Watch the video presentation on YouTube at: Intro to the New Testament Video
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INTRODUCTION
Hello fellow teachers and students of the scriptures. Welcome to Teaching with Power. I’m Ben Wilcox and I’m delighted that you’ve decided to join me today as we begin a new year of studying the scriptures together. And what a year it’s going to be. The New Testament. A standard work that we can’t afford to ignore as it contains a record of the life of our Redeemer and Savior Jesus Christ and the gospel he taught. We have the opportunity this year to come closer to Him than ever before. He’s calling to each of us right now as we contemplate our commitment to study this year. Picture Him in your mind’s eye and you can almost hear what he’s saying right? “Come, follow me” with a warm smile on his face and a gentle wave of his hand. We have a chance to get to know Him better and also the teachings of those early disciples of his who first responded to that invitation and were set apart as special witnesses of his divine mission and sacrifice. Let me begin by telling what the purpose of this channel is. My goal with this is to help you, as someone who has spent the past few decades studying and teaching from the scriptures almost daily, to either teach or study the scriptures with more relevance, depth, insight, enjoyment, and impact. To study or teach with power. Now I know, for all you out there who have ever tried to teach another group of people from the scriptures--Sunday school teachers, quorum leaders, youth and primary teachers, parents, most notably—how challenging that can be. When I first started teaching seminary, I remember days just sitting there, almost pulling my hair out, trying to come up with ideas and methods for teaching sometimes disinterested youth from the scriptures. Striving to find the relevance, the power, and ways to keep the classroom experience fresh, exciting, and meaningful. Well I’ve learned some things over the years. And you know, I discovered that sometimes you just need a little help to get the ball rolling. Just a thought, an approach to the scripture block, an idea, or activity that kind of brings the lesson together and focuses the experience. A hook to hang the lesson on, so to speak. That’s what I’m hoping to provide you with here. I’m grateful that I’ve had some really excellent mentors over the years. My father for one, and other teachers who were willing to help and give me ideas and share activities and object lessons. So I can’t take personal credit for all the ideas and thoughts that I share in these videos. I wish I could give due credit to each person who gave me these thoughts and ideas over the years. The truth of the matter is, I can’t remember what ideas and insights are original to me, and what I’ve gleaned from others. And you know, it really doesn’t matter, because all the good ideas come from the Spirit anyways. He gets ALL the credit and is the genesis of them all. The bad ideas are probably mine. But I hope to, in the spirit of sharing to give you some things that will make that process of preparing a lesson to teach others easier, and your lessons more relevant, and more impactful. Now the idea is not to just teach what I share here word for word. But to take from these lessons what most connects with you, and then make it your own. You can take the good stuff from here and then add your own inspiration and style and personality to it. And be sure to do your own personal study each week and not just rely on videos and podcasts and manuals to prepare and learn from the scriptures each week. Also, if you like some of the PowerPoint slides or the handouts that I make, those are available for a small purchase to have access to. You can even get access to a subscription where those materials are immediately available to you each week, I upload them to a Dropbox folder. And the idea with the slides is to allow you to get them for your own classes if you like but gives you the ability to edit them, to take out the slides and materials you don’t want to use and add things that you do. They’re yours to personalize and adjust to your classes needs. The easiest way to do that, if you’re interested, is to go to teachingwithpower.com to find the link to the Etsy shop, or I’ve put links to those subscription services right in the video description below. You just have to click the “show more” button in the area just below the YouTube video. But that being said, I’m so excited to go with you on this journey this year. The New Testament is so powerful! And I don’t mean to be dramatic here. But I believe, it can and will change your life, for the better, if you truly study it deeply. So, if you’re ready, grab your scriptures and your marking pencils. It’s time to dig deep.
BREAKDOWN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
One of the things I like to do at the beginning of a study of any of the standard works is to give a breakdown of how the book is organized. And we can do this by doing a bit of a marking activity in our scriptures. So let’s open up to the title page of the New Testament. First of all, it might help us to understand what the word “Testament” means in the first place. We have the Old Testament, and the New Testament. And “Testament” in this context means “covenant”. And I would write that in next to the word Testament on the title page. A “Testament” is a covenant partnership between God and his people. So last year we studied a history of God’s covenant partnership with his children from Adam and Eve down to Malachi. What we have this year is a study of God’s new covenant partnership with those who would recognize, listen to, and accept his son Jesus Christ as the Messiah prophesied of in the Old Testament. Sadly, a majority of God’s original covenant people reject the new covenant. Therefore, God’s covenant no longer continues through the Jewish people, but through a small band of believers who break away from the wavering religion of their day and begin to call themselves Christians, or disciples of Jesus Christ. With this new covenant, there were also some changes, not in fundamental principles or doctrines, but in the application of those principles. For example, animal sacrifice was no longer required of God’s people as Christ became the ultimate sacrifice and fulfillment of that practice of the law of Moses. And instead, the ordinance of the sacrament would be instituted as a means of helping his disciples to look BACK to that great sacrifice. Jesus would also seek to lift his people to a higher law. He didn’t come to destroy the law of Moses, but to fulfill it and raise the bar. You see this most notably in the Sermon on the Mount. And the Jews would also struggle to accept the manner in which Jesus came to SAVE them. Most expected him to be a political or military Messiah that would save them from the Romans. Another Judas Maccabeus type figure who would rid them of foreign rule and lead them to independence once again. They’re going to struggle with the idea of a Messiah come to save them from their sins and free them from the oppression of the adversary. So you can see that there is a lot of significance in that one word. This year, we will be studying the NEW COVENANT relationship between God and his people. And that’s important for us, because we believe that the Church that Jesus establishes in his lifetime, is the Church that was RESTORED through Joseph Smith and others in 1830—that Covenant continuing through us as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to distinguish and link us to the, maybe we would say, the ancient-day saints.
