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).
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