E. Christofferson starts his talk from last conference by telling us the story of William Tyndale who's life was devoted to translating the Bible and making it available to the common man. What debt of gratitude we have to those who made it available and more to those who recorded the word of God. I love this paragraph from E. Christofferson which appears to be the crux of his talk:
"William Tyndale was not the first, nor the last, of those who in many countries and languages have sacrificed, even to the point of death, to bring the word of God out of obscurity. We owe them all a great debt of gratitude. We owe perhaps an even greater debt to those who faithfully recorded and preserved the word through the ages, often with painstaking labor and sacrifice -- Moses, Isaiah, Abraham, John, Paul, Nephi, Mormon, Joseph Smith, and many others. What did they know about the importance of scriptures that we also need to know? What did people in 16th-century England, who paid enormous sums of money and ran grave personal risk for access to a Bible, understand that we should also understand?"
Reading this paragraph reminds me of quite a few stories from the Book of Mormon and the life of Joseph Smith about how we came to have these scriptures. These stories are miraculous and took great faith to realize. Here are some off the top of my head and I hope to find some references for these incidents:
1. Nephi returns for the brass plates. (1 Ne 3-4)
2. Nephi is commanded to make more than one record. (1 Ne 9)
3. The Lord commands the people to write the words of Samuel the Lamanite
4. Ammoron hides the record and is then commanded to trust their location to a 10 year old boy.
5. Mormon and Moroni go to great lengths to protect the scriptures and to compile them.
6. Joseph Smith loses the 116 pages of manuscript (D&C 3 and 10)
7. The plates are hidden in a barrel of beans to avoid being found by those who would steal them. (JSH 1:60-61
Here are some additional points from E. Christofferson's talk that merit further study:
1. The scriptures enlarge our memory
a. The scriptures remind us of Heavenly Father and Jesus and our relationship to them.
b. The scriptures remind us of what we knew in the premortal experience
c. The scriptures remind us of events that are faith promoting from the past.
d. The scriptures remind us of what earlier generations have already learned.
e. In Tyndales day they did not have access to the Bible and were ignorant of it's teachings. In our day our scriptural illiteracy comes as a result of not reading the scriptures we have. "Consequently they [we] have forgotten things their grandparents knew"
2. The scriptures are the standard for distinguishing truth and error
a. The scriptures teach us that there is a moral standards that must be lived by all from our Heavenly Father so that he may bless us. And without which our there is no support for the institutions that support society.
b. The scriptures are our touchstone. A touchstone was a black siliceous stone (jasper or basalt) used to evaluate gold and silver by examining the streak left on it. I believe this means that we should be able to use the scriptures to help us evaluate if the things we are learning or are tempted with are approved by the scriptures and thus Heavenly Father, or not.
3. The scriptures bring us to Christ, our Redeemer
a. In the end the scriptures are to help us develop faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.
i. Faith that they exist
ii. Faith in their plan
iii. Faith in the atonement which animates their plan
iv. Faith to make the gospel our way of life
v. Faith to come to know Father and Jesus
b. "Faith comes by the witness of the Holy Spirit to our souls, spirit to spirit, as we hear or read the word of God."
Alma 37:8 - And now, it has hitherto been wisdom in God that these things should be preserved; for behold, they have enlarged the memory of this people, yea, and convinced many of the error of their ways, and brought them to the knowledge of their God unto the salvation of their souls.
The Invitation to Act: Study the scriptures carefully, deliberately. Ponder and pray over them. Scriptures are revelation, and they will bring added revelation.
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