Dec 29 – Jan 4, 2026
Before There Was Genesis
Moses 1: The Cheat Code Nobody Told You About
Be honest. Has anyone actually read the whole Old Testament? Like, the whole thing?
There are chapters in Leviticus about mold on walls. Pages of genealogies. Ezekiel has visions that require a diagram to follow. The Old Testament can feel like homework designed by someone who does not want you to succeed.
Here's the actual problem: most people start at page one. That's not where you're supposed to start.
The Cheat Code
Moses 1 is tucked into the Pearl of Great Price, not the Bible. That's because it was lost for a long time — cut out somewhere in the long, messy process of copying and editing scriptures across centuries. When Joseph Smith began his inspired revision of the Bible in 1830, the very first thing God revealed to him was Moses 1. The chapter that was supposed to come before Genesis 1.
So what's in it?
Moses goes up a mountain. God shows him the whole earth, worlds without number. And then God says the thing that changes how you read everything else:
"For behold, this is my work and my glory — to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." (Moses 1:39)
That's it. That's the whole plot of the Old Testament.
Every prophet, every covenant, every time God rescues someone from an impossible situation — it's all that one mission playing out. God is trying to bring people home. That's what the OT is. Once you see it, you can't unsee it.
Why Latter-day Saints Read This Differently
Most Christians open their Bibles at Genesis 1 and start reading from there. Without the mission statement in Moses 1, the OT can look like God issuing rules and punishing everyone who breaks them.
With Moses 1, you see something different. God isn't a distant judge waiting for violations. He's on a specific, stated mission — and He announces it plainly, to a real person, before the story gets going.
There's something else in Moses 1 worth knowing. After God tells Moses "thou art my son" and shows him the cosmos, Satan shows up. His strategy is specific: he tries to convince Moses that he's nobody. That he's just a man. That whatever God told him about his identity can't be trusted.
Moses holds his ground. He reminds Satan that he's seen the glory of God, and Satan's glory is nothing like it. He commands Satan to leave. Satan has to.
The first move the adversary has always made is to attack your identity. The first answer is the same one Moses gave: I know who I am.
🎮 Moses 1 is found in which book of scripture?
🎮 According to Moses 1:39, what is God's "work and glory"?
🎮 When Satan appeared to Moses in Moses 1, what did Satan try to do?
🎮 Why does Moses 1 matter if it isn't even in the regular Bible?
🎮 The JST (Joseph Smith Translation) is significant because:
🎮 Which of the following best describes how the Restoration changed our understanding of the Old Testament?
Open Your Come Follow Me Manual
Find the section for this week and look for the question that you can't immediately answer. Sit with it for a day before deciding what you think. The manual isn't just for finding easy answers — sometimes it's for finding the honest ones.