“Restoring their judges and all as at first.” (William W. Phelps, “The Spirit Of God”). One of the great blessings of the Restoration of the Priesthood is that we now have access to Bishops, or Common Judges in Israel. The less and less that our modern world resembles the world inhabited by the prophets from whose words our scriptures derived, the more that we need a Judge to help us navigate the complexities of applying the laws of God to our own challenges and trials. It ought to be comforting that when we are struggling to judge for ourselves what is right and what is wrong, when the mists of darkness make all of the clear distinctions blurry, when we try our best to root out all of the worldly distractions but new ones keep popping up like choking weeds, we can still turn to God’s servants who can help us chart the best course. But as invaluable as the judges whom God has called and qualified and placed in our lives are, the restoration also brought forth the ordinances of baptism and the laying on of hands to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost as a constant companion. As we seek to live worthy of the Spirit, He will help us to be judges for ourselves. Whenever life throws us something that not only have we never seen before but it seems like no one else has seen before either, we have the opportunity to pause and listen for that still small voice that can guide us in the way that we should go.
