2.364 By Way of Exhortation unto You

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, can you hear it in my voice? I feel like Captain Jack Sparrow in the original Pirates of the Caribbean when he's sailing through the storm and they're like, Captain, what's got you in such a good mood?

And he's like, we're catching up. Right now, I feel like with my voice, I don't know if you can hear it, but I'm like, what's got you in such a good mood? And I'm like, I don't know.

I'm getting better. So I do apologize for the couple of days with the raspy voice, but such is the case when you do a podcast that runs on a daily basis. There's no breaks.

We are finishing up the tail end of Moroni chapters 9 and 10 as we wrap up this season and the year. For those of you that listen live, we're going to look at Moroni 10 today and tomorrow to finish up this season of Savory Salt and move into season 3. As we dive into our verse today, we're going to look at Moroni chapter 10, verse 2.

I know Moroni 10:3–5 is very, very common for missionaries and for missionary work, as that is the promise so to speak and the challenge of Moroni to read the Book of Mormon and to pray and ask God about its truthfulness. What I wanted to catch this time was something I caught several times but I wanted to spend some time in it on Savory Salt. Let's get to the verse and then we'll see the backside.

Verse 2 says, "And I seal up these records after I have spoken a few words by way of exhortation unto you." Now, exhortation is one of those words that's like, did people really use that a lot, right? Like, I don't walk around and I'm like, I exhort you, pay heed, right? And it's not one of those words that we use.

And so what I wanted to do, and yes, full disclosure here, right? Yes, I used AI to help me kind of better understand exhortation and exhort. And I wanted to share some of that with you because the things that it helps me understand, I always ask when I'm doing these ideas with the Book of Mormon to put it in context of the 1830s for me.

Because that's when Joseph Smith is choosing the words to put on the paper from these translations, right? And so I got to try and do the best I can to get in his mind when he's picking the word exhortation as this translation. What is he hoping to say to us?

And so here's a few things. By the way, as we get into that, by my count, I might be off, but you could do the count as well. In Moroni chapter 10, he starts off in verse 2 by saying, "Look, I'm first going to say some things by exhortation unto you." And then eight times the word exhort is used in this chapter.

So he definitely starts exhorting, right? And so what is he doing then when he says this word? Well, one of the things I loved in learning with my kind of conversation with AI here is it says, "Look, in the early 19th century, exhort meant to earnestly urge, counsel, and admonish, especially toward moral, religious, or virtuous action." I loved that.

This is Moroni saying, "Hey, I want you to lean into these virtuous actions of praying to Heavenly Father, remembering his hand in the lives of the ancestors that you read about here." I love that. And then it says inside of the 1830s Webster's Dictionary, "to incite by words, to urge strongly, to animate and encourage." But then it got into a section here and it gave an example and I'll just I won't go too much further into this because I think you're getting what Moroni is really trying to do here, right? It's stronger than just I hope, you know, he's like, "I hope you like the book." No, it's it's like way more than this.

This is what it says about moral and religious interpretation, which is what most often it would have been used in. So this would be the Second Great Awakening in the United States, right? This would be a time of pastors that are preaching.

In the 1830s exhortation was deeply associated with preaching but not the main sermon itself. A sermon explained doctrine. An exhortation pressed the will to respond to the doctrine.

I love that. The sermon preaches, it explains what the doctrine is, but an exhortation says, "Go and test it." And then it said, "Think of it like this." "You already know what is right, so act on it." And that's the message I think Moroni wants to give all of us as we read the Book of Mormon. You already know what is right, so go and act.

My friends, pray if you have not asked recently to have a testimony of the Book of Mormon replanted in your heart, do so. If you haven't taken time to remember the blessings of the Lord in your life and in the life of your ancestors, do so. These are the things that Moroni is telling us: "Hey, this is my exhortation." You're already feeling it's right.

So now go act on it. I love that. That's all for today, my friends.

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