Follow Him: A Come, Follow Me Podcast - We Are Responsible for Our Own Learning Part 1 • Dr. Steven C. Harper • Dec. 26 - Jan. 1

Episode Date: December 21, 2022

How much personal effort is required to become a disciple? Dr. Steven C. Harper explores how to become a seeker by study and faith and how this strengthens each disciple of Jesus Christ.Please rate and review the podcast!Show Notes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.coApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/follow-him-a-come-follow-me-podcast/id1545433056Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/15G9TTz8yLp0dQyEcBQ8BYThanks to the follow HIM team:Shannon Sorensen: Executive Producer, SponsorDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: Marketing, SponsorLisa Spice: Client Relations, Editor, Show NotesJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish TranscriptsIgor Willians: Portuguese Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com

Welcome to Follow Him, a weekly podcast dedicated to helping individuals and families with their Come Follow Me study. I'm Hank Smith and I'm John by the way. We love to learn, we love to laugh, we want to learn and laugh with you. As together we follow him. Hello my friends, welcome to another episode of Follow Him. It is a new season here at Follow Him. We are studying the new testament. My name is Hank Smith. I am here with my responsible cohost, John, by the way, I've never been called that before. You are very responsible. I've read the heading for this week's lesson. We are responsible for our own learning. And I thought, John's very responsible. You are, you're a responsible guy.

Well, I like what Stephen Covey says. Responsibility means able to respond. We have agency, we can respond to it like that. I like that. You're a good responder. You've been a good responder for the last two years. You believe we've been doing this for two years now. Here we are starting a new book of scripture, pretty exciting.

So happy to be here. It's just a blessing. So fun. I was looking at the lesson today, John. I wanted to get someone who is not only a good educator, but also a good learner. So I found both a scholar and a seeker to join us today. Can you tell everyone who's with us?

The listeners who have tuned in before, well, remember here's Dr. Steven Harper. He's been here before, especially in our Dr. and Covenants here. We're thrilled to have him back. One of the books I used a lot a couple of years ago is making sense of the Dr. and Covenants and it was so helpful in giving kind of a back story

for every section. It was super helpful and he's been involved with the Saints books and Joseph Smith papers and revelations in context, all of those. So let me just read a short bio because many of our listeners will remember Steve Stevens. He Harper is an associate professor of church history and doctorate at Brighamming University and one of the editors of the Joseph Smith papers after serving a mission in Canada and graduating from BYU, he earned a PhD in an early American history from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Topped for two years on the faculty of BYU Hawaii. Brother Harper has received several fellowships and awards for his scholarship

and writing, including the T. Edgar Lion and 180 Brooks awards from the Mormon History Association. He and his wife Jennifer Seabring, are the parents of five children. We're so glad to have you. Welcome to follow him. Thanks very much. Glad to be with you. We're excited to have you. Where did you first hear the idea of a seeker?

That's something that I learned from you was be a seeker. Can you remember where you first heard that idea? It's in Dr. Kohn's Section 88. That shows you what kind of reader I am. If I, the first I heard it was for me. Yeah, you know the same scripture I'm talking about. Seek out of the best books, seek learning by studying also by faith.

Three times in the 100 words or so, the Lord commands us to seek. And he tells us how to seek, where to seek, why to seek, what to seek. So I first wrote about that or put that in words a long time ago in a book for saints about the first vision, learning to seek the truth of the first vision and stop assuming things about it. So I contrasted hundreds of times or well over a hundred times, the scriptures command us to seek in one way or another

They never command is to assume Assume out of the best books. There's just no place in gospel yearning and learning for lazy Intellectual approach to it or lazy spiritual approach We sometimes pick an either or learning the gospel spiritual not intellectual, but all of the things that the gospel actually says make it an alliance between your God-given intellect and your God-given spiritual capacities. Think of Roni Ten, we sometimes boil that down to just pray about it. That's not what it says at all. It says read, remember, ponder, these brain work things along with sincere heart, faith and Christ, real intent.

And if we don't combine the spiritual and the intellectual work, then we don't have the guarantee of coming to know. Some people think you only know by your rational processes or you only know by the spirit, the gospel teaches us that we know by a combination of those ways of knowing. Yeah. I think that's really important as we study the gospel or anything else. The Lord says, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart and seek learning by study and also by faith. And Steve, tell us the title of that book. I was turning around us the title of that book. I was turning around because I know I have it.

It was wonderful on it. I think it was one of your last chapters was about becoming a seeker. What was the Joseph Smith first vision book called? I think it's just called Joseph Smith's first vision, a guide to the historical accounts. It's all like 14 copies. We're gonna raise that to 15 today,

but I think that it was wonderful to people to know, yeah, there are different accounts. And we can learn things from all of them. And you did a great job in there kind of explaining, here they are. And let's look at them and see what we can learn. And I really enjoyed that. Some of the things that he said about, I thought the forest would be consumed. And I think my favorite thought was, my soul was filled with love. And for many days, I could rejoice, which kind of tells you maybe what other prophets have felt when they

saw God that same kind of enveloped with love like that. I like to think about that too, John. I was thinking just this morning that the first revealed words of the restoration or Joseph, my son, license are forgiven. The restoration begins with repentance and culminates in redemption, ends in redemption for us and our whole human family who's interested in redemption. That's good news. Yeah, that is the good news. In his book, Seekers Wanted, Tony Sweat, our good friend, actually quotes you, Steve Harper. He says,

Church History and Doctrine Scholar Steve and Harper gave a BYU Women's Conference address called Seekers Wanted, in which he said, Seeking is a long, patient, persistent process. Seeking is hard work. It is not for the weak will or faint of heart nor for the intellectually or spiritually lazy,

but it will sustain faith in a world intent on destroying it. Seekers are wanted in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The first converts were all seekers. Today's converts are seekers. We are all commanded to be seekers. And then Tony adds, let us seek. Seekers don't run away. Seekers don't put their head in the sand.

