1971
Do you have to be an emotional person to have a testimony?
August 1971


“Do you have to be an emotional person to have a testimony?” New Era, Aug. 1971, 35

Sometimes some persons seem to be emotional—even over-emotional—in testimony meeting. Do you have to be an emotional person to have a testimony?

Answer/Sister Lenore Romney

Certainly all members should feel at home in the Church, and bearing our testimonies does not have to be accompanied by overemotionalism. However, to be alive involves being emotional, whether expressed or not, because aliveness consists of being able to feel love, anger, remorse, joy, and other emotions. Admittedly, people display their emotions differently, and events provoke different degrees of emotional response from each of us.

The intensity of our response to various emotions may be part of our inheritance—of whether, for example, we’re male or female. We know also that some persons cannot witness suffering without collapsing, while others seem aloof. Some persons are very efficient in a crisis, and others are inefficient.

Having a testimony and bearing witness of it are two different things. To gain a testimony involves knowledge and experience; one receives confirmation from God that Jesus is the Christ and that the gospel is true. When Peter answered the Lord that he knew Jesus was the Son of the living God, Christ answered: “… flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my father which is in heaven.” (Matt. 16:17.)

Our spirit within us responds as the Holy Ghost bears witness to the truth. A testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel and the divinity of Jesus Christ is thus the highest of all experiences and knowledge. Those who have not experienced this, or who may not be appreciating sufficiently the meaningfulness of this testimony in the lives of others, may not relate to or understand sympathetically what seems at times to be overemotionalism when a testimony is expressed.

Even so, a testimony is not the result of emotionalism but of knowledge, which may inspire high emotional response in some persons when witnessing.

  • Chevy Chase (Maryland) Ward