Now, I want you to turn to the table of contents found near the very beginning of your Bibles and pull out four different colors of marking pencil. That page looks something like this. We next need to look at how the New Testament is organized. You’ll initially see that it has 27 different books. These are the collected writings of early Christian writers. In contrast to the Old Testament, which mainly covers over 1000 years of Jewish history, the New Testament writings cover only about 40 years of time. And, it’s only the first five books of the New Testament that we would label as the “historical books,” or the books that follow a chronological timeline. The historical books begin with the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which give us four different accounts of the life of Christ. The fact that we call them the gospels can be a bit confusing though. That doesn’t mean they teach four different gospels. They all teach the same gospel, but from four different perspectives. Joseph Smith, in his inspired translation of the Bible, actually takes the word “gospel” in the titles of each of those first four books and changes it to “testimony”. So they give us four different testimonies of Christ. Interesting side note, the first three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke are sometimes referred to as the synoptic gospels because they can be “seen together” which is what synoptic means—syn meaning together and optic meaning seen. But the gospel of John kind of stands a bit apart because its approach is very different from the other gospels. It has a unique perspective and storyline and focuses far more on the last weeks and days of the Savior’s life. Then we have the Book of Acts or “The Acts of the Apostles,” which covers the events that take place after Jesus Christ dies and the apostles begin to direct the Church. There we witness Peter and the other Apostles step into their own as they rise to the call to take the gospel into all the world. It’s also in the book of Acts that we’re introduced to a very key figure and early convert to Christianity: the apostle Paul. Which leads us into our next section of the New Testament. The next 14 books are a collection of letters written by Paul to different congregations and individuals of the early Church. We can label them “The epistles of Paul” (epistle being just a fancy word for letter). The following 7 books are termed “the General Epistles” and contain letters written by other church leaders of the day—namely, Peter, James, and John, (which we might view as the New Testament First Presidency) and Jude. Finally, there is one more book that kind of stands on its own. The Book of Revelation, written by John the Beloved, which is also sometimes referred to as the Apocalypse, and contains his prophetic writings about the last days and the second coming of Christ.
So hopefully that gives you a good overview of what we’re going to be studying this year. Important to note that the majority of our time this year is going to be spent in the first five historical books. We don’t even begin to hit the epistles of Paul until August. So it’s the life of Christ that is going to be the main focus of the entire first half of this year. And that leads us to our next portion of the lesson.
WHY STUDY THE GOSPELS?
ICEBREAKER
For an icebreaker, I like to do the following activity. Can you tell what this is a picture of? Probably not. There’s just not enough of the picture revealed for us to tell what it’s portraying. But what if I pull back a layer and reveal more. Can you tell what it is now? Not yet. How about now? Or now? With each layer we pull back, we see more and more of the picture and begin to really realize what it is we’re looking at. We could do a few more of these and let’s see who can figure out what it’s a picture of first. And what about this one. What’s this a picture of. Ahhh. How long did it take you to figure it out? This I believe is a good representation of what we are going to do here in the first half of this year. We are going to pull back some layers to discover more of who Christ WAS and IS. I believe that there may be many who only have what I would call a “pinhole perception” of Christ. We’ve heard of Him. We know some stories about Him. We believe we understand who he was, but have we ever really deeply studied his life and teachings? The more we do that, the bigger the picture we get. And no matter where you are in your understanding of Christ, whether this is your first time through the New Testament or your hundredth, hopefully we can pull back a few more layers and increase our perception of who the Savior IS. Our goal then, this year, is to expand our vision of Christ. By the end of this year, we should better understand the major events of his life, the fundamental principles of His gospel, and hopefully, above all, a stronger testimony of his divinity, and a deeper love for Him and His sacrifice.
SEARCH
To help us do this, I want to ask you a question: Why do you feel it’s important to study the life of Christ? As you consider that question, I’d like to invite you to do the following handout activity. I have a list of scripture references that I want you to read and ponder. This is what I might refer to as a scripture chain. A chain of related references that can add insight and understanding to a specific topic or thought. And then, I invite you to write down your thoughts and impressions in the provided space and then be prepared to share those thoughts. WHY do YOU feel we should study the life of Christ?
3 Nephi 27:27
Alma 5:14
Doctrine and Covenants 6:36
Doctrine and Covenants 19:23
Matthew 16:24
2 Nephi 31:16
As a teacher, if you do this activity, I would give my students 5-10 minutes or so to study those verses and think about that question. And then spend another 5 minutes or so to allow them to share their thoughts.
But now, let’s read through each of these verses together and see how they can help us to answer that question.
3 Nephi 27:27
And know ye that ye shall be judges of this people, according to the judgment which I shall give unto you, which shall be just. Therefore, what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am.
