2.146 What can Frodo Baggins Teach Us About Stewardship?

In Matthew 5:13, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth, a bold reminder that our lives are meant to carry his flavor, his truth, and his love to the world. Join me each day to explore one verse of scripture and one thought, striving to stay full of savor and truly live as savory salt. Hello, my friends, great to have you with me.

Today, let's be anxiously engaged in a good cause and bring to pass much righteousness. I bet you didn't think you were going to wake up and have Lord of the Rings inside of your gospel study this morning. Welcome to the week.

We have quite a load of reading this coming week, so you got this, you can do this. Doctrine and Covenants sections 51 through 57, as well as Mosiah chapters 26 through Alma chapter 1. We got a lot to cover and we are going to have to do our best to pick and choose.

But today a message from J.R.R. Tolkien is in store. It's been a while since I talked about my other literary pursuits outside of just the gospel study.

And yet the Lord of the Rings fits inside of this one quite well. So bear with me. I won't get too deep into it.

I won't geek out too much, I promise. Our verse for today is Doctrine and Covenants Section 51, verse 19. Now, something interesting about our study this week with Sections 51 through 57 is they're going to revolve around assignments, callings, and ultimately what we would refer to as stewardship inside of the Church.

This is the idea where we have been placed as stewards, meaning people that are accountable and responsible for specific callings. For them in Sections 51 through 57, this is specific land grants and taking care of land and other things, all of this revolving under the Law of Consecration as the Saints at this time are now starting to live. I'm going to let you do more research on that.

But our verse for today inside of 51:19 talks specifically about this steward idea. It says this: "And whoso is found a faithful, a just, and a wise steward shall enter into the joy of his Lord, and shall inherit eternal life." Now, sign me up. I want that one, right?

Enter into the joy of his Lord, inherit eternal life. Those are things I am aspiring for in my life and my family and all those things. That's great.

So then what does it mean for me to be found faithful and just and a wise steward? I couldn't help but think about Frodo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings. Now, he is never referred to in the Lord of the Rings, at least to my knowledge, as a steward.

In fact, the stewards of Gondor are referred to often in Lord of the Rings, but I promised not to geek out, so we won't go down that road. But let's talk about Frodo for a second. Frodo is a steward of the Ring.

He doesn't claim ownership to the Ring, and yet he bears the burden of carrying it. It is entrusted to him by others. When we have the Council of Elrond, it is there that Frodo receives or I guess takes the burden upon him.

And then it's also there that we find out that if Frodo can't do it, nobody else can. My friends, I think there are stewardship parts in our own life where the Lord knows exactly who we are. And if we will lean into him, we can do things that nobody else can do.

And I love that about the idea of stewardship. Now, Frodo ultimately sacrifices his peace and his health and his life, right? As he goes, as he goes forward, he's sacrificing all of his time and talents and skills, everything he's got.

He is putting it all out on the line to ultimately take the Ring to its destruction. He takes that stewardship to a level that none other could have done. And I think for me, at least as I read 19, I think that's faithful and just and a wise steward.

In reference to this, there have been a lot of people that have criticized and said Frodo Baggins, he wasn't—he's not the hero. Sam's the hero. Frodo's not the hero.

Frodo fails at the end, right? And this is something that J.R.R. Tolkien wrote about and said outside of the Lord of the Rings.

He says this: "Frodo deserved all honor because he spent every..." I've got so much more to say. We could geek out on Lord of the Rings for hours and hours, but I won't. We will just keep that thought as short and simple as we can.

And remember that Frodo was a faithful, just, and wise steward all the way to the end. That's an example of how we can enter into the joy of my Lord and inherit eternal life. That's all for today, my friends.

Lift up your hearts and rejoice. Cleave unto the covenants you have made and together we will be savory salt. We'll see you next time.