Stripling Fathers

Every Latter-day Saint youth has heard the story of the two thousand stripling warriors. Speaking of those young men after a great military victory, the prophet Helaman, who was also their leader in battle, wrote:

Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives...

And now it came to pass that when [the Lamanites] had surrendered themselves up unto us, behold, I numbered those young men who had fought with me, fearing lest there were many of them slain. But behold, to my great joy, there had not one soul of them fallen to the earth; yea, and they had fought as with the strength of God; yea, never were men known to have fought with such miraculous strength; and with such mighty power did they fall upon the Lamanites, that they did frighten them; and for this cause did the Lamanites deliver themselves up as prisoners of war (Alma 56:47, 55-56).

Helaman explained that "they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them. And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it" (Alma 56:47-48). As these young warriors put their faith in their mothers' promise that God would deliver them, they were able to fight with "miraculous strength" and "as with the strength of God" so that not one soul of them was lost despite their own inexperience and overwhelming odds.

Without trying to steal any of the credit from the valiant mothers, which is often noticed and appropriately so, popular youth speaker John Bytheway has wondered aloud what the fathers of these young men were doing the whole time. The simple answer comes about twenty verses earlier in the same chapter:

And now it came to pass in the second month of this year, there was brought unto us many provisions from the fathers of those my two thousand sons (Alma 56:27).

The Lord has shared his plan for successful families in The Family: A Proclamation to the World. It reads in part:

By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners.

Fathers are given three roles in this paragraph: to preside, to provide, and to protect. Presiding in love and righteousness requires knowing the doctrines of the gospel, striving toward self-improvement first, gently and meekly leading in the home and then teaching children what they need to know and do. Whenever possible, fathers should also provide for their family's needs and maintain the home as a sanctuary that is safe from the physical and spiritual dangers of the world.

The fathers of the stripling warriors were valiant and brave men who led by example. They had been violent and savage before they were converted to the Lord, but when they were taught the gospel they committed with all of their heart, might, mind and strength. They left their homeland to seek religious freedom, ultimately settling as peaceful neighbors among a people who had previously been their most bitter enemies. They covenanted with the Lord that they would never again shed the blood of mankind and kept that promise even at the peril of their own lives.

When war broke out between their home country and their new country, they were loyal to the Lord. Though they could not fight themselves, they offered their faith and their two thousand sons in defense of their freedoms. While their sons were away, they continued to magnify their duty as fathers by sending 'many provisions'. From these verses we see that both the mothers and fathers of the stripling warriors were fulfilling their divinely appointed roles and contributing to the divine protection and ultimate success of their sons in battle.

As our kids leave the house each morning, and one day for good, they step onto a great battlefield. The perils are no less serious than those faced by the stripling warriors. The enemy of their souls will attempt to prey on their inexperience and use every strategy he knows to make them feel outnumbered, doubtful and discouraged. He will seek to wrap them in the chains of sin and drag them down to a miserable destruction.

Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, and to teach them to love and serve one another, observe the commandments of God, and be law-abiding citizens wherever they live.

As we fulfill the same divinely appointed roles that existed two thousand years ago, and that have been taught again in our time, we prepare our children to fight with the strength of God and to be preserved by his miraculous power. And what's more, we will teach them how to raise their own families in the joy and protection of the Lord.

Matters of Personal Preference

Much of what we do as followers of Christ is governed by his commandments. There were 613 commandments in the Law of Moses; and though that law has been fulfilled, the faithful remain busy loving their neighbors, dressing modestly, paying tithes, going to church, praying always and striving to do all the Lord has asked us to do for the happiness and salvation of his family and ours. None of us is perfect (Romans 3:23), but we usually try not to judge others when they sin (that's also a commandment) and hope for the same mercy when we fall short ourselves.

But what happens when the things we think others are doing wrong aren't addressed by a specific commandment? For example, what about those otherwise faithful saints who vote for the other political party? What about those who are vegetarian or stock up on guns or have too big of a house or shop at stores where we wouldn't be caught dead? Or those who have too many kids or too few kids or whose kids are too rowdy or too well behaved or too spoiled or too shy? Do we ever talk negatively about others or treat them differently because they have different preferences than we do?

That was the case in the ancient Roman empire when Paul sent his epistle around 55 A.D. Although Christ had fulfilled the law of Moses, some of the saints in the early church continued to follow its dietary restrictions and celebrate events like the Passover that were no longer necessary under the law of the gospel. Each school of thought in the matter, both those who ate meat and those who continued to refrain, saw itself as better or more faithful than those who thought differently.

Paul taught these saints, "Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him" (Romans 14:3). In other words, where personal preferences are concerned, be that how we teach our children or who we vote for president, we should be accepting of others and respect the free exercise of their right to choose differently than we do.

Paul continues and takes it a step farther: "Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way... But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, thou walkest not charitably if thou eatest. Therefore, destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died" (Romans 14:13, 15).

It was perfectly fine for Roman Christians to eat meat, but it was better for them to abstain from meat for a meal with someone who may have been offended than to risk driving that person away from the gospel altogether. Taking offense is a choice, but so are actions that we know may cause others to stumble or doubt. In such cases, "it is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak" (Romans 14:21).

In short, Paul admonished the saints to, "follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another" (Romans 14:19). This doesn't mean we have to go around walking on eggshells, and some of the things that may offend others may not be things we're willing or even able to change, but where personal preferences are concerned we should also be considerate of how our choices affect others.

What we do to others, we do to God (Matthew 25:40). If we will let love conquer pride and be seekers of peace and edification for all, the Lord has promised that whatever adversity we are facing will pass; contention will fade because of the love of God in our hearts; and the Lord who gave us the commandments will mercifully approve and accept us as his own (see Elder Uchtdorf, In Praise of Those Who Save, April 2016; and Romans 14:18).