Live By Every Word

One of my favorite passages of scripture in the Old Testament are these instructions of Moses to the children of Israel: “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates” (Deuteronomy 6:6-9). The scripture help for these verses says this: “To honor the Lord’s instruction to always remember these words, many Jews place a small piece of parchment inscribed with passages from the Shema in a mezuzah—a small container attached to the right side of the doorframe of their homes. Similarly, tefillin (also called phylacteries or frontlets) are small, square leather boxes containing pieces of parchment with passages from the Shema. Many Jews wear one box on the forehead and strap the other box to the nondominant arm.” I love the emphasis that many Jews place on the scriptures to remember the Lord and the words He has given. Though today Latter-day Saints may not put phylacteries on the forehead, surely the words of the Lord can be more diligently in our minds and our hearts. Though we may not put a mezuzah on our front door of our house, we can certainly more consistently read the scriptures in our homes and speak of them to our children. It seems to me that cell phones have become what the scriptures were meant to be: most of us keep a cell phone with us all the time and are repeatedly using it throughout every day. Many feel lost when they can’t find it and bored when they have to go a few minutes without using it. Children beg to have their own, teenagers hole up and spend hours on them, and adults scroll through them endlessly for the latest updates. How great would it be if that is how we treated our scriptures!

               Moses also taught this to the children of Israel at the end of his life: “And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no. And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live” (Deuteronomy 8:2-3). The manna that the Lord gave the Israelites was a symbol of the spiritual bread that we need every day in the scriptures. The Savior emphasized this again when He responded to the adversary with these words: “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). We need bread for physical life, and we need the word of God for spiritual life. Just as the manna came down from heaven, so too do the words of the scripture come down from heaven. And like the Israelites could not store the manna for long, so too we cannot “store” our reading of the scriptures for long periods of time—we need it every day. Most of us do not go long periods of time without eating; our bodies remind us that we are hungry and we do not forget that we need food for sustenance and energy. The Savior’s words remind us that it should be the same for our spirits; they are hungry for the spiritual bread found in the word of God, and we should follow these words of modern revelation: “And I now give unto you a commandment to beware concerning yourselves, to give diligent heed to the words of eternal life. For you shall live by every word that proceedeth forth from the mouth of God” (Doctrine and Covenants 83:43-44). To fully live, we need the word of God. We don’t have to put them on our foreheads or doorposts, but they should be frequently before our eyes and always in our hearts.