Seekers face the reality that is in front of them, and desire to be fully aligned with God. Honest seekers are wanted, expected, and in the end always rewarded. Great book and a great friend there in in Tony. Anybody who knows me knows I love that book, and I think he was inspired by you there, Steve. Steve, how do you want to take on this week's lesson? We don't really have a text for the lesson. The title is called, we are responsible for our own learning and in the heading it says the purpose of the scriptures is help you come into Christ to become more deeply converted to his gospel. And then let me read the first paragraph. What's Seek ye? Jesus asked the disciples of John the Baptist.

You might ask yourself the same question for what you will find in the new testament this year. Well, greatly depend on what you seek. Seek and you shall find is the Savior's promise. So Steve, how do you want to go about this lesson today? One way to think about it is we've already been discussing the texts for this. These aren't ideas that we're imposing on the scriptures. These things we're talking about are principles of the scriptures. on the scriptures, these things we're talking about are principles of the scriptures. These are the ways the Lord has revealed to us to seek and come to learn. The most important things there are to learn. There are lots of kinds of knowledge and they're not all equally valuable.

Here we're talking about how should we seek the most important kinds of knowledge or truth. There are things about when your flight is going to leave. And so for that's a piece of truth, it's knowledge, but it's not important beyond a simple means to an end. But whether there's a God, whether God is loving, whether God has a son, Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, crucified for the sins of the world, risen from the dead, a plan of redemption. Those are things that are absolutely vital and we can only come to know them by seeking diligently out of the best books, by study and by faith. So we want to give our best efforts and our most sustained learning to the most important truths. Yeah, I've always loved the title of the program

that we are modeling here, come follow me. And the idea is move, seek. And he doesn't say sit where you are and listen to me. He said, come follow me. It takes, like you said, our best efforts. We might think about that question, Jesus asked, John's followers, what? Seek ye, and then the very best answer to it is the Book of Mormon command, seek this Jesus.

So what are we seeking? We're seeking Christ. I was impressed a few weeks ago, I got a shipment of the new booklets for teachers, gospel teachers for the coming year, and just cracked it open, glanced at it for a few minutes. And one of the first headings in it was something like whatever else you're teaching, teach Jesus Christ.

And I thought that was a really great idea. I think it's nice in our house sometimes when I don't have a lesson ready, I usually just teach repentance. Something about repentance. My kids are like, really? Again, we're gonna talk about repentance again. I'm like, yeah, yeah, that's it. But it's my go-to move.

If I don't have something, we teach a lesson on repentance. Can't go wrong. I love that focus and the new children and youth program that they've kind of tied Luke 252 to it a little bit But I've heard brother Brad Wilcox say that if you don't know what the program is it's to become like the savior in every area of your life Which is kind of a new way of restating the Jesus increased to wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man But the focus is on Christ like you just said Steve So that's the new teaching in the Savior's way. That's the revised and updated one, right?

Yeah, it's a little booklet Steve What do you think that looks like as a teacher? We have a lot of teachers who listened to our podcast What do you think that looks like for them? What came to your mind? That's a great question. I've been thinking about it. I don't necessarily have sort of the definitive answer, but I'm inspired by it. I've been thinking about even for the last couple of weeks of the semester, how, if I'm teaching about the new and everlasting covenant of marriage or blacks and priesthood and so forth, how could I be teaching about Jesus Christ? So I'll give you an example of that. We spent a couple lessons in class on a priesthood race temple, and we started with 2nd

Nephi 26, and noted that from the very beginning, Jesus invites all to come to him. He denies none who do. Black, white, bon, free male, female, Jew, and Gentile. All are alike unto God. So we started with the Christ-centered focus and we kept it the whole way through. And I was really moved by it and it made everything better, made the teaching

more powerful, made the learning more relevant. And I could tell it and the students could tell it. That is by keeping it Christ-centered all the way through, it made a big difference. We were focused on detruth, the way, the life, and it was a key to a successful learning experience. Right after those verses in 2nd Nephi 26th, he doeth not anything, say, be for the benefit of the world, and it gives example after example. Has he commanded any to leave the synagogue? Has he have commanded any not to partake of his salvation? And then right after that, he gives this idea, he's commanded that there

shall be no priest crafts and priest crafts are that men set themselves up for light. And I had a wonderful professor. You guys remember Joseph Fielding Mokonky? He one time showed us a picture of an eclipse and he said, what's happening? We all said the moon's in front of the sun and he said, okay, what happens then? When someone or something gets in front of the sun,

S-O-N, and we all kind of went, oh, and he said, don't ever become a spiritual eclipse. That was a good day. Don't eclipse the light and get in the way. And I think that's kind of what you're saying. That's an occupational hazard, isn't it? Whether you're a professional gospel teacher or a Sunday school teacher, it's so tempting

and intoxicating to be impressed with your own self. And forget that your meager means tempting and intoxicating to be impressed with your own self and Forget that you're a meager means to the end of pointing people to Christ So it's a dangerous thing and I love John the Baptist He must increase I must decrease put that with that spiritually clips idea of John the Baptist just Knowing exactly that he needed to point people to Christ. That can be a challenge when you're teaching some topics to tie those to Christ, but there's such rewards in trying to do that. And what does the law of tithing have to do with Christ? And finding a way to bring those together is really helpful for the learner, I think, for all of us. I like what you said on your discussion about race in the priesthood.