Alma 5:14
And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?
Doctrine and Covenants 6:36
36 Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.
Doctrine and Covenants 19:23
23 Learn of me, and listen to my words; walk in the meekness of my Spirit, and you shall have peace in me.
Matthew 16:24
24 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
2 Nephi 31:16
16 And now, my beloved brethren, I know by this that unless a man shall endure to the end, in following the example of the Son of the living God, he cannot be saved.
So I ask you again, why do you feel it’s so important for us to study the life of Christ. Here are my thoughts on that. If you sat down and thought about the best advice you’ve ever been given, what would you say that was? Maybe it was some career advice that you got from a coworker or your boss. Perhaps it was something that a teacher said in a class sometime. More than likely it came from a family member, friend, or a church leader, and helped to give you better perspective on life in general. But let me tell you what I consider to be some of the worst advice that we could be ever given is. And what is the worst advice ever? Just be yourself. That’s terrible advice. Because what on earth does that even mean? Just be yourself. Now if we take that to mean that we should be sincere and genuine, then great, that’s fine. But if we take that to mean that we should just do whatever comes naturally to us or that’s pleasurable or that is most advantageous to ourselves, well that has the potential to turn us into quite selfish, ineffective, or visionless individuals. What if I decide that playing video games and eating ice cream all day is me just being myself? What if decide that being myself means doing what just comes naturally to me? Then I become a slave to my natural man and my impulses and lusts. Or what if I decide that it means that I have no control over my destiny and character? That I’ve already come into mortality pre-packaged with who I’m meant to be and what I’m meant to do? Does it have the effect of taking away my agency or vision in creating myself and developing myself into something better. I believe that we are not meant to just be ourselves in this life. Our Heavenly Father has something much bigger in store for us. He has a vision for us, and we aren’t supposed to just end up being mere mortals. We have so much more potential than that.
So the question then becomes. All right, who should I be then? What should I do with my life and myself? My response? 3 Nephi 27:27. And there, in that magnificent verse, Jesus asks our question, and then gives us the answer. What is it?
27 And know ye that ye shall be judges of this people, according to the judgment which I shall give unto you, which shall be just. Therefore, what manner of men ought ye to be?
(or in other words, what kind of people, men or women should we strive to be like? Christ’s answer?
“Verily I say unto you, even as I am.”
We are meant to be like Christ. Now THAT’S some good advice. Strive to be like Jesus. That appears to be one of the greatest purposes of Jesus’s mortal life. He was sent to be an example to the rest of us. To walk the path of perfection before us. Therefore, He represents our potential. What we are capable of becoming. He’s the ideal. And no, I don’t think that means that we’re all meant to be drones or clones without individuality or uniqueness. Actually, I believe that seeking to develop Christ’s attributes and character will actually unlock what is truly exclusive and exceptional about ourselves and our distinctive gifts and talents that we can offer the world. But Christ embodies, exemplifies, and epitomizes what we are all capable of becoming. He teaches and shows us the BEST way to live.
There’s a little acronym that I know has entered popular culture over time. So much so that perhaps it’s lost its original power through overuse or meme-ification if you will. It’s WWJD. Are you familiar with what that means? It stands for, “What would Jesus do?” And I believe that’s a wonderful question to ask ourselves in almost any situation. We should be asking ourselves that . . . frequently.
But here’s the catch? How do we even know what Jesus would do? Is it possible that we might err in our assessment of the answer to that question? It’s a good guiding principle and most certainly helpful in making us better people, but can we really state with confidence that we know what Jesus would do in any given situation. He often surprised his apostles with the way he did things. I imagine that if we spent an amount of personal time with him ourselves, he would probably surprise us as well.
So can you see why it’s so important for us to study the New Testament and the life of Christ in particular? If one of the great purposes of our lives is to become like Christ, then we have to know how he lived, how he acted in certain situations, how he treated people. Only then can we start to answer the “What Would Jesus Do” question with any amount of certainty or authority.
Alma asked a very potent question of his people in Alma 5:14. He asked “Have ye received his image in your countenances?” Which means, “Do you reflect the image of Christ in your own lives through what you say, think and do?” We are to become “little Christs” in this life. People like Him—not “ourselves.”
And so, what is his major invitation to us? It’s “Come, follow me!” “If any man will come after me, let him DENY HIMSELF, and take up his cross, and follow me.” That’s the name of this entire church program of studying the scriptures—and its very purpose. Our prophets know that the studying of the scriptures will help us to become more like Christ. And here in the New Testament, we actually see him live as a mortal and a god at the same time. He is God become like man to show us the way that man can become like god! And it is by “endur[ing] to the end, in following the example of the Son of the living God” that we can be saved” as Nephi taught.
There’s something that BYU Professor and deep Christian thinker Arthur Henry King once said about this idea that I love. He said:
“We symbolize it [good] in a real individual--Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He is a man, not a principle, a man who includes all principles. And he underwent all the stresses man should undergo; otherwise, it would have been just a trick. He had to undergo all stresses, as we have to undergo them, though he did so in a much higher and to a much worse degree. It is not possible to formulate the good. It is only possible to recognize
the good in a man, and a good man--a perfect man--is what we are given to follow. And following a man is very different from following a principle. . . .
