Nephi subdues his brothers in the Book of Mormon.

When I was in drama classes, everyone tried out for the starring roles. No one wanted to have a small walk on role with no lines to say. However, every writer knows that every character in a story is absolutely important to the story. Writers never put anyone into a story who doesn’t have an important job to do. Leave out the smallest character and the entire book can fall apart. The same is true for the scriptures.

The same is true for real life.

Let’s look at one Book of Mormon person who had a small part to play in the stories told and see if we can learn some things that will apply to our own lives, especially if we’re the quiet type and not the flashy hero type.

The Book of Mormon begins with a teenager named Nephi. Nephi is pretty much your typical hero type of teenager. He’s probably about fourteen when the Book of Mormon story starts and he was the first author. He didn’t write about his life until he was much older, but it’s mostly from his point of view. He was tall for his age, a good hunter, athletic, strong, self-confident…you know the type, right?

Nephi was the youngest of four brothers. His two oldest brothers were brats. They had a bad habit of beating up Nephi and his next oldest brother Sam. Later, as adults, they’d even try to kill them. But Nephi, sometimes with the help of angels, always wins out over them.

But Nephi isn’t the star of this article. In this article we’re dealing with Sam, who is mentioned only a few times in the entire story of Nephi’s life. What do we know about him? He was a middle child—the third of the boys. There were some sisters too, but we think they were already married and living elsewhere by the time the story begins. Like Nephi, he was righteous, which means he tried to do what God wanted him to do. He obeyed his parents, was nice to his younger brother…that’s pretty much all we have in the way of facts. But if we read between the lines, we might see that Sam is a quiet hero.

Here’s some background information on the story, in case you haven’t read it. The father of these boys was Lehi and he was pretty rich. The kids had good lives because of that. But then Lehi got called to be a prophet and after that, things got pretty complicated. People got mad at Lehi for telling them to repent and they wanted to kill him. This was in Jerusalem just before it fell. You can read about the fall of Jerusalem in the Bible.

Once things got too dangerous, God told Lehi to take his family and only the things they really needed and get out of Jerusalem forever. They weren’t even suppose to take their gold and silver or any fun possessions. Laman and Lemuel, the two bad brothers, were pretty mad at leaving their comfortable life and heading off on a permanent camping trip. Wealthy to homeless—on purpose. Nope, not their style.

Nephi and Sam, though, trusted their dad when he said this was what God wanted, and they went without complaint. That’s the first sign of a hero—doing the hard stuff without whining, and in the scriptures (and in modern life), a sign of a hero is doing what God wants you to do without whining. So far, Sam qualifies.

After they’d been traveling for a while, God told Lehi to send the boys back to Jerusalem alone. In those days only a few people had copies of the parts of the Bible that had been written so far. Lehi didn’t have one, but his wicked relative Laban did.  The boys were to convince Laban to give them his copy, which also included their family history.

How did each boy react to being sent on this long trip for a book?

Laman and Lemuel whined. It was too far, too hard, too scary. (Laban was really wicked.) No heroes here.

Nephi gave a rousing speech to his father, in which he said he’d go because he knew God would never give them a commandment unless He prepared a way for them to keep it. It’s a great, hero-worthy speech and there have been songs written about it.

Sam…just went. That’s all. He didn’t whine and he didn’t give a speech. He just packed his bags and headed off. Okay, that doesn’t sound too exciting and no one has ever written a song about Sam doing that. But here’s what I think—and this is my own interpretation of it. I think Sam was a teenager who was used to doing the right thing all the time, or at least most of the time. I think he’d worked hard to become obedient and now he didn’t need to think about it or give speeches about it. He was a little older than Nephi so he’d had more practice doing hard things quietly, whereas Nephi, being younger, was still pretty excited to realize he liked obeying God and his parents. Nephi was learning the kind of person he was and so he needed to talk about it. Sam already knew. He didn’t need to announce it to anyone. That’s the first thing that tells me Sam is a quiet hero.

As you can imagine, this trip doesn’t go too well. The brothers politely ask Laban for the records and he threatens to kill them. They even offer to buy them—all that gold and silver they abandoned is still hanging around. Laban takes the money and tries to have them killed without giving them the records. The two older brothers get mad and decide to take it out on Nephi and Sam, seeing as how they were younger and obedient. The beating gets so bad an angel has to show up to rescue them. The angel tells the older brothers to behave and warns them that someday, Nephi is going to be the head of the family, lead the church and rule over them.