You centered it on Christ's love and stayed there. I think there's great power in any lesson if we begin and end with the Lord's love. I sure do too. My mind's drawn to passages of scripture where the Savior himself models this for us, where he teaches of himself. And I love especially one in doctrine of covenant section 18, where he does this in an understated way. Jesus does all kinds of ways of teaching and testifying about himself, but one of the ones that is most memorable is where he says, remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God. It's about 1810 or so.

And then in the next few verses, he does what I think of as an extremely understated way of making a point. As you know, one of the ways you can emphasize a point is to dramatically understate it. So here he's going to teach us what the atonement is all about. And he says, behold, the Lord your Redeemer suffered death in the flesh. He suffered the pain of all that all might repent and come unto him. And great is his joy in the soul of repentance. He switches to

a sort of third person voice. He doesn't pound his chest and say, I did this for you. Now, sometimes he does that, and that's powerful too. But in this particular passage, he says, the Lord your Redeemer suffered death and the flesh. He suffered the pain of all so that all might repent and come unto him. And great is his joy in the soul of the repentance. He's here teaching us what verse 10 means. What is the worth of a soul? And it turns out that the worth of a soul is one infinite atonement of the only begotten Son of God.

And that price is willingly joyfully paid, in fact, because it enables repentance and repentance brings joy. Repentance brings joy to the repentor and it brings joy to the Savior. And the next lesson of course then is, so we ought to help people repent. We ought to repent ourselves. We ought to help people repent. That's one example of a Christ-centered lesson by Christ Himself. And of course the Scriptures are full of those, and we could look toward the New Testament that we're going to study. We could find all kinds of examples of that kind of thing. Both in Word and

indeed, we could think about how the Gospels are constructed in ways that emphasize Christ. Each of the four Gospels, constructed in ways that emphasize Christ. Each of the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, of course, is Christ centered. They are the stories of his life. But each of the Gospels writers has their own version of his life. That's not a problem. That's a wonderful thing to do.

It's like being able to turn a spectacular diamond or four different ways and see the beauty and power and truth of it in different ways or facets. So we might think about how Matthew and Mark and Luke and John feature Christ, how they give him to us. We could talk about that if you want. Yeah, let's absolutely do it. What we've been talking about reminds me of a story told by Elsy Townmage Brandley. She says a party of geologists crossing a loose shale deposit on a steep incline realized that the shale was slipping. Most of the party reached the opposite side of the hills in safety, but one bringing up the rear saw that the sliding rock was carrying him in

its glacier-like grip toward a declivity which might mean death. Looking ahead, he saw that the sliding rock was carrying him in its glacier-like grip toward a declivity which might mean death. Looking ahead, he saw that in his path a trunk of an old tree and recognized there's a chance for safety. Reaching the stump, grasping it and clinging grimly, he was able to hold on while the entire deposit of the loose shale passed. His knowledge of the stability of a tree to remain firmly rooted in spite of shifting surface rock gave him assurance he could face a parent disaster clinging to that which was thus rooted. I think our lessons can be rooted like that Steve as we send our lessons on the savior our lessons can be more rooted when there are the loose shale of our lessons are passing by.

Yeah well said. Tell us more about are passing by. Yeah, well said. Tell us more about Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, how do you see them focusing in on Christ differently? Well, this is a cool subject to talk about. Let me preface it by saying, I am no expert at this, but of course, that's sort of the point here. We've got a church of lay later these saints who are all going to study the new testament together, seek it together, and

we don't have to be experts. One sort of thing we could talk about here is how Joseph Smith learned to read the Bible. Let's lay out a few things about the Gospels and the New Testament and then talk about how Joseph Smith learned to read them and the rest of the scriptures. Matthew is a book, it's the first one of the gospels to appear. Scholars think it's probably not the first one to be written. Probably Mark is the first of the gospels to be written. But Matthew seems to be focused on helping readers understand that carpenter from Nazareth is indeed the Messiah that they've been waiting for. So you might think about writing a gospel as a project with a purpose to it, and you might even

think about it as a problem solver. What problem is it that the gospel of Matthew has to solve? that the gospel of Matthew has to solve. And one way to think about that is, you have the problem of helping a Jewish audience who's anticipating a capital M Messiah to deliver them from oppression. And now you're trying to convince them that that person is a carpenter from a back water place. Yeah. It's not what they'd expected. Matthew builds his case

for Jesus being that Messiah. And one way he does it, as you know, is to feature prominent prophecies from the Jewish scriptures, from the Hebrew Bible of the coming Messiah, and then show how Jesus from the Hebrew Bible of the coming Messiah, and then show how Jesus fulfills those. He is the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy of Emmanuel. He's the fulfillment of various prophecies from the Old Testament. He, even in the genealogy that he gives us for Jesus, has this way of signaling that Jesus is the fulfillment

of the King that will sit on David's throne forever. He's the descendant of Abraham. And that's different from what Luke's up to. Luke has a project that looks like it might be to convince the world that Jesus is the Christ. Gentiles, Luke seems to pay a lot more attention to a Gentile audience and what their expectations and needs are. His Jesus is the Senate of Adam and fulfills wider sort of scope of a son of God. Luke's the one who features the birth story, the nativity story for us.

