Still Teaching

This morning as we attempted to read scriptures as a family, my wife talked to our five-year-old girl about Isaiah.  We were reading in the Isaiah chapters in the Book of Mormon and somehow we got on the subject of how Isaiah had died; my wife explained that even though he died, he was still teaching us today through his words.  Later in the evening as we were in the kitchen trying to wind things down my daughter said seemingly out of the blue, “Isaiah is still teaching right?  Even though he’s dead?”  As much as we think that they don’t hear anything that we teach, it was a reassurance to me that our kids really do hear what we try to teach them about the gospel much more than it seems. 

                One of the great messages of the Book of Mormon is the need for parents to teach their children the principles of the gospel.  The Book of Mormon contains many examples of what the Doctrine and Covenants commands specifically: that parents should teach children “to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands” (D&C 68:25).  We especially see it in the first family that we meet in the text.  Lehi spent much of his time teaching his children.  In one snippet of his words—which certainly was just a representative of a lifetime of teaching—he pled with Laman as they sat in the wilderness by a river, “O that thou mightest be like unto this river, continually running into the fountain of all righteousness!”  Likewise he exhorted Lemuel with all of his heart, “O that thou mightest be like unto this valley, firm and steadfast, and immovable in keeping the commandments of the Lord!” (1 Nephi 2:9-10)  Nephi clearly heard much of his father’s testimony because his words led Nephi to “cry unto the Lord” in order to understand and believe the words of his father (1 Nephi 2:16).  When Lehi was again worried about Laman and Lemuel, “He did exhort them then with all the feeling of a tender parent, that they would hearken to his words” (1 Nephi 8:37).  At the end of his life he took his children aside and taught them, and we are blessed to have his final testimony to them in 2 Nephi 1-4.  Lehi was constantly teaching and exhorting his children to follow the principles of the gospel.

                Though I think we have more details about Lehi as a parent than any other Book of Mormon figure, we do get a glimpse of the same kind of dedication to teaching children in many of the other prophets.  Nephi labored “diligently to write, to persuade [his] children… to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God” (2 Nephi 25:23).  Jacob’s words to his son Enos may not have had the immediate effect that he had hoped, but eventually Enos found himself reflecting on the fact that his father “taught [him] in his language, and also in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”  He was led to pray with all his heart because of the “words which [he] had often heard [his] father speak concerning eternal life, and the joy of the Saints” (Enos 1:1, 3).  Alma the Elder had a great impact on his son as well even though in the moment of his teaching it was rejected.  When the young Alma was racked and tormented with his sins, he “remembered also to have heard [his] father prophesy unto the people concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, a Son of God” and through that was able to find forgiveness in Christ (Alma 36:17).  Later this same Alma became another great example of a father as he exhorted his own children to live the principles of the gospel in what are now 7 powerful chapters.

                There are certainly other examples of righteous parents in the Book of Mormon including the mothers of the stripling warriors and Mormon himself.  I guess one of the messages for us is that we must never underestimate the power of straightforward teaching of the gospel to our children.  We never know when they are going to need and remember the things we teach.  And hopefully, if we do it right, we will be "still teaching" like Isaiah long after our children are gone from our care.