We do not have to work out philosophical complexities of ethics. It has nothing to do with that. We have to study the Gospels, see what Christ did, and try to identify ourselves with what he did. It is because we catch the spirit of the Master, the Master's love, and because we have soaked ourselves in the gospel, that we know what it is that we must do. The gospel which we have stored within us enables us at any moment to feel what we should do in a certain situation.”
Arthur Henry King
(The Abundance of the Heart (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1986), 123)
Those two verses from the Doctrine & Covenants also hold a key to how I apply this process of following and becoming like Christ. If we combine those two verses together, then we create a simple yet potent formula for becoming even as he is. It gives us four fantastic following verbs. First, Doctrine and Covenants 6:36: Look. “Look unto Christ in every thought, doubt not, fear not.” And then Doctrine and Covenants 19:23: LEARN of me, and LISTEN to my words; WALK in the meekness of my Spirit, and you shall have peace in me.” So if I wish to become like Christ, I need to Look, learn, listen, and then walk. That's how I do it. Whenever a decision needs to be made about how to act, I first, "LOOK" unto Christ in that thought. I turn my thoughts and attention to his example and his teachings. Then I LEARN of him. I open my mind to being taught. And I LISTEN to his words. I let those teachings sink into my mind and heart. And then what do I do? I WALK in the meekness of his Spirit. I act on it. I go and do. And that brings me peace!
So let me give you a few examples of this process.
Let’s say that there is somebody who has betrayed or hurt me in some way, and I feel angry, and I want to get them back, but I stop and apply the process. I decide to look to Christ in that thought, and he says, “Learn of me and listen to my words”. And I hear him say: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" and "love your enemies, do good to them that hate you”. So I take a deep breath, and I walk in the meekness of his Spirit, and I forgive. Or maybe it's a Saturday morning and I just want to relax, or I have a lot of things that I need to do around the house, and I get the message that the Elders Quorum has agreed to go help somebody move, and I don't really feel like it. In that moment I stop, and LOOK to Christ in that thought, and he says, "Learn of me, and listen to my words", "Which of these was neighbor unto him that fell among thieves?, Go and do thou likewise." And then I walk, over to my neighbor's house to help them move. Or maybe I see somebody whose sins and shortcomings are obvious, and everyone's gossiping about them and talking behind their back, and I'm tempted to join in. But, I decide to look to Christ in that thought, and he says, learn of me, and listen to my words, and I hear him say “He who is without sin, let him first cast a stone. Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” So then I walk in the meekness of his Spirit and away from that group, and I don’t judge.
With a class, you might consider inviting them to come up with one of their own case studies. One of their own examples of a teaching of Christ that could help them to be “even as he is.”
TRUTH
So what’s the truth all of these verses combined might teach us?
If I study the life and teachings of Jesus Christ intently, then I will know with confidence how I should act in any given situation and what I’m meant to become.
LIKEN THE SCRIPTURES
Are you excited to study the life of Christ this year? Why?
OR
What is one aspect of Jesus’s character that you most admire and wish to emulate? Why?
CONCLUSION
Well that’s our goal then this year! We are going to pull back the layers of Christ’s character in the hopes that we can become more like Him. Hopefully our “pinhole perceptions” will be widened and enlarged so that we can get a fuller picture of who he was and is. There’s a scene or conversation in C.S. Lewis’s “The Chronicles of Narnia” between Lucy and Aslan that I feel exemplifies what we’ve been talking about here. Aslan the lion, remember, represents, and personifies Jesus Christ in the stories. Lucy has not seen Aslan for years, and in this scene, they are reunited. And she says:
“Aslan, Aslan. Dear Aslan,” sobbed Lucy. “At last.” The great beast rolled over on his side so that Lucy fell, half sitting and half lying between his front paws. He bent forward and just touched her nose with his tongue. His warm breath came all round her. She gazed up into the large wise face. “‘Welcome, child,” he said. “AsIan,” said Lucy, “you’re bigger.” “That is because you are older, little one,” answered he. “Not because you are?” “I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.” C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia The Chronicles of Narnia (1951, this edition Harper Collins, 1994) 141.
I think that’s a lovely way of embodying what we’ve been talking about here. As we study this year, Christ is going to get bigger and bigger to us. We’ll see him better and more clearly than we ever have before. So let's go with Him this year. Let’s walk with him down the dusty roads of Galilee. We'll sit at his feet and hear him teach us the Sermon on the Mount. We'll watch him heal the lame, give sight to the blind, and even raise the dead. We'll see him walk on water. We'll take the lonely walk with him to Gethsemane and watch him pray. We'll be pained as we see him hang from the cross and rejoice with Mary Magdalene and the apostles in the morning of his resurrection. So can you hear him calling to us to right now. “Come, Follow Me,” he’s saying. Therefore, I encourage us all to take a deeper dive into the New Testament and the life of Christ this year than we ever have before. He taught us how to live. He taught us how to love. He taught us how to speak, how to suffer, how to think, how to pray. He is the quintessential mortal. And, I’m not trying to be dramatic here, but I believe that this year of study can change your life. I pray it does. I pray it makes all of us men and women more like Him—little Christs. That’s our purpose. That’s our mission. That’s our destiny.
WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR OWN LEARNING
ICEBREAKER
For our final portion of this week’s study I want to turn our attention in a bit of a different direction. The title for this week’s lesson in the Come, Follow Me manual is “We are responsible for our own gospel learning”. And I really like that as an introduction to this year’s course of study.
