Barry Black, Phylacteries, and the Scriptures

I was impressed by this story about the Senate chaplain Barry Black.  He grew up in Baltimore and when he was a child his mother gave him a challenge: for every scripture he memorized he would get a nickel.  He naturally focused on the short verses, and one of those was this verse in Proverbs 1:10: “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.”  The story relates, “The mother's wisdom in that moral training came sharply into focus when two young friends knocked on his door one day and invited him to come with them ‘to get back at someone.’”  He recounted that he turned down the invitation while that “scripture clearly echoed in his mind.”  Later he found out that those two friends murdered someone and ended up in prison for life.  Chaplain Black declared that this event changed his life, and it is a poignant reminder of the power of scriptures in our lives and in particular in the lives of our children.  As another Proverb reads, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105).  We never know when the words of the Lord that we hear or read or memorize will down the road light our path to safety. 

               One of the condemnations that the Savior gave to the scribes and the Pharisees was that “they make broad their phylacteries” (Matt. 23:5).  The phylacteries (also called  frontlets) were, according to the Bible Dictionary, “Strips of parchment on which were written four passages of scriptures and that were rolled up and attached to bands of leather worn around the forehead or around the arm.”  This was done in obedience to a few different commands in the Law of Moses, including this one, “Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes” (Deuteronomy 11:18).  And so they literally would put scriptures between their eyes.  The Savior did not condemn the fact that these Pharisees and scribes had phylacteries, but only the fact that they were seeking to be seen of men for their supposed righteousness.  Surely in this tradition, though, there is an invitation for all of us today who seek to follow the Savior: the words of the scriptures should constantly on our minds and before our eyes.  As the same chapter in Deuteronomy invites us, “And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up” (v19).  Just as the scriptures were literally on their foreheads, so too should the words of God be always in our hearts and minds. 

               We have a specific invitation to do exactly that with the emphasis on the Come, Follow Me program this year as we read the New Testament.  In a talk of the same name from this last general conference, President Nelson pleaded with us in these words, “Pour out your heart to God. Ask Him if these things are true. Make time to study His words. Really study! If you truly love your family and if you desire to be exalted with them throughout eternity, pay the price now—through serious study and fervent prayer—to know these eternal truths and then to abide by them.”  With that kind of fervent searching of the scriptures, surely the Lord will protect and bless us just as he did to the young Barry Black.