Luke pays a lot more attention to women and how women fit in the ministry of Jesus and how Jesus ministers to a woman that begins with Mary herself. Mark's gospel is fast moving and it seems designed to sort of personify or illustrate how we can be blind at the very same moment that we're walking with Jesus, right? We can be his disciples and not get it. And Mark's Gospel, Jesus has to tell them in flat-out terms what to anticipate, but in the first half of it, it's like

he's veiling who he is. He doesn't want anybody to know. And then at the point where he's physically farthest from Jerusalem, he starts a journey to Jerusalem and to the cross. And it's like readers go on that with him. Readers become his disciples. And as they make that geographical move toward the cross, they also become more and more aware of what the cross means. Halfway through the book,

the disciples are scratching their head and not getting who Jesus is or understanding what he's about. And then the Mark and secret, as it's sometimes called, the person and work of Christ, becomes clear as he goes to the cross and performs the sacrifice. John's gospel is to unabashedly declare that Jesus is the Son of God. He tells us that in the end, but he tells us that right from the beginning. Jesus was with God, Jesus is God, that I am. You remember the God of Israel and declares to Moses I am.

That is the God we meet in the gospel of John. Think of how many times in the gospel of John, you hear that declaration. I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the resurrection in the life. Over and over, we learn what he is, where we might in some other gospels find a Jesus who is human, or at least partly so, and John's gospel, the emphasis is on the divinity of Jesus from the first words to the last. In the beginning. Yeah, sometimes we harmonize the gospels. We talk about the seven things Jesus said on the cross and so forth.

And there's some value to that. But I would like to invite folks this coming years. I studied a new testament to try also to appreciate what each gospel has to teach me about Jesus on its own terms. What is Mark doing? And what can I learn from him? What is Matthew? Luke? What is Mark doing and what can I learn from him? What is Matthew Luke? What is John doing? Why did John think I we need another version of this? He's probably the last one to write. He probably knows what the others have written and He may very well think I have a unique perspective on this. I Can tell a story that has not been told before Show you a sight of the diamond you haven't seen. And we can profit from approaching the scriptures. We might think, oh, this is the same old story I've read before, but it is not.

There's value to studying all of them on their own terms. The point about studying the Bible like Joseph Smith did is to say, studying the Bible like Joseph Smith did is to say, every member of the church today almost is as well educated in their beginning of their approach to the Bible as Joseph Smith was. If you've been instructed merely as Joseph put in the ground rules of reading, writing, and arithmetic, then you have as much education as he did when he began to read the Bible. And what Joseph shows us is a voracious appetite for learning for reading the Bible. It's a complicated book. You guys might have heard me tell a story of how I sort of dropped out of biblical

studies when it got too hard. And that's not the example for people to follow. Joseph Smith's a better example because he never had a formal class in Bible study. He just decided that he was going to turn to the Bible. His parents taught him it was the repository of sacred truths and he trusted that and he read it. He famously got frustrated by it, trying to settle the question by an appeal to the Bible was difficult because the professors, the Bible of Fissionados, just confused him with their various readings of it and interpretations of it. So he stuck to the Bible itself. He read it for himself. He let God be his main guide to the Bible. If he lacked wisdom, he asked God and God revealed the answers.

But I want to emphasize as much as that's the case that Joseph did not give up on turning to academic resources to learn the Scripture. This is what I mean by academic resources to learn the Scripture. This is what I mean by learning to read the Bible the way Joseph Smith did is really instructive. He learned to seek and receive revelation about what the Scriptures meant. Lots of the sections of the doctrine of covenants are answers to his questions about

what does this passage of the Bible mean, including, as you know, things like the vision of the heavenly glories in section 76, but at the same time Joseph is doing that, he is doing everything he can to get tools, intellectual, academic tools that will help him be a better Bible reader. He studies Hebrew, he studies some Greek when he can and he never masters these things. He never becomes a world expert. That's not the point. He just takes so seriously the need to learn the scriptures to take the word of God seriously that he works hard. He works really hard. He would probably tune in to

stuff like this, right? He would want to know what the experts say about what the scriptures mean. He would, he would devour all of the useful tools he could get access to. And he wouldn't poo them. Sometimes we, we think we denigrate the sort of scholarly tools or academic tools because it's really just a spiritual way of knowing whereafter and and sometimes we do the opposite thing. We think, oh, I you can't trust any of that. Sunday school kind of stuff. I'm just going to read commentaries by experts and either of those extremes is not the way Joseph Smith learned to read the Bible. He sought diligently out of the best books by study and also by faith and taught us how along the way to be a real first-class student of the Bible. Wow, that's fantastic. I never thought about learning to read the Bible

the way Joseph Smith read the Bible. This is from President Ballard. Consult the works of a recognized, thoughtful, and faithful LDS scholars. We should ask those with appropriate academic training, experience, and expertise for help. Sounds like Joseph did that of his day. This is exactly what I do. President Ballard says, when I need an answer to my own questions that I cannot answer myself, my seek help from my brethren in the Cormorant of the Twelve and from others with expertise and fields of church history and Doctrine so don't be afraid of that scholarly side But I like what you said don't go on an extreme and say that you only accept the scholarly side and The spiritual side is not for you. How was Joseph Abel the balance both of those? It was just a trial and error

