Day 234 Judging Righteously: Pahoran's Leadership Oath

In Matthew 5:13, Jesus tells his followers that they are the salt of the earth, and in the same sentence offers a warning that savorless salt is good for nothing. Join me in an attempt to be savory salt as I share each day one verse of scripture and one small thought. Perhaps this small daily emphasis can lead to greater savor in your life and ultimately you and I can be savory salt.

Hello, my friends and family, wherever you're listening from. Thank you for joining me. And know that I'm cheering for your every success.

What character traits or characteristics do you look for in a leader? What traits truly matter when it comes to leadership? I think we get an interesting insight to who the Nephites had as their leader during this time in the war chapters.

Welcome to day 234 on our 365-day journey through the Book of Mormon together. Today we're going to read Alma chapter 50, verses 30 through 40. You're going to finish that chapter and you're going to dip into Alma 51, reading verses 1 through 5.

The front end of that is you get an introduction to the Kingmen and the Freemen. But let's dive into our leadership lesson here today. It is an interesting of sorts, because we get a new introduction of a chief judge.

The name of the prophet is Pahoran. And that he was when it came to his role and responsibility as a chief judge. And that's what I want to take a look at today inside Savory Salt.

You're going to be reading Alma chapter 50, verse 39. It says, "Behold, it came to pass that the son of Nephi was appointed to fill the judgment seat in the stead of his father. He was appointed chief judge and governor over the people with an oath and sacred ordinance to judge righteously, and to keep the peace and the freedom of the people, and to grant unto them their sacred privileges to worship the Lord their God, to support and maintain the cause of God all his days, and to bring the wicked to justice according to their crime." Now there's a whole like doctrinal thesis you could dive into on leadership lessons here, but let's take a look at a few of these that I think are interesting, especially when it comes to the options that many of us are given in today's world of leadership.

We're looking at leaders, maybe we get to choose leaders at a local level, or maybe we get to choose leaders at a provincial or a state level, or maybe even at a national level. It seems like the options we're given may not quite fit into what we see from the Nephite world. We see here that with his appointment as chief judge and governor of the people, it happened with an oath and sacred ordinance to judge righteously.

I think there's an interesting phrase inside of there: "this oath and sacred ordinance." We don't talk like that anymore in today's world. We do talk about swearing, you know, swearing in as president here or there or those types of things. But this level seems to be taken at a different level: an oath and a sacred ordinance.

And then we see kind of the roles and responsibilities. Judge righteously, keep the peace, keep the freedom of the people, grant unto them their sacred privileges to worship the Lord their God. So this freedom of religion, we've talked about that a few days ago inside Savory Salt.

Support and maintain the cause of God all his days. That's interesting. We have a theocratic lens here just a little bit.

I think what we get inside of here is worth us spending some time to look for leaders. I wanted to bring up Pahoran's description here that we get because he's going to play such a pivotal role, especially in working with Moroni to help establish peace with the Nephites again. It's worth knowing the type of man that he was so that we can have a lens in our lives of the type of leaders that we want to seek for in terms of characteristics and traits and maybe even those that seek to fulfill leadership positions.

There's some lessons inside here worth adopting in your life as you become a better leader yourself. That's all for today, my friends. Remember that "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass." Keep it small, keep it simple, and always seek to be savory salt. I'll be here tomorrow, and I hope you are too.