Always Remember Him

One of the sacrament covenants we make every Sunday is to Always Remember the Savior.

Elder Bednar said "I do not know of a better way to always remember him than to daily study the scriptures."

How do we study?

I have fallen in love with studying my scriptures alongside the LDS Old Testament Student Manual. I think studying scriptures ALONGSIDE something else can be extremely helpful in us getting more out of our study than just reading through them by ourselves. For example if you are studying Hebrew or Greek alongside studying the Old or New Testament you could gain many and more insights than if you are reading it alone by itself.

Take this quote by Sidney B. Sperry into account.

“Rudyard Kipling was certainly right when he said: ‘Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.’

“As Latter-day Saints, we should keep Kipling’s saying in mind when we read the scriptures. We ofttimes read our Bible as though its peoples were English or American and interpret their sayings in terms of our own background and psychology. But the Bible is actually an Oriental book. It was written centuries ago by Oriental people and primarily for Oriental people. . . .

“It may be of interest to contrast the speech of modern and ancient Palestinians with our own. In thought and speech the Oriental is an artist; the Occidental, on the other hand, may be thought of as an architect. When speaking, the Oriental paints a scene whose total effect is true, but the details may be inaccurate; the Occidental tends to draw diagrams accurate in detail. When our Lord spoke of the mustard seed as ‘less than all the seeds that be in the earth,’ and the plant as ‘greater than all herbs’ ( Mark 4:31–32 ), he was speaking as an Oriental. Any good botanist knows that the mustard seed (sinapi) of which Jesus spoke, though small, is not the smallest of all seeds, nor is the plant greater than all herbs.” ( “Hebrew Manners and Customs,” Ensign, May 1972, pp. 29–30 .)

Another scholar wrote: “Nowhere is the genius of Hebrew poetry more apparent than in its imagery. It lays heaven and earth under tribute. It steals music from the morning stars, and light from the bridegroom who needs no virginal lamps. Its eternal summer fades not, and its snows are undefiled. It rules the raging of the sea, it drives on the clouds, and rides on the wings of the wind. It makes the royal gold richer, the myrrh more fragrant, and the frankincense sweeter. The offerings it takes from the shepherd suffer no death, and his flock is folded in evergreen pastures. The bread of its harvest will never waste, the oil from its press never fail, and its wine is for ever new. So long as men can breathe, its eternal lines will form the litany of the praying heart. The strings it touches are the strings of the harp of God.

“The rhythm of Hebrew poetry is not the measured beat of the earth-locked body. It is the majestic rhythm of the soaring spirit, felt only by him who has the music of heaven in his soul. It rises above the metrical to a loftier plane and to a new dimension—the dimension of the spirit, where they who worship God worship Him in spirit and in truth.

“Its proper object is the Highest, the God of heaven and earth; its source and fount, the depths of the God-hungry heart. Its great theme is the personal encounter with the living God.” (Douglas, New Bible Dictionary, s.v. “poetry,” p. 1008.)

Now, don't misunderstand me, I don't think you should study other texts IN PLACE OF the scriptures, just alongside them. Power comes in studying and striving to understand the words of God directly as He had prophets place them on the pages years and years ago. And if we just read summaries or student manuals or language study helps, we won't gain the power that comes directly from the word of God itself.

Something else that someone suggested to me was to read my patriarchal blessing with my scriptures. Study and compare the aspects you're taught in your blessing with similar ones in the scriptures. As your blessing talks of lineage, study yours and what blessings and responsibilities your tribe is associated with. If it talks of missionary work, study Alma's, Paul's, and Joseph Smith or Brigham Young's journeys, and what that means for you as a missionary. How about scripture study itself and following the spirit? What about husband and wife relationships? Are these found in the scriptures to study? You better believe it, look at 1 Nephi 5:1-6 with Lehi and Sariah. Or D&C 25 for a blessing Emma was given by Joseph and how she can be a strength and support to him. And countless others. Be open to the spirit and how it can guide and direct you to those passages that relate with your blessing. Talk about relating the scriptures unto yourself! In this exercise you are doing that quite literally.

John 4

I was listening to a talk by Camille Fronk Olson while folding laundry yesterday and she was speaking about the woman at the well. One thing she said that hit me that I had never thought about before was how those that are considered the worst sinners always felt more at ease with Jesus than with anyone else.

The woman at the well was one a Samaritan, and two a woman. Just those two facts alone would make her one of the most unclean of the Jewish society. Not only that but Jesus confirms after talking to her awhile that she has had five husbands and now is living with someone that is not her husband. Men didn't usually speak to woman, even their wives in public because of how it looked and the laws at the time. This woman was all alone drawing water from the well in the middle of the day, probably so she would be able to avoid others being there, although it was the hottest and hardest time of the day to do so.