Do you think yeah some trial and error he first turns to the learned ministers of the day. Those are the people his culture presents to him to learn from. And he tries that. He's very diligent about it. But what that leads to is just a variety of opinions. He realizes that they can't all be right about the way they're interpreting the Bible. So he gets a healthy respect early on for these people are sincere and they've studied the scriptures, but they can't help me solve the ultimate problems. I need revelation from God to know for sure

that God is there, that he loves me, that Jesus Christ is his Son, and that salvation is in Christ, and what's the right way to access that salvation? Joseph needs and learns that by direct revelation. But instead of abandoning, then a diligent study of the sacred texts from the past and consulting of resources that can help him understand it better. He throws himself into that work instead of saying, well, I've talked to God in angels. I don't need the scriptures anymore. I don't need a book to help me understand the Hebrew anymore. He dives into that. Now, notice

folks, what does President Nelson do? How does he study the scriptures? It's not uncommon for him to say, hey, I've learned this about what the Hebrew says, and I consulted some Hebrew scholars, and they taught me what the meaning of Israel is. I mean, in other words, to say, learn to read the Bible the way Joseph Smith did is also to say, learn to read the Bible the way President Nelson does. Just yesterday yesterday I was teaching in the book of John where Jesus is asking Peter, love us, Thammeh, feed my sheep. And there's a long quotation from President Nelson

about the different words he used for sheep, meaning lambs and mature lambs and mature sheep and they were different. And there was President Nelson saying, here's what this is in Greek and everything. And so yeah, he's exactly the whole thing about let God prevail was looking at the word Israel and the Hebrew meaning of it, which wonderful thing that was. If Israel or those who are willing to let God prevail, it's just a beautiful way to think of who we're trying to be.

That talk has changed all of our lives. And the first premise of that talk is I learned what Israel means from the diligence study the scriptures, including consulting experts on the language of the Old Testament. I feel strongly about this point. I started my career wanting to become a great Bible scholar. I got into biblical Hebrew. I got quite discouraged along the way because it is daunting. The Bible is a daunting book, daunting collection of complex books. And you can spend your whole life at it and not, you know, I thought I'm going to

devote a long weekend to this really diligently and become a great Bible expert. That's not just not happening. So I've learned by sat experience that we need to stick to it. You're not sort of born a great student of the scriptures. You decide you become responsible for your own learning and you decide I'm going to learn to read the scripture so I'm going to be diligent about it. I'm going to be persistent about it. I'm going to not give up when I don't understand a complicated text that's ancient and not my not my culture, not my language, but I'm going to keep at it. I'm going to consult people who can

help me understand it and I'm going to work hard at it until I got it and if we'll do that prayerfully and diligently with the spirit and the intellect it will pay big The scriptures are inexhaustibly interesting and I sometimes Think that the scriptures aren't boring when people say the scriptures are boring. It's because they're boring Or I'm boring. It's not because the scriptures are boring, it's because they're boring, or I'm boring. It's not because the scriptures are boring. In other words, we sometimes quit. We're not imaginative enough or hard working enough at it

to see what power and interest that's really there. The come follow me, manual says, perhaps you know people who never seem to lose their faith. No matter what happens in their lives, they may remind you of the five wise virgins in the Savior's parable in Matthew 25. And then this statement, what you may not see are their diligent efforts to strengthen their testimonies of the truth. I think people are surprised to find out when they read the life of Joseph Smith, how diligent he is in learning, but even leading up to the first vision,

this wasn't a couple of days of thought. He said he started when he was 12. Yeah, I meet folks as you do who say, I had this question and I got on Google and I spent two days learning everything about it. And I think, man, I've spent 20 years reading that stuff and I don't know everything about it. We live in a time where we are under the illusion that you can know something really deeply

and powerfully by spending 15 minutes on an internet browser looking at it. It's not the case. That's not what it means to be responsible for our own learning. I'll Google it myself. It sounds like kind of the same spirit in President Nelson recently saying be in charge of your own testimony. I'm not asking my religion teacher to give me a Testimony. I'm not asking my sonny school teacher, my bishop, my Chlorim leader, my relief society President or I'm not asking that I am in charge of my own testimony. I'm responsible for my own learning and

President Nelson's emphasis on you need to learn to hear him. All of that sounds like it's the same kind of idea to me. Yeah. I think our obligation is to help people have the hope that they can, indeed, do that, like you just said, John, and also to help them get the tools they need to do it well. But we can't do it for anybody. We cannot give anybody the knowledge or the conviction of the Spirit that they are entitled to and that they can have, but not for free. There's a great quote from Elder David A. Bednar in the manual. It says, we should not expect the church as an organization to teach or tell us everything we need to know, and

do to become devoted disciples and intervaluantly to the end. Rather, our personal responsibility is to learn what we should learn, to live as we know we should live and to become who the master would have us become. And our homes are the ultimate setting for learning, living and becoming. Let's talk about both of those. How can I take more personal responsibility for my own learning? And then how do I move that into my home? Well, it's a difference between being an active learner and a passive learner. This is some of the jargon we use as you know on campus. But an active learner is one who takes responsibility for their own learning.

They say, I'm going to learn everything about this. I don't mean to hold myself up here as a particularly great example of this. There's a lot of ways I've failed at it, but I'll tell you one way that I was inspired to do it and Has shaped my life and that is I took religion 341 That's the Joseph Smith and the restoration class. This got to be in the early 90s on campus to be why you took him Susan back in the 1900s and black. Yes exactly. I was absolutely intoxicated

with the history of the church. And I thought I have got to know everything she knows, and I have got to know how she knows it. I was not content to just let her tell it to me. I thought I have to know the sources of her knowledge. I have to read everything she's read, and you could not have kept me from doing it. I was going to do that and now I have, I've read the 1500 and 80 some odd pages of Joseph's journals, his letters, his revelation texts, in every

form we can find them as far back as we can find them. And I, you'd have to put on ESPN 24 hours a day in front of me to keep me from doing that just kidding that wouldn't even do it. I don't know what it is that makes us inclined to seek the truth relentlessly, seek the truth, but everybody's got to come to that for themselves. And for me, it's a mystery. I was thinking the other day, what are what are the motivators of life? What are the things I value most more than anything else, more than oxygen? And for me, I can't pick between truth and love. Those are the two things that I value more than anything. The love of my family and the truth.

