Duty of teachers: Share light and truth
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During "An Evening with President Boyd K. Packer," Church Educational System employees, volunteers, spouses and guests heard counsel from the recently set-apart president of the Quorum of the Twelve on Friday evening, Feb. 29.
President Packer delivered his address to those gathered in the Salt Lake Tabernacle and to many others in meetinghouses via satellite broadcast throughout the world. He was accompanied by Elder Russell M. Nelson and Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve.
President Packer told listeners, "In the Church, when you count up (and you can count it many ways) those who have the title 'teacher' in their calling or in their ordination or their setting apart, the number is, as a matter of fact, just under 4 million, when you think of the home teachers, the teachers in the auxiliaries and the priesthood. Then, if you add the parents, it would go far over 4 million."
All those teachers, he instructed, are "to bring up (their) children in light and truth" (Doctrine and Covenants 93:40).
He then referred to the words Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:1-5, and called Paul's prophecy "a description or an announcement that describes where we are now. I have changed a few words in it:
"'This know also, that in the last days perilous times (have) come.
"'For men (are) lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
"'Without natural affection. (That is a very powerful one as we describe where we are now.) Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
"'Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God."'
President Packer continued, "Then strangely enough, it says, '(They have) a form of godliness, but (deny) the power thereof; from such turn away."'
He said, "I have many times held on to that promise in the Book of Mormon that all 'men' — and that would include women, also — 'are instructed sufficiently that they know good from evil"' (2 Nephi 2:5).
Knowing that, he said, helps when working with a person near self destruction and giving up.
He recalled a time when he was a seminary teacher attending a meeting of seminary and institute instructors at Ricks College where Elder Anton R. Ivins, the senior President of the Seventy, was in attendance. President Packer thought of a boy he taught whose biggest contribution to the class "is the day he's absent."
He described the boy to President Ivins, asking how far he had to go with that boy.
"He thought for a while, and then said, 'What if it's your boy?"' President Packer recalled, learning a lesson from the remark.
President Packer told the CES congregation that the Church is precise, and it is gentle.
He continued, "It is a very comfortable Church to live in and the mantle of the priesthood fits very comfortably on those of us who hold the priesthood."
He said he and his Brethren are ordinary men who "have the monumental, monstrous responsibility of guiding the Church in this day and age."
Referring back to the perils Paul listed, he recalled once wondering, "Well, what can we do? All of that is with us now in greater and more sophisticated patterns."
Then, he said, he read the rest of the chapter including the words, "And that from a little child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:15-16).
President Packer said, "So after laying out to Timothy all the great challenges, Paul taught him to just go read the scriptures, to teach the scriptures. In the scriptures you have the doctrines that bring you to a testimony of Christ."
Speaking more about teaching, President Packer told of an experience he had with Elder Harold B. Lee, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve. A young soldier about to ship out to Vietnam asked Elder Lee to give him a blessing following a meeting for servicemen in Chicago. To President Packer's surprise, Elder Lee told the soldier to go home and have his father give him the blessing. The soldier said his father wasn't active and wouldn't know how, so Elder Lee gave him some instructions to pass along to his father.
A year later, the soldier crossed paths with President Packer and told him, "Do you know what happened? My father gave me the blessing. It was a marvelous thing and a strength and a protection."
President Packer noted the Savior was the ideal teacher and taught in simple and elementary ways, a model for teachers in the Church today.
Specifically to those in attendance, he said, "We count on the seminaries and the institutes and the Church schools, and you are the teachers. I cannot explain to you, except by your understanding what I am feeling, how important you are and how determined we are to use you and call upon you."
He told them, "You are the troops that we call out now against the challenges that are before us."
Elder W. Rolfe Kerr, emeritus General Authority and Commissioner of the Church Educational System, also spoke briefly, advising teachers to not be content going only after the low-hanging fruit — the students easy to reach and easy to teach.
He asked them to, without neglecting the good students, reach up and reach out for the fruit higher in the trees — students who may seem unreachable. "Reaching and teaching the fruit hiding in the treetops is one of the most sacred responsibilities we have," he said.
E-mail to: ghill@desnews.com
