Maybe Enoch isn’t something you’ve ever heard about before. I know I’m really going to enjoy my scripture reading this year. Grandpa and I were reading from Genesis this evening at the same time, and—naturally—lots of questions came up.
To be honest, I don’t want to pontificate on some of the stories found in the beginning of Genesis. There is some pretty awful and difficult-to-understand material there. Some of it is hard to read, and you can’t help but wonder how certain things even made it into our canonized scripture. So, what are we to learn from it? At the very least, we are meant to learn to make better choices than some of the people did in the beginning.
As we talked, the City of Enoch came up, and more questions followed. There isn’t much said about Enoch in the Bible—just one brief and holy line: “Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.” But in the Pearl of Great Price, in Moses chapters 6 and 7, the story unfolds much more fully.
There we learn that Enoch listened when God called him, even though he felt weak and unprepared. He preached repentance, and the people chose to change. Over time, they became of one heart and one mind. They cared for one another. There were no poor among them—“and the Lord called his people Zion” (Moses 7:18). Their lives became so aligned with heaven that the Lord took their city to Himself. That means they never tasted death—they were translated. Awesome.
What I love most is that Zion wasn’t built in a day, and it wasn’t built by perfect people. It was built by people willing to listen, repent, and love. That gives me hope. Zion can begin quietly—in a heart that chooses kindness, in a home where faith is spoken gently, in a life that walks with God.
My sweet granddaughter, if you ever wonder where Zion is, know this: it begins wherever someone chooses to follow Him. One heart at a time.
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