Since I’ve started these videos about four years ago, I’ve noticed that many new YouTube channels, blogs, podcasts, and resources have popped up all over the internet. And that many members of the Church are turning to these sources and finding excitement and value in the help they’re getting in studying and understanding the scriptures. And I think that’s a very good thing! I’m happy to see all this enthusiasm and willingness to share out there. However, one caveat to all of this, I hope that these supplemental materials that are being produced, including my own, don’t become a substitute for our own personal study and experience in the scriptures. The wonderful thing about the scriptures is that they can mean so many different things to different people at different times in their lives. So I pray that you’ll be sure to spend an adequate amount of time reading, pondering, and listening to the Spirit for the lessons YOU most need to hear from the scriptures. And then turn to some of these other resources that can be helpful in adding to our understanding and comprehension.
So, to help you in your quest to study the scriptures, allow me to give you some insights and ideas for improving your own personal daily scripture study. At the beginning of every school year, I like to do a special lesson like this where I teach my students a number of what I would call scripture study skills. The things that I feel will help them to get the most out of their experience with the word of God. Of course I’m training them in numerous study skills all year long, but these are the ones that I feel are the most basic, fundamental skills that can help them to have a more positive interaction with their scripture study. And for each one of these skills, I have a little activity, or an object lesson, or illustration to help move the lesson along and keep it interesting.
SKILL #1 DIG DEEP
Our first skill, then is what I consider to be THE most fundamental skill of scripture study. If we don’t approach our scriptures with this mindset and understanding, all the rest of the skills are going to be obsolete. And I like to introduce this skill with a little story. And those of you that have been with me for a while may recall me telling this story back at the beginning of Book of Mormon year. And ever since then, in the introduction to almost every video you’ve heard me say, “Grab your scriptures and your marking pencils, It’s time to dig deep”! I feel that this is a good place to review that idea. When I was a teenager, I worked for a couple of summers at a relative’s cattle ranch in Nevada. And between the haying and the moving of cattle by horseback, sometimes I liked to hike a mile or two down the river to an old Shoshone Indian cave where Shoshone Indians once lived. My father had worked at this same ranch when he was a boy and over his years of working there had gathered quite an impressive collection of arrowheads from the area. And I wanted to have the same experience. So one afternoon when the tractor was being repaired, I hiked down the river, shovel in hand to hunt for arrowheads. When I arrived, I started to dig, and sift through the dirt scanning for arrowhead points. And it was very hard and dusty work. The sun was hot, the wind was warm and would blow dirt into my eyes and ears. And every time that I filled the sieve with a load of dirt and shook the sand out of it, I was continually discouraged to only find bits of rock and gravel. And so for hours, I would dig, and shake, and dig, and shake, and nothing. Eventually, I could see that the sun was going down and that I was going to need to leave soon, but I still hadn’t found anything. So I decided I would do just a few more shovelfuls of dirt and then leave, more than likely, empty handed. And in one of those last shovelfuls, I remember shaking the sieve, and there in the center, was this beautiful arrowhead. Oh, I was so happy. I hiked back to the ranch that evening with a spring in my step. And even though I didn’t come home with a huge collection like my Dad’s, I had my treasure, and it was worth all the work it took to find it. I keep that arrowhead on a shelf in my office to remind me of a principle. Good things come through effort. When we’re willing to dig and dig deep, we will find that treasures await us. There are a lot of valuable things underground. Gold, silver, and other precious metals, gemstones, diamonds, oil, priceless archeological artifacts, buried treasure, fossils. Some of the most valuable things on earth lay beneath the surface. But in order to find it, you’ve got to dig. You’ve got to be willing to dig to find the good stuff. And THAT principle holds true when it comes to the scriptures. If you want to find the good stuff, the treasures, the priceless truths, and principles that are found therein, you’ve got to dig. You’ve got to put forth effort. Sadly, way too many people just scratch the surface with their scripture study. They race through a couple of verses, or a page or a chapter so they can check that item off their to-do list, and then set them down and wonder why they don’t get much out of the experience. The problem is that they’re not digging. God knows how to put the proper value on his goods.
And with that in mind I have a startling request for you. Please don’t read the New Testament this year. In fact, I hope that all of you will just stop reading the scriptures altogether. I think it’s really unfortunate that so many people in the church are reading their scriptures. Because me? I never read the scriptures. And allow me to explain myself before you change the channel. I can’t think of any place in the scriptures where we are asked to read them. No, the scriptures use much better words to describe the way we’re meant to interact with them. Rather than read them, we’re instructed to study them, meditate on them, search them, lay hold upon them, ponder them, liken them, treasure them, and feast on them. But for heaven’s sakes, don’t read them. We read novels, we read magazines, we read a newspaper, but we are meant to study the scriptures. Too many of us just poke our shovels into the first few inches of topsoil hoping to find a few arrowheads sticking out of the top. But those who are willing to get their hands dirty, put their backs into it, let beads of sweat start to form on their brow, they are the ones that find the treasures, the gems of truth that our Heavenly Father has placed there for us to find.
