Question
Gramps,
All church lessons and firesides are on the same subjects. Nothing new is ever taught. Why is nothing new ever taught? How is Lehii finding the Liahona going to teach me anything? I have heard that story a million times. My mom told me if I think I have it figured out at 15, I am prideful and need to pray for forgiveness.
young man
Answer
Young Man,
The passion you have in addressing these questions gives evidence of your desire to understand the reasons why we are taught the same topics in Church, and I hope you are willing to read through my whole answer with an open heart. In the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we can see that the Lord teaches us through repetition — you understand this already. Every week we are continually taught the principles of faith, hope, and charity. However, how many of us have truly come to a perfect understanding of these principles? The ability to spout off a definition or a story within scripture doesn’t equate with knowledge. It only specifies that we are able to give the appropriate words for someone else to know we listened.
As your question addresses, in Church we read from the same stories provided in our scriptures. In the Book of Mormon, for example, we read Nephi is born of goodly parents. Lehi has a dream. They leave Jerusalem. Nephi loves the Lord and does not rebel, while Laman & Lemuel rebel, and… you get the idea. Then an assumptive question enters into our minds, “What can I learn more from these same stories?” Elder Bednar provided wonderful words given in a BYU address, “A Reservoir of Living Water.” In answer to your question he said,
“The living water referred to in this episode is a representation of the Lord Jesus Christ and His gospel. And as water is necessary to sustain physical life, so the Savior and His doctrines, principles, and ordinances are essential for eternal life.”
Elder Bednar continues, “I now want to review with you three basic ways or methods of obtaining living water from the scriptural reservoir: (1) reading the scriptures from beginning to end, (2) studying the scriptures by topic, and (3) searching the scriptures for connections, patterns, and themes. Each of these approaches can help satisfy our spiritual thirst if we invite the companionship and assistance of the Holy Ghost as we read, study, and search.”
If we liken the scriptures and Elder Bednar’s words to ourselves, we are able to provide this simple analogy of a swimming pool. In a swimming pool, we have at one end a kiddy pool separate from the main pool. In the main pool, we have a shallow end, semi-deep in the middle, and then the deep end. The first option Elder Bednar provides, “reading the scriptures from beginning to end,” gives us the likeness of the “kiddy pool” and the “shallows.” This is what we learn from every Sunday — the same stories over and over and over again. The second option, allows us to wade/swim a little deeper into the meat of the Gospel. The stories begin to provide topics we become more familiar with. Third, we have the opportunity to connect scriptures together, to see patterns and themes that will give us further light and knowledge within the Gospel of Jesus Christ; although, in order to swim or wade in the deep, we need all three options: the stories, the topics, and patterns and themes. The questions you have mainly deal with #1 — the kiddy pool and a little venturing in the shallows.
At Church we are taught the same Gospel, the same living water — repetitively. Although each member is taught the same living water, some members remain in the kiddy pool. Some venture into the shallows, while others dive as deep as the waters will let them dive before they touch bottom, or as Jacob once declared, “Behold, great and marvelous are the works of the Lord. How unsearchable are the depths of the mysteries of him; and it is impossible that man should find out all his ways. And no man knoweth of his ways save it be revealed unto him; wherefore, brethren, despise not the revelations of God.” As you have now read this verse here is a series of questions I will ask you:
(1) Have you been revealed, from the Lord, every principle there is to learn about Lehi and his family receiving the Liahona?
(2) Have you learned how the Liahona was affected by their obedience and how this affects your life everyday?
(3) Have you learned about small and simple means and what might be a Liahona in your life?
(4) Have you recognized similar warnings, a likeness, to the warnings Lehi and his family received from the Liahona after Nephi’s bow broke that we might be receiving from the Lord through his prophets today?
Elder Bruce R. McConkie has explained:
“Faith is thus born of scripture study. Those who study, ponder, and pray about the scriptures, seeking to understand their deep and hidden meanings, receive great outpourings of light and knowledge from the Holy Spirit…[and may I add, from the same scriptures stories we learn from every Sunday]. (Bruce R. McConkie, from “Holy Writ Published Anew,” an address delivered at the Regional Representatives Seminar, April 2, 1982)
A few years back, as Gospel Doctrine teacher in my ward, I knew that in a month I would be teaching the vision of the “Tree of Life” given by Lehi. I remember clearly my thoughts, “What more can I teach about the tree of life? Everyone knows about the tree, the mist of darkness, the great and spacious building, etc…” In light of this question to myself, I then decided to memorize the whole chapter, to ponder, to pray, and then ask the Lord to enlighten my understanding, in other words to “[seek] to understand the deep and hidden meanings” the Lord wanted me to share. By the end of memorizing the whole chapter, I learned six new principles, hidden meanings, which would have never been revealed if I kept the mindset “I already know.” When our hearts and minds are more concerned about what we “already know” versus what is not yet known, it is very hard for the Lord to teach us when we already know everything.
The Lord bless you young man to have an open heart to learn what it is He wants you to learn every Sunday when you attend Church. However, this won’t happen if you keep a mindset that you “already know” everything there is to learn from Lehi’s family and other stories in the scriptures.
Gramps