Hey, wait a minute! Laman and Lemuel don’t like that one bit. In those days, the oldest son always became the leader when the father died. There is no way they want their baby brother taking over what they thought should be Laman’s job. (Can you imagine the church being led by Laman?)

I’m sure you can understand why God was going to skip over Laman and Lemuel. But he also skipped right over Sam, who was every bit as righteous as Nephi. Why did He do that? We don’t know and chances are, Sam didn’t know either. It would have been pretty understandable if he’d gotten as upset as his older brothers. In fact, he had more right to get upset, since he was worthy of the job. But you know what? He didn’t. Nephi wrote about the reactions Laman and Lemuel had to this, but he doesn’t say one word about Sam’s reaction, which means it was so quiet Nephi didn’t give it much thought. Later, when Nephi is the leader, he has to take his followers to live somewhere else because Laman and Lemuel want to kill him. Sam goes with Nephi.

Throughout the rest of the story, the few times Sam is mentioned he is always following the leader, either his father or Nephi. We don’t know if he went home and prayed to know why he wasn’t chosen. All we know is that however he might have felt inside at first—and it would be natural to be a little sad over it—he didn’t use it as an excuse to rebel. He just went about his life doing the right thing, just as he always had.

Sam was a quiet hero. Maybe you are too. Maybe no one will write books or songs about your life, but that doesn’t mean you don’t matter. Sam is in the story for a reason. God wanted him there to remind us that you don’t have to be the leader or the star to make a difference in the world. Nephi depended on Sam’s loving loyalty during the hard years ahead. God depended on it, too.

And God is depending on you too. Quiet heroes are as important as the stars of the show.

Read about Sam and his family in the Book of Mormon.

The story of Sam, to be read between the lines.

He told of a boy named Ling who, along with the other children in the kingdom, was invited to hear the emperer speak. In this meeting the emperer said  he was getting old and wanted to choose a new emperer. To help him choose, he was going to give each child a seed. They were to take their seeds home, care for them, and then, in one year, return to show what they’d grown.

Ling was really excited by this project. He carefully planted his seed and worked hard to take care of it in its little pot. After about three weeks all the other children were starting to talk about the great plants growing in their pots, but Ling’s pot was growing nothing at all. He was worried, but he kept taking care of the plant the best he could. All year he listened to the other children talking about their tall plants and even trees, but his pot stayed empty.

When the year ended, Ling was embarrassed and didn’t want to show his empty flower pot to the emperer. His mother told him he needed to go and to be honest. She advised him to tell the truth–that he worked hard to care for his plant but that nothing had grown. Ling knew his mother was right. He needed to tell the truth–to have integrity. He nervously took his flowerpot to the meeting. Everyone was instructed to place his or her flowerpot in one area. All around the room were beautiful flowers, plants, and trees. Ling placed his empty pot on the floor in the back of the room, hoping no one would notice it. He stood beside it, waiting.

Soon the emperer showed up. The emperer walked around, looking at all the plants, flowers, and trees. Then he saw Ling and his empty pot. He asked the guards to bring Ling and his flowerpot to the front of the room. Frightened, Ling approached the emperer. To his great surprise, the emperer proclaimed him the new emperer.

The room fell silent as everyone tried to figure out why the only child who hadn’t managed to grow something was going to be the emperer. The emperer explained that the seeds each child had been given had been boiled. It would be impossible for them to grow. He had known most children would, when they saw their seed wasn’t growing, would replace it with a good seed and then lie about it. When he saw Ling’s empty pot, he knew he had found a boy with integrity–someone who would follow the rules and tell the truth. That was the sort of person he wanted to run his country and that was why only Ling qualified to become the new emperer.

Ling had integrity. Even though he thought it would cost him the chance to become the emperer, even though he was embarrassed, he refused to cheat at the contest and when the time came to be judged, he told the truth. He was willing to pay for his integrity with the cost of a kingdom. What are you willing to pay for your own integrity?

Some time ago I was putting my groceries into the trunk of my car after shopping. I had only a few things and had kept them in the child seat, but as I unloaded the groceries, I saw a small item, worth about 87 cents, in the main basket. I checked my receipt and saw that I hadn’t paid for it, so I quickly returned to the store and went to the customer service desk to pay for it. The cashier commented on my honesty in returning to pay for something so inexpensive. However, I felt my integrity was worth more than 87 cents. Had I simply left without paying, the store might not have lost much, but I would have lost a lot. I’d have lost God’s respect and I’d have lost respect for myself.