And I don't care so much what the truth is, is that whatever it is, is the truth. I don't want to believe things that aren't true. I want to know the truth. To do that, we've got to go get it for ourselves. Some people might hear this and say, well, you believe a lot of things that aren't true or what about this fact of church history or what about that thing of church history? And they'd be missing my point.

I'm on a quest for ultimate truths. Does God live? What's the nature of God? Is Jesus Christ the Son of God? Did Jesus Christ restore the gospel to Joseph Smith? Does President Nelson his living prophet today as he hold the keys of the Holy Priest that restored by ministering angels. Those are ultimate, those are things of ultimate importance, and I must know whether they're true. And the scriptures are my primary vehicle for that. If the scriptures

are true, especially the restored scripture, Book of Mormon, doctrine, Covenant, Prologite, Price, if those are true, then I found my way to these other ultimate truths. And I am responsible for that quest. Nobody else is responsible for my quest to know the truth. And I don't want to let anybody else be responsible for it. And I don't expect anybody else to be responsible for it. and I don't expect anybody else to be responsible for it. Nobody can do it for me. We can give great gifts. We can give to our children the knowledge of these things.

At least that is we can tell them we know these things are true, but we cannot give them their own knowledge that these things are true. That has to be revealed to them So we can teach them how to go do that and we can quest with them while they do it But nobody can be responsible for anyone else's testimony ultimately or their knowledge of the truth. You know what you reminded me of when you said that you of the truth. You know what? You reminded me of when you said that you developed this hunger and thirst. Remind me of the Beatitude, blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness. And I voiced, thought it was fascinating that Jesus didn't just say blessed are the righteous.

But, and maybe there's lots of reasons for that. Technically none of us are, but he said blessed day that hunger and thirst after it. And that sounds like what you are describing. And as I've thought about hunger and thirst, it's a daily thing. You're not, I'm done being hungry for the rest of my life. You never get to that point, but it's a daily thing. And you're going to thirst again tomorrow. And it becomes like a way of life to keep learning instead of just, oh no, I studied that. I'm done. But you keep searching. And another thing I wanted to mention was this talk that Elder Lawrence Corbridge gave at BYU called Stand Forever. And he called him primary questions and secondary questions. And you listed

beautifully those primary questions. The real questions, is God live? Did he really talk to Joseph Smith? Are there really prophets? And when you can answer those, you can deal with all the other ones. Do you guys remember that, that talk? Oh, absolutely. We can link that in our show notes, John. Yeah. It does not work to go the opposite direction to try to get it primary questions through secondary questions does not work. If I asked the question, did Joseph Smith ever make mistakes and expect to find out whether God lives because that it will not work. That's the wrong direction. Yeah. It's like trying to stuff the goose through the beak, right? He's held her hands. That's all they're all in set.

The manual references Alma 32 often. I've been thinking about that. The word that comes up often in Alma 32, if you will nourish the word, nourish the tree as it begineth to grow by your faith and with your great diligence with your patience looking forward to the faith, the fruit thereof, it shall take root and behold it shall be a tree springing up unto everlasting life. And because of your diligence and your faith and your patience, with the word, enershing it that it may take root in you, behold by and by you shall pluck the fruit thereof. So if you think about how long it takes to go from a seed to a fruit,

is this is a long process of a lot of effort. And like you said, not a weekend read. Yeah. I've been thinking a lot about this. I was thinking quite a lot lately about my dad, my dad, passed away almost two years ago. And in his last several weeks of life I sort of sat by his bed when I ever I could and sometimes would hold his hand. He had these great big thick cow milking hands. Lumberjack. I grew up on a potato farm with the dairy herd and went to college and sort of always suggested me stay in school. So I'm a lot softer than he is in a lot of ways, but that work ethic is something that is precious. Every old generation worries about the kids these days and how they don't know how to work.

I don't want to be that guy, but there's something to be said for the fact that being responsible for your own learning of the gospel means putting in the work. If we're going to nourish that seed, if we're going to plant the word of God, the process of exercising faith in the word of God sounds like a lot of hard work from what you just reference there. Hank, nurturing a tree, planting it, any seed and getting it to grow, that's a lot of hard, hard work. And nobody should expect to reap the fruit of a rock solid abiding resilient faith if they don't put in the work. And in that same metaphor that Alma uses, it's so good. He says, well, what if it doesn't produce? Well, it's not because the seed was not good. It's a good seed.

It's because your ground is bare and you will not nourish the tree. And I asked my students, what's the difference between will not and cannot? You refuse to nourish the tree because of that, you'll never protect the fruit. But right now we hear quite a bit of, well, it's not true, there's no tree because I've been watching here and there's no tree. And we might say, well, you will not nourish it. Of course, there's no tree. There's not going to be a tree in that ground,

as if it's not cultivated and watered and nourished. Well, this part of the scripture is called an experiment upon the Word of God. Unless you follow the rules of that experiment, to a T, you can't expect the results that are predicted. You can't say, I didn't get the results from this experiment if you didn't do the experiment. If you didn't actually do the prescribed experiment. So that's a project that, you know, maybe we can focus on better ourselves and help others too.