There’s something my dad used to say that has stuck with me. He’d say, there are no problems or questions that you can have in this life that aren’t addressed in some way by the scriptures. I believe that with all my heart. Even though they were written hundreds or even thousands of years ago, they speak to our day and communicate universal and timeless truths.
So this year, I invite you to dig deep into the New Testament, to pull out your spiritual shovel every day and thrust it into the fertile and treasure rich soil of the scriptures. I can promise you that if you’re willing to put forth that kind of effort, your Father in Heaven is bound to bless you with the priceless treasures he’s buried there. And all that work is going to be worth it, in the end. And I’m going to be here to help you do that. Each week as you tune in, I promise to help train you in the fine art of scripture digging. And by the end of this year, we’re going to have a beautiful collection of scripture treasures and artifacts to cherish and share. I’ll share with you some of the riches I’ve found over the years, and I anticipate that you’ll find many of your own in your own personal scripture study.
But that’s the foundational principle. We’ve got to put forth effort. Still, there are quite a few other things that can help us to have a more meaningful scripture study experience. Somebody out there might be saying, OK, OK I want to study the scriptures, I want to find these great treasures, but how do you do it? Well, here are the biggest, most powerful suggestions or helps I can think of to getting more out of scripture study.
SKILL #2 PRAY
This next one I like to keep pretty simple. It involves a few questions and a quote. But I ask:
If you want to get a certain present from your parents or your spouse for Christmas, what have you got to do, besides “be good”? You have to ask them for it.
At the drive-thru, if you want them to hold the pickles on your hamburger, what have you got to do? You have to ask them.
If you want to go on a date with that certain someone. What have you got to do? You have to ask.
So, using that line of reasoning. If you aren’t getting much out of your scripture study, if you wish to have a better understanding of what you are reading, if you want to find answers to your questions and problems, what should you do? Ask for it. And how do we ask God for things? We pray. That’s our next scripture study skill: Pray before you read. Perhaps the most common promise that we find in the scriptures is this: Ask, and . . .? ye shall receive. Seek, and . . . ye shall find. Knock, and . . . it shall be opened unto you. So the next time you sit down to study, try this. Just offer a quick, but sincere prayer. You could say something like, “Heavenly Father. I’m about to study your sacred words. Please help me to understand what I’m studying. Help my mind to be open and my heart to be receptive to the promptings of the Spirit. I ask thee to guide me to the principles and the truths that will help me to resolve my doubts, bolster my faith, and answer my questions. I thank thee, Lord for the sacrifices that have been made by so many people to bring me these words. Help me to value them, understand them, and apply them. Help me to come closer to thy Son and learn to be more like Him through my study. Give me the strength to take what I learn and make changes in my life. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.” Do you think your scripture study might go differently after a prayer like that? I believe it would. I know it would. Try it. One of the most impactful things you can do to get more out of your scripture study is to pray beforehand. President Dallin H. Oaks had something to say about this. He said:
“When I pick up the scriptures, I’m picking up the word of God, written by prophets under the influence of the Spirit of the Lord. Those should never be read without praying over them first.
When I go to the table to eat, I don’t take physical nourishment without asking the Lord to bless that food to nourish and strengthen my body. Similarly, I think when we study the scriptures, we should bow our head and pray—often it would be silently because of the surroundings—but we would pray that the Lord would bless us that we’d be able to understand what we’re reading and that the act of reading the scriptures would summon the Spirit of the Lord to guide us on things other than simply the meaning of what we’re reading. In this way the scriptures can be a Urim and Thummim to help us receive revelation. But it begins with prayer; it doesn’t begin with reading, like a newspaper or a magazine.”
Dallin H. Oaks
Address to Religious Educators, August 2012
SKILL #3 SLOW DOWN
To introduce our next skill I like to show a short slow-motion video. A video that shows seemingly mundane actions, but in super slow motion. Like popping a water balloon or splitting open a can of spray paint. And I’ll provide you with a link to a good one here, however you might find another one of your own you like better. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-pZ4t-kAWw) But before I show it, I ask the following question. What effect does slowing things down have on our perception of what happens? And I always hear a lot of fascinating comments. Students will say that it allows you to really see what is happening. You get all the detail of the event. Some will say that it’s far more interesting to watch than if they were to just see it happen in real time. And then sometimes while they’re watching I hear things like, “Woah! Cool! That’s awesome!” You can tell that it’s kind of fun and exciting to watch.
Well those are the same effects that slowing down will have on your scripture study. It gives you a chance to really see the details—to really see what’s happening. That’s our next scripture study skill here: “SLOW DOWN”. There is treasure to be found in each verse, phrase, and even in individual words and punctuation marks. But you won’t see those gems if you’re racing through the text. Slowing down will make the experience of scripture study more interesting as you strive to really observe and think about what it is your looking at. You may even find yourself uttering a “Woah”, or a “Cool” as you discover a new truth or insight. It makes scripture study much more, dare I say it, fun! More exciting! Keep in mind that scripture study is something that remains a commandment all throughout our lives. It’s not like we complete it at some point, or check it off our lifetime accomplishments list. We don’t stop studying after we graduate from seminary, or complete a full-time mission, or send our last child off to college. There’s not an exemption for those who have read them 20 times or who serve in high positions of church leadership. The commandment doesn’t go away. I suppose if you’re in a coma, you’re excused. But our commitment to the scriptures should be a lifelong one, so, what’s the rush? If it takes you 10-20 minutes to read a couple of verses but you really dig deep into them, then no harm done. In fact, you may get more out of that experience than the person who reads a chapter or two in the same amount of time. If it takes you a couple of years to finish one of the standard works? Time well spent.