My integrity was worth a lot more than 87 cents and I wasn’t willing to sell it for so little. How much is your integrity worth?

That last choice might seem like the last thing you’d ever want to do, but that’s exactly what Jonathon did in the Old Testament. The story of David and Jonathon is one of the greatest friendship stories in the Bible. Both of them were teens who made a difference.

In the last post we learned that David, a shepherd, was the only person brave enough to battle the giant Philistine Goliath. He did this with nothing but a slingshot and a lot of faith. The Philistines were so shocked and scared to realize a teenager could kill their hero that they ran away. Saul, the king, had promised that anyone who had the courage to fight Goliath would be given great riches. He would even get to marry the king’s daughter.

David became an instant hero to the people of Israel. Everyone told and retold the tale of the teenaged giant killer. Saul took David to live in his home. He and Saul’s son Jonathon became best friends. The Bible tells us “that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.” Do you have a friend like that? What would you be willing to sacrifice for that friend?

At first, everything was wonderful. Jonathon gave David his robe and armor and sword. Saul was thrilled to have this new hero in his home and put David—still only a teenager—in charge of the entire army. Everyone loved David…and that was part of the problem. When Saul came out among the people, the women would gather to play music and sing, as usual, but now they were singing that Saul had killed thousands, but David had killed ten thousands. Saul was furious. He figured the only thing left at this point was for David to take his kingdom away.

Well, God had decided David was going to be next in line for the throne, but Saul didn’t know that. He was just jealous that people loved David more than they loved him, and that they thought David was greater. He decided to kill David, but twice, David managed to avoid him.

Saul was starting to get scared. In the past, Saul had had God’s support, but his wicked choices had caused God to favor someone else now. Saul could see God was on David’s side of things. And to make things worse, David always behaved with wisdom, which also frightened Saul. So he came up with a new plan. He didn’t dare kill David himself if God was on David’s side. But there were all those Philistines, the enemy of God’s people. If David went to war against them, one of them was sure to kill David.

Saul went to David and offered to let him marry his oldest daughter, Merab. That had been part of the promise for killing Goliath, after all. But in exchange, he wanted David to promise to only fight for God’s army and to only be valiant for the king. David modestly asked who he was that he should be the king’s son-in-law? Saul, though, wasn’t a very nice person these days, so after getting the promise, he gave his daughter to another man.

However, it happened that her younger sister, Michal, was head over heels in love with David. Saul decided to make good use of that, so he told David he could marry Michal if he killed one hundred Philistines. He was pretty sure David’s luck couldn’t hold out that long and he wouldn’t have to follow through. However, David had God on his side and God had a plan for David’s descendents, which meant David had to stay alive to get married. David also liked the idea of being the king’s son-in-law, so he agreed. He killed the Philistines and brought back proof. The king had no choice this time but to let David marry his daughter, and Michal got her dream husband. If this were a fairy tale, everyone would live happily ever after, but since it’s a true story, there were more problems to come.

Now we get back to the friendship between David and Jonathon. Now that David was married to Jonathon’s sister, they were not just best friends, but family.

Saul was family too, but he wasn’t all that happy about it. He still wanted David dead, but clearly the Philistines weren’t going to be able to do it for him. He gathered up his servants and his son Jonathon and ordered them to kill David for him. Well, that wasn’t a very bright idea, because, you remember, Jonathon was best friends with David and loved him. There was no way he was going to kill his best friend.

Instead, he warned David to go and hide. Then he went to his father and stayed with him during the hunt. He went to work trying to talk the king out of killing David. He reminded his father that since David had only done good to the king, it would be a terrible sin for Saul to kill David. You couldn’t kill someone for no reason, especially not someone who had God on his side.

Saul agreed and David was able to return home, but the trials weren’t over yet. Saul again tried to kill David and was saved by his wife, Michal. Saul retaliated by forcing her to divorce David and marry another man. Then Jonathon again defied his father and helped David escape by lying to his father about where David was. This time, David was unable to return. He left the city, forced to live among the Philistines. He had lost his wife and his best friend and his family, because he had been forced to send them away for their own safety.

Even though they were separated, David and Jonathon’s friendship has lived on through history to serve as an example to us of the value of good friendships. Friends can support and comfort each other in the hardest times and help each other to live God’s commandments, even when it is terribly hard.