It just doesn't work to say I didn't get the result if we didn't actually perform the experiment. I like to tell my students that if I have one worry about Gen Z, it's that you want Google speed answers to golden questions. And everything we've been talking about is seeking is a process and the first syllable of question is quest. You can ask a question of Siri or of Google in a matter of seconds, but a quest is defined as a long arduous search. And the first syllable of testimony is test.

And it could take a while and don't be trained by Google to be impatient because these golden questions take longer than Google questions. Yeah, folks should learn to be source critical. That means I don't just ask what do you know? I ask how do you know it? And I believe this, as I was saying a few minutes ago, this was part of my own awakening to seeking the most ultimate truths, it wasn't enough to know something. I had to know how I knew it. I had to know the source of that knowledge. And I don't think of myself as knowing a thing unless I can explain how I know that thing.

And being able to explain how we know a thing requires source criticism. It requires us to be metacognitive about where knowledge comes from, what knowledge is. So we have to be aware of our thought processes and aware of the nature of knowledge itself and of knowing itself. That's an important part of being responsible for our own learning. You can't, in other words, just take any source of face value or treat any source of knowledge as if it's equal. Eber Haugh was the newspaper editor in Painsville, Ohio. He has lots of things to say about the restoration, about whether Joseph Smith saw angels or translate the book more by the power of God. He has no knowledge. He doesn't know.

All he has is an opinion about what he thinks about Joseph Smith and Latter-day Saints. Well, Joseph Smith tells me that he was in his bedroom praying when an angel appeared and said he was sent from the presence of God. So Joseph Smith is a source of knowledge that is vastly superior to Eber Howe, and the question for me becomes, is Joseph Smith telling me the truth? Oh, I have to seek out of the source material that Joseph left me by study and by faith that process of reading that material,

like reading the Gospel of Mark, will tell me that this person is bearing witness of God's work in these ways. Once I have that knowledge, I still don't know whether that's true. I don't know whether the witness Mark gives of Christ is true, or the witness Joseph Smith gives of God calling him to translate the book more or less true. I can only know that by the power of the Holy Ghost. So if I'm only willing to go so far, if I'm not willing to trust knowledge that comes from God by the Holy Ghost. So if I'm only willing to go so far, if I'm not willing to trust knowledge that comes from God by the Holy Ghost, then I can't ultimately know. And people who are in that boat

sometimes tell others that they can't know either. You don't know. There is no Holy Ghost. You don't know anything by the Holy Ghost. That's the same as saying, because I don't know a thing, you don't know a thing. Yeah. Well, that's a person who doesn't know telling someone who does what they don't know. That doesn't work. I think the letter from, is it, hammer on, writes back to Captain Moroni and says, and we know not such a being, and neither do ye. Yeah.

If I don't know it, you can't know it either. And I think some of the other antichrist in the book, Mormon, use that same type of thing. Anyway, just remind me that. I love the duel between Alma and Korohor because Alma is as equal or like he, he doesn't fall for any of that. It's a office tree. And it's about that question, isn't it? It's about knowing Absolutely.

Folks can go to BWI studies.bWI.edu and read all kinds of fantastic studies of scripture and and church history and related gospel stuff. One of them is Joseph Spencer writing about What he thinks are the connections between these texts we've been talking about, Alma 30 and Alma 32. He thinks of Alma 32 as Alma's sort of development of his conversation with cohort. It's nice to read those together and see what connections there are. Wow. He always looked at that. So, how do you talk to somebody who says there is no God, that's Emma 30. And then, well, how do you talk to somebody who says there is a God, but he has elected us to be saved and everybody else not to be,

oh, okay, well, that's the Zoramites in Emma 32 through 34, 35. If you think of Alma composing what we have in Alma 32, having been through the experience of talking to Korohor. So Alma 32 has the benefit of Alma's experience of sort of dueling with Korohor. And so it's informed by that and has some maturity to it because of that. And he talks about it is light, it's discernible. And when you have tasted this light, which is the most interesting phrase, to taste light. But it's getting down to that argument, if how do you know? Well, there was something that was discernible about what happened when I tried the experiment.

And I tasted something, I felt something. My mind was in light, and maybe that's the light part, but that's a good point. He's talking about how do you know something with his ormites, right? That's right. It's epistemological to use the fancy philosophical word. It's about knowing, what do you know, how can you know? And the nature of knowing in the scriptures is not just by study, but also by faith. If there's not a component of revelation in it, then you don't know it, not in the ultimate sense of of knowledge. President Boykay Packard told of a story. He told it several times in general conference, I think.

And one time he told it like third person, and then another time he said, it was him. But I think the talk is called the candle of the Lord, kind of a classic talk about how we feel the spirit. But he mentioned getting on a plane. I think it was from Seattle to Spokane or something. And being alone, and nobody sitting next to him and kind of being relieved because he was really tired and wanted to close his eyes for a minute and somebody sat down next to him and and then asked for his newspaper and president Packer thought that'll keep him busy

He starts reading and he starts saying out loud things like awful and miserable and terrible and President Packer finally said, what's the matter? And this fellow passenger said, oh, these headlines, this is typical of of life and humanity and always it's pointless and worthless and everything in President Packer trying to cheer him up said, no, life's good and and somewhere in trying to cheer him up, he said, God lives. And this passenger said, well you don't know that. Nobody knows that. You can't know that. And President Packer said, no, I do.

