3.109 Thou Shalt Teach Them

In Matthew 5, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth and the light of the world, reminding us that our lives are meant to preserve, illuminate, and point others to Him. This season on Savory Salt, we'll walk through the Old Testament, one verse and one thought each day. Perhaps these moments will add greater savor and brighter light to our lives as we seek to truly live as savory salt.

Hello, my friends. It's a new day with new opportunities. Choose ye this day whom you will serve.

Have you ever had a new job or perhaps been promoted to a new position at work without any training at all and everyone just kind of expects you to be able to accomplish the thing? If not, I want you to imagine that, and if you have, perhaps you're having a little bit of flashbacks. I know I've been in that type of situation before where you're basically thrown in and everyone says, 'All right, go and do the thing.' And you feel like you've had no training at all.

My friends, as we get to the tail end of our reading this week with Exodus chapters 14 through 18, there's a verse inside of 18 that I think encapsulates a little bit of some wise advice to Moses and some insights to helping us as well, especially when it comes to the growth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints around the globe. This concept of teaching and training is given as Moses is frustrated with the children of Israel. And we talked about a week or so ago about those children coming out and being generational slaves, right?

They had been slaves for 400 years. And so this mindset shift needs to occur with the people. And I think sometimes Moses gets highly frustrated with it.

I think the Lord gets frustrated with it sometimes in these scriptures. But then we get these little moments here that help us realize that both Moses and the Lord are trying to work with the people and help them out. Let's take a look at our verse for today and see if we can see that bit there.

Exodus 18, verse 20. This is Moses' father-in-law, Jethro, giving Moses some advice. By the way, this is the middle of a sentence.

So, as always, go and make sure you read the full sentence here, and in the other verse as well, 19. But verse 20 says this: "And thou shalt teach them ordinances and laws, and shalt show them the way wherein they must walk, and the work that they must do." My friends, I can remember times, especially on my mission, as I've talked about serving in Mongolia, where the church was very, very young. The people had, in many cases, no concept of what to do at church or how to serve or what it was even meaning to have a calling.

There were times where branch presidents messed up and times where Relief Society presidents and elders quorum presidents were doing things wrong. And this verse speaks not just to that moment, but to us as well. We need to be able to teach each other.

We got to teach each other in the ordinances and the laws. We've got to show each other how we do these things. What does it look like to walk like this and work like this?

Now, one of the cool resources that we have, if we will use it, and it's available to all of us as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is the "General Handbook." And this is a message for those, whether you're new to the church or you've been in the church your entire life. An opportunity for all of us to teach, to be taught, to show, and to be shown. Ultimately, to walk the way that our Savior Jesus Christ would walk if he were on the earth today.

Such a great opportunity for us to learn and grow. That's all for today, my friends. You and I have come here for such a time as this.

Step forward in faith and let's be savory salt. We will be here tomorrow and we hope