What Are Your Ideas About Studying the Old Testament?

I reflected upon this question overnight after someone at Church asked me to give them some tips as they looked at the course of study in “Come, Follow Me” Curriculum for next year. My grand-daughter Katelyn, I noted, also asked this question recently.

Let me be so bold as to state that the Old Testament has seldom been the preferred book of scripture, for most Latter-day Saints. Only as it comes up in the four-year rotation do we dare to dip our toes in the seemingly murky waters, compared to the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price. Even the New Testament is more understandable and enjoyable — we tell ourselves.

I was blessed many years ago in the “old” Church to teach Gospel Doctrine for four consecutive years every Sunday. I know who was the most blessed of all, and it was me. The Old Testament is an acquired taste for sure. You can’t begin to love someone without that first kiss, and the scriptures are no different.

Grandfather Lee and Me on His Birthday

My first introduction to the Old Testament came back in the days when I was studying the scriptures topically, and my study of Zion led me directly into the ancient scriptures first to see if I could understand what the Lord had in mind in the establishment of Zion. My quest for knowledge became insatiable. I remember so well my Grandfather Harold B. Lee’s observation, when asked by one of his Brethren how he had become such a revered scriptorian. “There are no royal roads to learning,” he responded.

By that statement, he meant everyone had to search out the truth in the scriptures for themselves. His knowledge could not be automatically transmitted by birthright to any of his posterity, and I got that message very early in my life. It motivated me to begin my own quest that began with a contest (which I won in my junior year) in Seminary to read the Book of Mormon. In the mission field there was little emphasis in my labors to read and study the Old Testament. We were focused almost exclusively on the Book of Mormon. There again, I found myself winning the contests among the elders and sisters, all of which proved less than satisfactory, I can now admit.

I was well into our married lives before the Old Testament “hit my radar,” and I must affirm my topical study of Zion is what triggered me because of its foundational emphasis in the history of the world in setting the stage for the latter-day Zion and all the prophecies associated with it.

So my counsel, for what it’s worth, is to select a topic or topics that interest you most from Biblical history, and delve into the pages that way. Along your path, don’t be surprised if you chase down some rabbit holes you hadn’t expected to find. I know I did, and it all worked to my blessing and benefit.

Eventually, in my manual search for Zion (there were no computer search engines back in the day) I would move through the Old Testament page by page until I had highlighted every occurrence of the word “Zion” and then “ZION” and then “Sion” until I had satisfied my curiosity. I was just naïve to think such an exhaustive search would somehow qualify me as an expert in the subject of Zion. I certainly had no academic credentials to suggest that was true, just an overactive curiosity to drive me forward in the wee hours of the night and early morning.

My Finding in the New Testament

One quick example I have cited before. When I discovered the actual dimensions and the location of the city of the latter-day Zion in the scriptures, it was late one night and I was exhilarated beyond imagination. I cross-referenced the Old and New Testament with the Doctrine and Covenants and the Book of Mormon, and I was rewarded a hundredfold in my estimation. I showed my Dad, who excitedly took my findings to Elder Bruce R. McConkie who casually stated he had seen it “many years ago.”

My experiences in scripture study have confirmed the “no royal roads” observation of Grandfather Lee. Don’t EVER compare yourself against someone else. We are all in a different place, and now we have a whole Church synced and dialed in on the same study format each year. It took years of concentrated reorganization and recalibration at Church headquarters that started way back in the day of “Church Correlation” spearheaded by Grandfather Lee under President David O. McKay’s leadership to bring us to this point under the “Come, Follow Me” Curriculum. Gospel scholarship is a vast ocean upon which we each launch our little dinghy and hope to stay afloat for as long as we are able. Don’t be discouraged, and press forward through the Old Testament this year with the enthusiasm of new discoveries you haven’t even considered before. You will be rewarded beyond your wildest imaginings.

My Christmas Angels

I testify to all my posterity, growing in number now each year, that when we put forth our best efforts, the Lord blesses us by multiplying and magnifying our talents. It is a lifetime quest, and I’m still on the journey with you. He blesses us exponentially.

Someday . . .

On another topic, I had a phone call from my son Mike this morning. He’s escaped from the confines of his home chasing deer who are running a few miles from his home for more pictures. He had a total hip replacement recently, and we discussed being careful and wise in his post-surgery exertions. Then he reminded me that tomorrow is our infant daughter Adrienne’s death date anniversary, December 9th, 1992. Thirty-three years ago!! Seems impossible to me now. Somebody check that math! We had her in mortality for a short 49 days, seven weeks of seven days, and then she was escorted home to her spirit-world home.

Now, I think of all those who are with her there, and that leads me to think about my own mortality. I’ve outlived most of my progenitors now, and I am routinely drawn to my thoughts about all of them these days. How much more time will I need to prepare myself for their company? 

I don’t know the answer to that question, but what I do know for sure, Katelyn, is that the Old Testament characters we will be reading about this coming year lived VERY LONG LIVES on this earth. We can learn from their experiences, I am certain.

Understanding Who We Are (and WHOSE We Are)

This morning we had an unusual Sabbath Day, and I described it in an e-mail to our children and grandchildren:

It doesn't happen often, but today we awoke to blizzard-like conditions at the Ranch. The wind had blown so hard during the night Mom had trouble sleeping. (I didn't). The snow was blowing and drifting to a point the road was indistinguishable. I estimated the drifts were two feet deep in some places. It's still snowing and our plow guy won't get here until this afternoon when it stops. So we stayed home and taught one another. We had a priesthood/Relief Society lesson, then a Sunday School lesson. 

President Harold B. Lee

Maybe you wouldn't know it unless a Sunday School teacher showed it to you, but today's Old Testament Sunday School lesson featured a video snippet from Grandfather Lee's opening sermon in the Tabernacle on October 5, 1973. He reminded us our station in mortality comes to us as a reward for our faithfulness in the pre-existence, a condition to which we were foreordained. And may I hasten to add, I believe "the noble and great ones" are the faithful sons and daughters who have embraced the covenants, NOT exclusively the leaders of the Church, as we are sometimes taught. We are foreordained to be parents in the new and everlasting covenant of marriage, united with our posterity in that covenant. Grandfather concluded with these words that might be as real and timely today as they were when he uttered them:

It was George Bernard Shaw who said, “If we all realized that we were the children of one father, we would stop shouting at each other as much as we do.”

Now, as I come to the closing of this address, I trust that I might have given to you and others who have not yet listened to such counsel, something to stimulate some sober thinking as to who you are and from whence you came; and, in so doing, that I may have stirred up within your soul the determination to begin now to show an increased self-respect and reverence for the temple of God, your human body, wherein dwells a heavenly spirit. I would charge you to say again and again to yourselves, as the Primary organization has taught the children to sing “I am a [son or a daughter] of God” and by so doing, begin today to live closer to those ideals which will make your life happier and more fruitful because of an awakened realization of who you are.

This talk was his opening address at his final General Conference in October, 1973. Two and a half months later he was dead on December 26th. When we come to love ourselves for who we are (and WHOSE we are) - foreordained sons and daughters of God - EVERYTHING changes - how we view ourselves, how we treat others we love around us, and how we treat total strangers. 

His message uplifted us this morning as Mom and I studied and taught one another. Hopefully, you have all had a similar experience today.

Love and blessings,

Dad