I like this quote from the Harriet Beecher Stowe novel: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and how she describes the way the character Tom studied his Bible. She writes:
“Tom was but a slow reader, and passed on laboriously from verse to verse. Fortunate for him was it that the book he was intent on was one which slow reading cannot injure, --nay , one whose words, like ingots of gold , seem often to need to be weighed separately, that the mind may take in their priceless value.”
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe p. 158
I hope that we can read our scriptures in the same way Uncle Tom did.
SKILL #4 ASK QUESTIONS
Our next study skill works in conjunction with the last. What do you do as you slow down? The activity for this skill involves showing a list of some funny questions for them to consider. For example:
Why is something sent by car called a shipment, but something sent by ship called cargo?
Why does the sun darken our skin but lighten our hair?
Why is abbreviated such a long word?
Why is Charlie short for Charles when both are the same amount of letters?
When butterflies get nervous, what do they get in their stomachs?
If olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?
Now that's kind of fun list to go through and they usually get a kick out of it. Then I tell them that one of the most important things they can do when studying their scriptures as they slow down is to ask questions. Maybe even write them down. When you are willing to ask a question, you give the Spirit an opportunity to answer it. Or, you inspire yourself to go deeper into a personal search for the answers which leads you to new insights and discoveries. This is part of the digging that you are doing when you study. So ask when, how, where, who, and why. Especially why. That seems to be one of the most fruitful questions you can ask.
SKILL #5 PONDER
Then our next skill rounds out our other two. For an activity, I like to invite my students to watch and follow along with the following demonstration. I pull out a chair and set it in the front of the room. And then I tell them that I'm going to teach them a very important but technical scripture study skill. I sit down in the chair, and then tell them to put their hands straight out in front of them with their thumbs pointing up. And I do this all very methodically, like I’m teaching them an intricate and difficult procedure. Then, they are to turn their hands so that their fingers are pointing at each other. Then very carefully, and slowly they are to move their hands towards each other and interlace their fingers with the other hand. Then very delicately and steadily so as not to injure themselves they should arch their arms backwards in a continuous motion until their hands rest on the backs of their heads. Now, the finishing touch. They should lean back ever so slightly and glance heavenward with a quizzical look on their face. This, I tell them, is a professional pondering pose. This is what they need to do frequently as they study their scriptures. They need to stop and ponder what they've just read. That’s the point where they ask those kinds of questions we just talked about and then give the Spirit and their minds a chance to teach them and inspire them. Now I know that's kind of cheesy way to go about it, but they usually enjoy the humor of it. The scripture study skill is to “ponder”. Some of the most important work we do when it comes to scripture study will happen when we aren't even looking at the scriptures. It's when we look away and think about what we’re reading that the knowledge and inspiration comes. That's how I do a lot of my preparation for teaching these lessons. Yes, I use manuals, and have made notes of things I’ve learned from other teachers or general authorities, but a lot of the insight just comes from pondering. I’ll sometimes tell my student that if they were to stop by my office in the morning when I’m preparing my lesson, they might look through the window and see me sitting back in my chair staring off into space. I might even have my feet up on the desk. And they may be tempted to think, “Wow, look at that lazy old Brother Wilcox. What a life. Shouldn’t he be doing something right now?” But what may not realize, is that what they are actually witnessing, is me doing the hardest work I do all day. I’m pondering. That’s usually when I get the most inspiration, insight, and ideas for teaching. I mean, that’s how I get the ideas I share in these videos. And you may find that those same kinds of things come to you when you try this out. When we ponder, we give the Spirit space and an opportunity to teach us and inspire us. But it is work! Remember, digging requires effort.
Joseph Smith once said:
“The things of God are of deep import; and time, and experience, and careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts can only find them out.”
Joseph Smith Jr.
