Circumstances did not allow for posting these lessons the weeks they were completed. However, it is my hope that you will still be able to take something from them.
This week’s Relief Society and Elder’s Quorum lesson from the Spencer W. Kimball manual focuses on the scriptures. This entire lesson was wonderful; when I read it in December, it strengthened my resolve to study and ponder the scriptures, and put me on the road to a more in-depth study program, despite the tugging of small children on my skirts.
In the beginning, President Kimball refers to a talk he heard by Susa Young Gates when he was but 14. The question was asked, who had read the Bible? Young Spencer could not raise his hand, because he had not done so. Immediately following the talk – which he heard little of, since he spent much of it berating himself – he went home and took up his Bible. Within a year, he was finished. Indeed, according to Elder Richard G. Scott, he had read the Book of Mormon more than 76 times by the end of his life. What a remarkable turnabout!
President Kimball notes the blessings we have in our lives that we take for granted. We are so fortunate – now even more than when he spoke – to have technology provide so many opportunities for us. Two hundred years ago, no one could read the Book of Mormon. Now, according to the statistics from the October 2006 General Conference, it is available in almost every language! Similarly, five hundred years ago, no one could read the Bible. Only with the invention of the printing press were people able to take this sacred book into their homes and study it.
Today, we not only have access to these and other sacred scriptures in print, we also are blessed by a growing technology that helps us further our understanding. We can download the scriptures or listen to them on CD, cassette, video, or DVD. We can listen to Conference talks on satellite, video tape, CD, or online. We can listen to or attend other inspired talks by the leaders of our church. We can read these things in the church magazines.
We also have “the education and the ability to use (the scriptures we have), if we will,” according to President Kimball. Literacy levels are high (although you can still listen to scriptures if you are unable to read them). But we must make the choice to study and to ponder.
My favorite quote is the last one in the first section. President Kimball worries that we have too light a grasp on the scriptures. We have memorized key phrases here and there, and think that makes us wiser than we are. Like a cursory knowledge of brain surgery, this can be dangerous. We should not read the scriptures once and think we are done. We should read them over and over – and over again – until they are engrained in our minds and in our hearts. We should study them until they are an indelible part of our lives. If President Kimball continued to study in his old age, how much more do those of us far younger need to study and ponder?
He closes with a wonderful admonition that I would like to share with you: “I am convinced that each of us, at some time in our lives, must discover the scriptures for ourselves – and not just discover them once, but rediscover them again and again.” What a beautiful – and truthful – message that we ought to apply to our hearts.
And so I encourage you, do not take the scriptures for granted. Remember their great and glorious value. Think of the stories we read of those who do not have the scriptures and thus lose the gospel light. Thank God every day for the scriptures you are so blessed to possess. Don’t just thank Him with words; seek to show your gratitude by making use of these divine works.
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