Scouting Values In the Scriptures – Stripling Warriors

This is the 3rd installment of the “Scouting Values in Scriptures” weekly series. We began with the Book of Mormon and will continue with other scriptures of the Standard Works.

The Book of Mormon is full of people living the standards of the Scout Law. The people in the Book of Mormon weren’t Scouts. But they were building the same things Scouting builds. The same values. Scouting didn’t invent these values. They’re eternal. But they build the same character. The same kind of discipleship.

A Scout Is Obedient: The 2,000 Stripling Warriors

Of all the Book of Mormon stories that resonate with Scouting, none hits closer to home than Helaman’s army.

2,000 young men – teenagers, most of them, with no military experience – volunteer to defend their people when their parents can’t. They are described as “exceedingly valiant for courage, and also for strength and activity.” (Alma 53:20) But Mormon is careful to tell us that their bravery was not what made them extraordinary. 

What made them extraordinary was this: “They did obey and observe to perform every word of command with exactness.” (Alma 57:21)

With exactness. Every word. Every time.

They were not obedient because they were forced to be. They were obedient because they had been taught by their mothers – through the consistent and faithful instruction of women who believed God’s promises – that obedience was the condition of God’s protection.

“We do not doubt our mothers knew it.” (Alma 56:48)

Obedience in Scouting isn’t compliance. It’s trust in the authority of people who love you and want you to reach your full potential. The Stripling Warriors obeyed Helaman the same way they obeyed their mothers, because they had learned that faithful obedience to someone who cares about you is not weakness. It’s the condition of receiving help that could never come any other way.

It’s the same as our covenant relationship with our Heavenly Father and Savior. Faithful obedience brings blessings. If we happen to falter, we have the gift of the Atonement – given by one who loves each and every one of you…even Jesus Christ.

Not one of the Stripling Warriors died in battle. 2,000 obedient young men – every one of them wounded, none of them killed.

Join us here next week for the next installment of “Scouting Values in the Scriptures”