Elder Bednar and the Scriptures

Last night I watched the Face To Face broadcast the Elder Bednar and his wife did this week for the youth.  They both answered questions that the youth from all around the world asked them.  One of the things that I noticed was how easily and often Elder Bednar used the scriptures to help answer their questions. 

For example, one young man asked about how to handle the difficulties with being one of the only members of the Church in his school, and Elder Bednar invited him to read the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego.  In particular Elder Bednar pointed out that when they were in the fire the smell of the smoke did not come upon them and he related that to living in our wicked world.  Another person asked about how to avoid pride, and so Elder Bednar counseled him to read about Nephi’s exclamation “O wretched man that I am” in 2 Nephi 4.  He likewise told him to study the account in Moses 1 where Moses who saw God’s glory and proclaimed that man was nothing.  To the person who asked about understanding the promptings of the Spirit, Elder Bednar counseled to ponder the story of Nephi who went to Jerusalem “led by the Spirit” and not knowing beforehand what he was going to do.  Elder Bednar’s approach to use the scriptures to answer questions is one that we in fact find in the scriptures themselves.  When Laman and Lemuel had questions about their father’s teaching, Nephi “did rehearse unto them the words of Isaiah” (1 Nephi 15:20).  Lamoni’s father asked some basic gospel questions to Aaron, and Aaron “began from the creation of Adam, reading the scriptures unto the king….  And Aaron did expound unto him the scriptures” (Alma 22:12-13).  When the Pharisees accused Christ of breaking the Sabbath because his disciples picked corn, He responded by teaching them from the scriptures: “Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungred….  Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the Sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless” (Matt. 12:2-3).  Likewise when the Savior walked on the road to Emmaus after His resurrection, He responded to their confusion by teaching them the scriptures: “And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27).  When the Nephite disciples asked the Savior what they should name the Church, He said, “Why is it that the people should murmur and dispute because of this thing? Have they not read the scriptures, which say ye must take upon you the name of Christ, which is my name?” (3 Nephi 27:4-5).  All of these examples show how the prophets and the Savior used the scriptures to answer questions about the gospel in the same way that Elder Bednar did.  As we teach the gospel in our own families and in the Church I believe we bring great power to our message when we base our teachings in the written word of God.  If we make it through a talk or lesson without opening the scriptures, then we have failed to bring the one thing to our teaching that could have told us and our audience “all things what [we] should do” (2 Nephi 32:3).