2.184 Traditions of Their Fathers

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.

It's great to have you with me. Today, let's be anxiously engaged in a good cause and bring to pass much righteousness. Today, tradition.

Let's talk about traditions. In fact, today and tomorrow are going to be kind of a part one, part two combo. One's going to be from Doctrine and Covenants, one's going to be from the Book of Alma.

Let's put the two of them together and kind of continue a thought both days. We are reading this week Doctrine and Covenants sections 71 through 75, as well as Alma chapters 20 through 24. Doctrine and Covenants section 74 is interesting.

We get some clarity here on a principle that has been around for centuries, that principle being infant baptism. And we find out in 74 that the Lord sees children as holy and that they are sanctified through the Atonement of Christ. That is the end of that there.

But we see inside of 74 an interesting verse I wanted to dive into. And again, this is kind of a part one thought, so we kind of completely finish that thought tomorrow. But it's in Doctrine and Covenants section 74, verse 4, that I wanted to spend some time.

It says, "And it came to pass that the children, being brought up in subjection to the law of Moses, gave heed to the traditions of their fathers and believed not the gospel of Christ." Judgment Day. Now, we get an idea inside of there that the traditions of their fathers kept them from believing in Jesus Christ. Tradition is an interesting one, because I love family traditions.

And then there are also times where you kind of pause and go, "Is that a tradition? Do we do that?" And that's societally, that's culturally. There are different parts of the world.

You guys know I'm a fan of world travel. I love going to see other parts of the world, other cultures, and other traditions. And so it was inside of this study that I'll give kind of the first part of this thought about traditions: they are powerful.

They can be generational, right? They can go for hundreds of years and provide a very, very deep belief system inside of there. But in 2000, we have a talk from Elder Hallstrom called "Cultivate Righteous Traditions." I put the link in for you in this.

And he offers a few thoughts about this. He says, "The power of tradition, however, poses a significant danger. It can cause us to forget our heavenly heritage.

To achieve eternal goals, we must reconcile our earthly culture with the doctrine of the everlasting gospel. This process involves embracing all that is spiritually elevating in our family and societal traditions and discarding that which is a barrier to our eternal view and achievement." And then a little further on, he says, "Unwanted traditions are those which lead us away from performing holy ordinances and keeping sacred covenants. Our guide should be the doctrine taught by the scriptures and the prophets.

Traditions which devalue marriage and family, abase women or do not recognize the majesty of their God-given roles, honor temporal success more than spiritual, or teach that reliance upon God is a weakness of character, all lead us away from eternal truths." I'm going to finish with this thought. He says, "Of all the traditions we should cultivate within ourselves and our families, a tradition of righteousness should be preeminent." My friends, our traditions are amazing in our different cultures and societies and where we live. What we should make sure we take into account is that our traditions feed into our spiritual growth and belief in Jesus Christ.

I have seen cultural traditions hundreds and thousands of years old as I've traveled to different parts of the world. Some of those absolutely feed into a testimony of a loving Heavenly Father and feed into an encouragement of following Jesus Christ. And others would teach the opposite: that there is no such and that there should not be any following of such.

My friends, I hope we take into account as we create traditions in our own families, that we do so with a lens of understanding how powerful those traditions will be as we bring them into our families and consider the possibility of those becoming generational. We're going to take a look at the Alma side tomorrow and see what else we have to look at inside of the power of tradition in our lives. That's all for today, my friends.

Lift up your hearts and rejoice. Cleave to the covenants you have made, and together we will be savory salt. For more information, visit us at www.fema.org.