I know that God lives. And he said, he introduced himself as a lawyer and an atheist. President Packer said, he said, okay, tell me how you know, implying if you're so smart, tell me how you know. And President Packer said, I said, the Holy Ghost has born witness to my soul. And the man said, I don't know what you're talking about. Kind of using some of our church language. And he said, I tried to explain. I now

found that words like inspiration and discernment were meaningless to him because they were outside of his experience. And president Packer actually said, I felt I had borne my testimony unwisely. And the guy said, see, you don't know, if you knew you'd be able to tell me exactly how you know. And President Packer prayed for help. And he got some. He said to the man, all knowledge is not conveyed in words alone. And then he got this idea. He said to the man, have you ever tasted salt? And he said, yes. And he said, well, when did you taste salt last? And he said, we had dinner a while ago. I tasted salt then. And President Bakker said, well, you just think, you know what salt tastes like. And he said, no, I know what salt tastes like.

Because well, as I know anything. And he said, if I gave you a cup of sugar and a cup of salt, could you tell the difference? And the man said, oh, now you're getting juvenile. And he said, Okay, assuming that I have never tasted salt, would you please explain to me in words exactly what salt tastes like? And just try that. And he said, Well, it's not sweet, it's not bitter. And he said, Now you're telling me what it isn't not what it is. And he said, my new friend finally admitted defeat in this little exercise and president Packard told him, I told you that I know what salt tastes like and you ridiculed that testimony and told me that if I did know, I'd be able to tell you exactly how I know. Well, spiritually speaking, I have tasted salt. And don't tell me that I haven't, because I have. President Packer thought I was so grateful.

I think he quoted, Prophet Joseph Smith's statement about revelation can be like pure intelligence coming into your mind that gave him that question to ask. But there is another way of learning that we're talking about today, of learning by his spirit. There is no doubt about it. And my mind, and we wish everybody could and would have that experience,

be able to dance for all kinds of reasons that I don't completely understand, or no, a lot of people feel like they can't or haven't felt that and had that experience. And I don't feel any expertise or desire in trying to explain to them what's the matter there is but I do want to hold open that invitation to keep at it, keep seeking. Seeking is an active thing to do. It's a long, what'd you say, Hank, persistent, patient, process, and it's not for the

faint of heart, it's not for the where it's a quest, and we're all on it. I have lots more questions than I have answers. I know a few things by the power of the Holy Ghost, and I cling to those things. They are the rocks of my faith, and there's a lot of things I don't yet know or understand and I'm questing for and I expect that's how it's supposed to be and how it is. We want to get to an end result like Jacob. Remember Jacob when he was faced by Cherim? He talked about Cherim laboring diligently that he might lead away the hearts of people and he did lead away many hearts and he was learned and he knew the language he said.

And he had hoped to shake me from the faith, but then he says notwithstanding the many revelations and the many things which I had seen concerning these things. For I truly had seen angels and they administered unto me. I had heard the voice of the Lord speaking unto me in very word from time to time Wherefore then it gets these five words I could not be shaken That's where we hope to get to that's where we want to get our children to to the point where they can say I have Learned for myself. That's what Joseph said to his mother. I Have learned for myself and he said I knew it. I knew that God knew it And I could not deny it.

Yeah. That's well said. When we sometimes think of Matur Joseph Smith, a 35 year old profitor, somebody who could deliver the sermon and the grove with all this knowledge, revelations, having read and reread the scriptures, we might miss or not remember that he starts out as a kid. He says at about age 12, when he starts to worry about ultimate questions,

the welfare of my immortal soul, and whether there is a God and whether redemption is through God in Christ, and he comes to know the answers to those questions by a combination of diligent study and He comes to know the answers to those questions by a combination of diligent study and yearning, seeking, receiving revelation. And he just continues on that quest for his whole life. And he comes home from the sacred grove according to his manuscript history and says, Mom, I have learned from myself that the testimony of James is true. That's not quite the way he puts it, but that's the gist of it. Anybody who lacks wisdom can ask God and receive. He learned that early, and then he continued to act on that knowledge.

One of the emphases that Elder Bednar has made in this instruction about taking responsibility for our own learning is that we have to act for ourselves. We can. We're empowered to do so by God and we must Act for ourselves and if unless we act We're not going to come to know Ultimate things and Joseph was a good example of not getting paralyzed. He felt paralyzed for a while How to act I did not. And unless I could get more knowledge in it, I then had I would never know. And he was not going to end

there. He's not going to ring his hands forever. He was going to act. So I decided to go to the woods. And of course, this kicks off the restoration. But Joseph comes home from the sacred grove, having seen the father and the son, not knowing everything, not even knowing that he would be a prophet. His life is an ongoing quest for. Sacred knowledge and we would miss understand. His life an example to us if we thought oh is easy for him is a kid when he saw God and you never had a question after that, never had a problem after that. Never had to, his problems got worse. The dilemmas he faced got worse and ultimately cost him his life, but like Nephi says that he knew in whom he had trusted, he'd learned how to quest for truth

and find his answers early and he never foresook that gospel way of seeking. That recipe works for me. I've never had a revelation as dramatic as Joseph's, but I've had a handful of revelations that are undeniable and for me unforgettable. But I've also learned that when I behave badly, the power of those revelations diminishes in my life, the memory of them, the influence of them diminishes, and it's not until I repent and get on track that that sharp and keen memory that holy ghost bringing all things to remembrance, whatsoever I've said unto you, just because you've had a testimony once doesn't mean you'll keep having it.

If you don't act in the way that that knowledge prescribes, we have knowledge from God and that inclines us to obey God, to keep us commandments, and to live in the light. And if we choose to live in the dark we'll have diminished capacity to access his spirit, access his love, his love for us section 95 says the doctrine comes won't and or quit but our ability to receive it to get it can be cut off by us. That's a dangerous thing but it but something that could be fixed to repentance. Please join us for part two of this podcast. you