The Preparatory Priesthood

A few months ago, I realized that there are six sessions of General Conference and six months between Conferences. I figured that if I blogged about all of the talks from a given General Conference session in its associated month, I could easily complete the project of blogging about each talk of a General Conference before the next one began.

I am currently ahead of schedule. In fact, I am so far ahead of schedule that I could finish blogging about next month's General Conference talks before next month starts. And that's what I plan to attempt to do.

To that end, tonight's blog post will be about Bishop Gerald Causse's talk, Prepare the Way, which focussed on the Aaronic Priesthood. He said that the role of the Aaronic Priesthood is to "prepare the way," and it accomplishes this in two ways.

First, holders of the Aaronic Priesthood prepare the way for the holders of the Melchizedek Priesthood to do their jobs. For example, Aaronic Priesthood holders baptise people and Melchizedek Priesthood holders confirm them. John the Baptist notably used his Aaronic Priesthood authority to baptise Jesus Christ and prepare the way for Him.

Second, the Aaronic Priesthood prepares its holders to receive and use the Melchizedek Priesthood. The service the holders of the Aaronic Priesthood do helps them develop a habit of doing service for the Lord and His children. It also helps them feel and follow the Spirit and purify their hearts. These traits enable young men to become effective Aaronic (and eventually Melchizedek) Priesthood holders.

Whether they're preparing for their own future service or preparing the way for the service of others, holders of the Aaronic Priesthood are frequently in a state of preparation, so holders of the Melchizedek Priesthood have a responsibility to help the holders of the Aaronic Priesthood prepare well. The Aaronic Priesthood holders of today are the Melchizedek Priesthood holders of tomorrow and are the future leaders of this church. So it is important for any of us who have any influence over these Young Men to help them prepare to serve.