As Mormons (or members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), we value the word of God. The scriptures have great meaning for us. As stated in one of our Articles of Faith:
We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of god (Article of Faith 1:9).
I love the scriptures. They contain the word of God ; I want to study them deeply and have them impact my daily walk in life.
As a result, I’m always looking for various approaches to my scripture study that can make a difference in the depth of that study. I have much to learn and that’s why I want to gain as much as possible from reading the word of God.
In past blogs I’ve shared some of the scripture study techniques I’ve learned that have made a difference in my own scripture study. These aren’t necessarily, though, my own techniques. They’re approaches I’ve learned through the years, while serving as a missionary or attending church and/or learning from others.
Many approaches I’ve shared here in these blogs have also been repeated as suggestions contained in the Mormon church’s helpful resources for students in seminary.
The Mormon church has established seminary classes for high school students to help them round out their day by studying not just geography, history, math, etc. Seminary classes allow high school students to also study the word of God on a daily basis, drawing closer to Him as a result. What a great thing for kids, don’t you think?
Those scripture study guides for the seminary students are available online! Isn’t that amazing? And speaking of scripture study techniques, a great one taught within the pages of those manuals is to ask questions while you’re studying the scriptures.
Just as a detective asks many questions to help him or her get to the heart of the mystery, we too as students of the scriptures can ask questions. Questions like “Why did the Lord include this teaching?” “Why did the prophet feel he needed to teach this, this way?” “What is similar in this story to my own life?”
Additional questions might be “What are the most important points I can take from this experience” and “Where does the prophet gain his strength in this situation?”
Thus, as we read (for example) in the Bible about Daniel in the lion’s den, asking questions like the ones above (and more) can help us gain so much more from the scripture experience.
Yes, indeed, asking questions helps us to put ourselves more fully into the scripture stories, thereby making the lessons more potent and potentially life changing.
If you’d like to try it, feel free to visit the online scriptures today!
