The Lectures on Faith are seven theological discourses prepared for the School of the Prophets in Kirtland and delivered between late 1834 and early 1835. When the Doctrine and Covenants was first published in 1835, the lectures appeared at the front of the volume as the “Doctrine” portion of the book’s title; the revelations followed as the “Covenants.” For nearly nine decades, the Lectures were part of every printed Doctrine and Covenants.
Authorship is best understood as collaborative, supervised by Joseph Smith. Sidney Rigdon’s involvement was substantial; other members of the School of the Prophets contributed; and Joseph Smith reviewed and approved the text for publication. The Prophet’s blessing on the finished work is recorded in his journal.
The seven lectures move systematically. Lecture 1 defines faith as the moving cause of all action and the principle of power. Lecture 2 treats the historical sources of faith — the testimony chain by which the knowledge of God reached the present generation. Lectures 3 and 4 address the attributes of God on which true faith rests. Lectures 5 and 6 treat the nature of the Godhead and the necessity of certain knowledge of God’s character for the exercise of saving faith. Lecture 7 concludes with the relationship between faith and the salvation of the soul.
In 1921 the Church removed the Lectures from the Doctrine and Covenants. The reasoning, set out in the prefatory committee’s report, was that the Lectures had been included as instructional material rather than received by revelation in the same sense as the bound covenants — and that this distinction warranted formal separation. The Lectures are no longer part of canonical Latter-day Saint scripture.
They remain widely studied. The treatment of faith in Lecture 1 — that faith is the moving cause of all action and the principle of power by which God Himself acts — is among the most-quoted passages in early Restoration theology, and the Lectures’ careful framing of the relationship between knowledge of God and the exercise of saving faith continues to inform Latter-day Saint thought.