The king of Persia, Artaxerxes, sent Ezra the scribe to Jerusalem with a letter commissioning him to strengthen the judicial order in the western part of the kingdom. But Ezra also felt a responsibility to renew his people’s relationship with God. A letter from the king would help him temporally, but to accomplish his spiritual mission, he needed help from God:
For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments.
Ezra 7:10
Notice that Ezra had prepared to do three things: seek, do, and teach. In April 2010, the Young Men General President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, David L. Beck, described a new program for young men in the Church. Each activity that the young men were being asked to do would have three simple steps:
First you learn about a gospel principle or a priesthood duty. …
“The Magnificent Aaronic Priesthood,” April 2010 general conference
Next you make plans to act on what you have learned. …
Then you share what you learn and experience with others.
The verbs are different, but the pattern is the same. Seek, do, teach. Learn, act, share.
This pattern appears multiple times in the Book of Mormon. For example:
- Nephi searched the scriptures (1 Nephi 5:21), applied what he learned (1 Nephi 17:23-24, 50-51), and then taught his brothers (1 Nephi 19:23).
- Enos remembered the words his father had taught (Enos 1:3), prayed all day and into the night (Enos 1:4), and then preached and prophesied to his people (Enos 1:26).
- Alma urged his son Helaman to learn wisdom in his youth (Alma 37:35), to counsel with the Lord in all his doings (Alma 37:37), and to teach the people (Alma 37:33-34).
When the people in Jerusalem gathered to hear the law, Ezra and his associates were able to do more than simply read:
So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.
Nehemiah 8:8
Ezra had paid the price, through study and application, to be able to explain clearly to his people what the scriptures mean so that they could also profit from them (1 Nephi 19:23).
Today I will follow Ezra’s pattern of learning from the scriptures, acting on what I learn, and teaching others.
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