it functions as a synthesis of the core messages that Russell M. Nelson has tried to teach throughout his ministry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main irony of the book was that the chapter on how important it is to listen to and work with women didn\u2019t include many quotes from women. President Nelson insisted that \u201cour sisters possess distinctive capabilities and special intuition they have received as gifts from God. We brethren cannot duplicate their unique insights and influence\u201d (88). Yet, only two statements from women are in quotation marks in that chapter, neither of which were from sources that included a citation. Non-scriptural men, on the other hand, were cited ten times in that chapter. It\u2019s a pattern that continues throughout the book, with women only being cited six times while men are cited around sixty six times (not counting the scripture references). I appreciate his message of respecting and listening to women and it felt like a missed opportunity to model that in the text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One compelling aspect of Nelson’s work is his ability to integrate insights from his expertise in medicine with his faith-based worldview. The book contains several stories from his career as a heart surgeon to illustrate the points that he made. He also shares many insights that he applies to spiritual health that he gained from a scientific understanding of the human body. While he admits that he dose \u201cnot find \u2026 theories helpful\u201d that science has offered about \u201cthe creation of our planet and life upon it\u201d (asking, as he has in the past, \u201ccould an explosion in a printing shop produce a dictionary?\u201d), his primary point is that God is involved and guiding the creation process and thus we need to honor the human body rather than to dismiss science altogether (135). And, as could be expected, he spends an entire chapter encouraging people to take good care of their bodies and to live a healthy lifestyle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Heart of the Matter<\/em><\/a> is a valuable resource and a worthy addition to the bookshelves of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is important to listen to the words of the prophets, and this book is a wonderful synthesis of the core messages that President Russell M. Nelson has shared over the years worth reviewing again and again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more posts about Russell M. Nelson and his teachings, visit our new Russell M. Nelson<\/a> page!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Heart of the Matter, by President Russell M. Nelson, is a book to live by. It serves as a collection and presentation of his core messages as president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and provides guidance for both belief and living as a member of that church.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10397,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10397"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46907"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46915,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46907\/revisions\/46915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}