When they parted, Jonathon’s last words were a promise to David: “Go in peace, forasmuch as we have sworn both of us in the name of the Lord, saying, The Lord be between me and thee, and between my seed and thy seed for ever.” They vowed to be best friends…forever.

David killed Goliath armed only with a slingshot and faith.

Next in our series of articles on teens who changed the world, we’re talking about David and Goliath. Saul was the king of God’s people and he had a huge problem—literally. His giant problem was a huge Philistine named Goliath. Everyone was terrified of him. Goliath, according to the Bible, was six cubits and a span, which equals about 9 feet nine inches. That is one scary opponent! In those days, there was a race of people called Anakims who were very tall. Most of them got destroyed when Joshua and his people conquered Cannan, but there were still some left in Goliath’s town and Saul was the unlucky king who had those Philistines mad at him.

One way battles were fought in those days was for each army to choose a champion. The champions would fight each other, one-on-one, to decide which side won the battle. Of course, the Philistines chose Goliath, and no one in Saul’s army wanted to go up against him.

While this big brave army was busy being scared and trying to get out of defending the Lord’s army, a teenager named David showed up to bring lunch to his brothers. He was the king’s armor bearer, but he was allowed to go home sometimes, something the soldiers couldn’t do. When he arrived, he found the army all in an uproar over having to fight Goliath. Goliath had been taunting them for forty days, daring them to choose a champion, promising his people would be their servants if they won (but of course, he was sure they wouldn’t win.) Most likely, seeing how long it was taking the army to find someone willing to take on Goliath just built his confidence even more. Goliath was an arrogant giant and getting more so.

Saul was getting a little desperate. He promised that whoever went up against Goliath would be given great riches, could marry his daughter, and even cause his family to be free in Israel. Even with all those promises, no one was interested.

David was talking to his brothers when Goliath showed up and issued his challenge one more time. Now David got mad. He asked just who Goliath thought he was, trying to take on God’s army.

David’s older brother got mad at David, suggesting his younger brother ought to go back home and tend his sheep instead of running around wanting to watch the armies. But David had bigger plans than just watching the army. If no one else would fight Goliath, he, a teenager and a shepherd, would just have to do it himself.

Of course, David’s brother was pretty upset by that, reminding David he was just a kid and Goliath was an experienced solder. But David argued that he had at least a little experience. Once, while taking care of his sheep, a lion and a bear came and nabbed a sheep. David rescued the lamb and when the lion and bear attacked, he killed them. David announced he would do to the Philistine exactly what he’d done to the lion and bear, because Goliath was defying God’s army (and therefore God.) He said God would protect him now in the same way God had protected David against the bear and lion.

Saul told David to go ahead and give it a try. What choice did he have, really? No one else was willing to do it. The king gave David his own armor to use and also provided him with a brass helmet and a coat of mail. But David protested he’d never used those things before. He preferred weapons he had experience with, so  he took off the armor and put down the sword. Instead, he found five smooth stones and put them in his bag. He picked up his sling and was ready to go. As a shepherd, he understood slings, which shepherds used to keep animals away from the sheep. Still, to most people, it seemed like a crazy idea to go after a giant soldier with a shepherd’s sling and a few rocks.

When Goliath saw a young boy had been sent to fight him, he laughed. He started making fun of David and even David’s God. David didn’t let the mocking get to him. He knew who he was. He trusted his skills and he trusted God. He responded:

“45 Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.

46 This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.

47 And all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hands (1 Samuel 17).

David wasn’t afraid because he knew God was on his side and Goliath, who had defied God, could not call on God for help. So David confidently approached Goliath and killed him with the very first stone, which frightened the Philistines so badly they ran away.

What made David so brave? He was confident because he had prepared for this moment—even though he hadn’t known it was coming—by learning to use his slingshot well. He had also prepared by developing a powerful faith in God. He had taken the time to learn for sure that he was a member of God’s church and to develop his testimony to the point that he had no doubt he would be helped and protected. Finally, he didn’t go into battle for his own glory and honor. He was defending God against the mocking of someone who hated God’s people.

Both his temporal and his spiritual preparation came together to help David change the world when he was only a teenager. This moment would make him famous, but he was going to learn that being famous wasn’t everything he might have thought it would be. The next post will talk about one of the greatest friendship stories in the history of the world—and more danger for David.