When I say “study,” I mean something more than reading. It is a good thing sometimes to read a book of scripture within a set period of time to get an overall sense of its message, but for conversion, you should care more about the amount of time you spend in the scriptures than about the amount you read in that time. I see you sometimes reading a few verses, stopping to ponder them, carefully reading the verses again, and as you think about what they mean, praying for understanding, asking questions in your mind, waiting for spiritual impressions, and writing down the impressions and insights that come so you can remember and learn more. Studying in this way, you may not read a lot of chapters or verses in a half hour, but you will be giving place in your heart for the word of God, and He will be speaking to you. Remember Alma’s description of what it feels like: “It beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me.” You will know that the gospel is being written in your heart, that your conversion is happening, as the word of the Lord from His prophets, past and present, feels more and more delicious to your soul.
Thursday, October 27, 2022
Saturday, April 17, 2021
Whenever possible I would rather have the reader focus directly on Book of Mormon language than on someone else's language about it
Whenever possible I have let the scriptures speak for themselves without commentary from me. Occasionally those passages are quite lengthy...Whenever possible I would rather have the reader focus directly on Book of Mormon language than on someone else's language about it.
Jeffrey R. Holland, Christ and the New Covenant, Preface
Wednesday, October 14, 2020
Intensity and Consistency Is Required
Over the years many of my students and others have come to my office inquiring as to how they might become better students of the scriptures. I have also frequently been asked how men like my father, Elder Bruce R. McConkie, and my grandfather President Joseph Fielding Smith, both of whom had the reputation of being gospel scholars, studied the scriptures. Implicit in such questions is the idea that there is some methodology or secret known to but a few, and that secret gives those who know it a marked advantage in scriptural understanding. Indeed, I will reveal the great and grand secret. It is that there is no secret.
As to my father and my grandfather, their method consisted in not having a method. Methods are not the answer! Effective scriptural study has nothing to do with the marking system you use. It has nothing to do with the choice of a blue marking pencil over a red one. It has nothing to do with whether you study a particular subject chronologically or topically. It has nothing to do with your using a quad instead of a triple combination. It has nothing to do with the size of the type unless you are getting older.
It has everything to do with the intensity and consistency with which you study. There are no shortcuts; there are no secrets.
Saturday, November 9, 2019
Preach Them Over and Over Again
The first principles of the gospel are faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. His brother Hyrum taught: “Preach them over [and over] again: you will find that day after day new ideas and additional light concerning them will be revealed to you. You can enlarge upon them … to comprehend them clearly. You will then be able to make them more plainly understood by those [you] teach.”