And the Savior came to her to speak with her.

The Savior doesn't start out pronouncing he is the Messiah, or that she needed to repent. He starts by asking for her help in getting a drink of water. Then she asks why and even how he is talking to her when he is a Jew and he knows she's a Samaritan! But he turns her question around to her and says in John 4:10 "If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water." In essence he's saying it doesn't matter if you're Jew or Samaritan or American or European, everyone needs to come to Christ and drink his living waters. And it's through me we'll get over these differences that keep us apart.

And this woman realizing him to be someone more than just a man addresses him with a title of authority for the first time and says "Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?" She is getting excited thinking that she would maybe never have to draw water from the well again!

Jesus responds in verses 13-14 "Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."

The woman answers she would like this, so the Savior tells her to go and get her husband and come back to them. Then the woman said "I have no husband." And Jesus rather than rebuking her says "Thou hast well said, I have no husband: For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly."

The woman was humble enough to answer the truth. And not try to hide her sins from the Savior. As they continue on in their conversation, she starts becoming more and more converted until finally she comes to the conclusion herself in verse 25 and states "I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things." And Jesus answers in 26 "I that speak unto thee am he."

She then left her waterpot and went into the city saying in verse 29 "Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?" She didn't care what others thought of her now, the Messiah had come, and it says in verse 30 that "Then thy went out of the city, and came unto him." These were Samaritans mind you, coming to listen to a Jewish man proclaiming to be the Savior, and all because of a testimony of a woman that would be considered sinful to the rest of the world.

No wonder many of the Jewish leaders hated Jesus. He wasn't going about his work in any of the avenues they would consider to be holy and right. But the Savior's mission was to save people, and he is willing to save anyone save they have desire and act on what they know and learn to be right.

A little lesson from Sunday School

As said by my dear friend Kati Manzi today at church,

"Forgiveness does not mean that what the other person did is o.k., it means God will work it out."

That hit the profound button in me today.

Scripture study

I was at my sister's high school graduation a few weeks ago, and was struck by something someone said. He said on the first day of his English Literature class the teacher told them that reading through the classics for the first time might start out as a chore. Then after awhile they will become entertainment, and enjoyable to read. Then finally they will become life- changing as the values and things taught in the book start to become a part of who you are.

I hate to admit it, but I'm still stuck in the classics are a chore bracket. I wish someone had told me this as I started my English courses in high school so I could have found more of a purpose and not just be depressed reading The Grapes of Wrath or the Great Gatsby or whatever other books were on the English docket. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE to read. But I never got past the language, slower pace, and harder hitting circumstances of many of these books, and just slogged through them to get the grade not enjoying one single book we read in high school english.

While this might be true for me and American "classics", I am however on a different plane for spiritual "classics" or the scriptures.

Many people I talk to tell me that they don't get the scriptures, the language is too hard, the circumstances are too gruesome or whatever else. So they don't read their scriptures.

I usually tell them about my husband who committed to read the scriptures EVERY DAY from age 15. He said he didn't start really understanding the language of the scriptures until 5 years later right before his mission at age 19. Then he got it, and not only that, but because of his perseverance, the scriptures started changing him. He started being able to pull principles and doctrines out of the scriptures for people in their everyday lives, and even today is one of the people I go to if I have a doctrinal question, because he so easily can navigate the verses and help me find what I am looking for. He blesses our family daily by his scriptural knowledge and the spirit that accompanies those who study the scriptures.

Power comes to us as we study the scriptures. Sheri Dew shared this at a BYU devotional.

"The word of God can transform us.

I have a lifelong friend whose teenage tampering with pornography evolved into a deadly addiction, and for years it has ruled him and ravaged his marriage. Frankly, I had lost hope that he would ever really change.

And then, a year ago, a remarkable sequence of events began to unfold. He began to study the scriptures for the first time since his mission. The word of God pierced his heart, and he knew he had to repent--which involved heart-wrenching confessions and subsequent excommunication. Now he is working his way back by immersing himself in the gospel as never before.

He wrote me this recently:

It was when I began to study the gospel that I realized I had been under Satan's power for years. When I finally got on my knees, pleaded for help to change, and surrendered my sins to the Lord, my world turned upside down. This past year has been a crash course in the ways of God and His Son. It has been the most difficult but wonderful year of my life. I wish I could tell everyone who is in a situation like I was to not be afraid to surrender to the Lord. They will find joy like never before in His Atonement. They will feel the Father wrap His arms around them. They will discover there is power in the gospel to really change."

I hope you have discovered, will discover, or continue to discover this change in your life. Because I sure love studying my scriptures.