(Teachings p.137)
SKILL #6 MARK
Our next skill is something I believe I’ve shared with you at the introduction of every year we’ve studied together so far. But I feel it’s an important enough skill to share anytime we embark on a new course of study. So what I do here is bring out a little treasure box that I have, and I tell them that I have something for them inside it that is going to help them at the final judgment and then I ask if they'd be interested in knowing what it is. And then with great fanfare I slowly open the lid to reveal a box full of colored pencils and I pull one of them out and hold it up like it's a precious artifact. And I say this item is going to bless them at the final judgment because there’s only one question that the Lord is only going to ask them when they get there. He'll say, "Can I see your scriptures?", and you'll say, "Ok, here they are". Now if he opens your scriptures and he sees markings all over them, well-worn pages, little notes here and there, perhaps he'll say "Hmmm, it’s apparent that you've spent a lot of time studying my word. And it stands to reason that if you've spent a lot of time studying my word, that suggests that you've probably spent a lot of time living my word.” Then he'll turn to the side and point to the pearly gates of heaven and say, "Come on in, you made it". On the other hand, if you hand him your scriptures and he looks at them and blows the dust off of them, and they look brand new, and the pages are still stuck together, the gold edging still shining bright, it’s possible he may leaf through them thoughtfully and say "Hmmm, these look like a really nice set of scriptures, they look almost brand new. I'm afraid it doesn't look like you've spent much time studying my words. And if you haven't spent much time studying my words, there's a really good chance that you haven't spent much time living my words. I'm so sorry. And he'll reach out, pull the cord, the trap door will open, and whoosh, off you slide to purgatory. Now it’s important that as you do this, that it’s all done facetiously, and I suggest you ham it up a bit because I don't really think that's what the judgment is going to be like, BUT I do believe there is a hint of truth in it. I do believe that the way we valued his words in our lives is going to have a bearing on how we'll be judged and more importantly, how we end up living our lives. And so I tell them that to help them avoid that negative fate, that I’m going to give them a colored pencil of their very own. And I promise them that if they’ll study with a marking pencil in their hand this year, that they will get much more out of scripture study experience. Or, I do know that the Church’s digital scriptures in the gospel library give you the option to mark them and write notes, so that’s another option here. Although personally, I find that there’s just something wonderful and engaging about physically pulling that pencil across the page and leaving a tangible mark across the page. But either way you do it, you will find that you get more insight and inspiration when you study this way because you are showing the Spirit that you’re ready and willing to learn. It shows you’re a good student. It’s as if the Spirit is hovering above you each time you study, ready to jump in and help you out. But when he sees that you don’t have anything to mark with, he perhaps holds back and thinks to himself, “Hmmm, there’s this great insight and thought that I’d love to give them right there, but they don’t have a pencil in their hand. They’re just going to forget about it as soon as they’re done. I’ll think I’ll save it for another time.” But when he sees a pencil in your hand, he rubs his hands together, and starts to speak to you, “Oh here’s a great verse right there, do you see what it’s teaching you! This phrase has such a powerful bit of guidance in it. Oh, oh, and don’t miss this idea over here, this verse can help you with that challenge you’re facing right now.” And I’m sincere about this idea. It makes a huge difference when you show the Spirit your willingness and readiness to learn and be taught. So I encourage all of you to study the New Testament this year with a marking pencil in your hand. A number of people have asked me over the years what I like to use to mark my scriptures. And really, any set of colored pencils will do. I like to have lots of colored pencils at my disposal when I study because, you guys know this, I like to mark different themes, repeated phrases, and ideas in different colors as I go from chapter to chapter. It helps me to see patterns and topics and scripture lists that stand out to me. My favorite marking pencil is this 8 in 1 colors mechanical pencil that’s really convenient and fun, but it is kind of expensive. I’ll put links in the video description if anyone is interested in either. But have something to mark with. I promise you, it will engage you more in the process and really, will make it more FUN! Really. Marking your scriptures is fun.
Crayola Colored Pencils: https://amzn.to/3m358Ep
Pentel Mechanical Pencil: https://amzn.to/31XACEX
SKILL #7 STUDY DAILY
Another skill to keep in mind. Try the following object lesson with your students. I invite a student to come up and I provide them with a bowl of water, a toothbrush, and a tube of toothpaste. I ask them to demonstrate how much toothpaste they typically use when they brush their teeth, and they show me. I then say, “What if we just decided to brush our teeth once a week, but to compensate, we would use the same amount of toothpaste that we would have used throughout the week. So then I start piling on the toothpaste, seven days’ worth on the brush and ask them to demonstrate how brushing would be. It’s hilarious, and toothpaste drips everywhere. I ask them what they think of my idea. Of course they say it’s a horrible idea. And if they decided to do that for months (only brush on Sunday, but use a week’s worth of toothpaste each time) how would their next dental checkup go? It would be terrible. Their mouth would be full of cavities. Why? Because when it comes to brushing your teeth, it’s not the amount of toothpaste you use that really makes the difference, it’s the consistency that does it. It’s something that’s effective only when done every day. It would be silly to think that we would have good dental health by only brushing once a week, but why do we say the same thing when it comes to scripture study. We say we don’t have time during the week, but then we’ll just do extra on Sunday. Or we’ll read the book once through over a short period of time, and then not touch our scriptures for months or even years. We can’t expect to have good spiritual health if we’re only sporadically studying on occasion. So our scripture study skill here is to “study daily”. Be consistent.
And for this one, there is one final resource for you that I’d like to provide you with. It’s a reading chart that you could use to mark your progress through the New Testament. There’s something satisfying and motivating about filling in the boxes as you go along and keeping track of your progress. Perhaps you could use this as a teacher to hand out to your students and encourage them to make a goal to study the entire New Testament.
CONCLUSION
There are, of course, many, many other scripture study skills that we could add here. Using the footnotes and the Bible Dictionary, looking for patterns, keeping a scripture journal, repetition, power words, and many, many others. But I feel that what I’ve shared here today is enough to get you started—to get the ball rolling on a new habit, a new way of engaging with the word of God. If you have yet to really dig deep into the scriptures in your life so far, or if you’ve never really studied the New Testament, I challenge you to make 2023 different, to feast upon the words of Christ with real intent this year. And if you feel like you need a little bit of help in understanding the scriptures, I’ll be here to lend you a hand this year. And I can promise you, that if you do this, you will see a difference in your life. The New Testament will come to life for you, your love and understanding of the Savior will grow, and as Nephi taught us, “the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do.”
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