They Must Retain Their Brightness

One question we have to keep answering throughout our lives as disciples of the Savior is how we are going to study the scriptures.  How do we keep the words and doctrines and invitations of the scriptures fresh in our minds and hearts when they have become so familiar after reading them numerous times?  Should we read chronologically or by topic or some other way?  Is randomly picking a chapter (a feature that my wife suggests would be well received in the gospel library app) a valid approach that can still bring the Spirit to us?  Which books—out of the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, and the Doctrine and Covenants—should we be studying at any given time?  How can we receive our own new personal revelation through the study of the scriptures even if the words themselves feel so common to us after all the lessons in church and time spent at home reading them?      

                I believe that Alma 37 is a powerful chapter that helps us to answer these questions.  Alma spoke to his son Helaman about the brass plates and the records that were being kept among the Nephites, and he suggested a small and simple miracle that would take place with regards to these plates: “If they are kept they must retain their brightness; yea, and they will retain their brightness; yea, and also shall all the plates which do contain that which is holy writ” (Alma 37:5).  He was saying that the plates of metal, though they should normally physically dim and wear out over time, would not do so but would stay readable and keep their brightness—they would miraculously never wear out.  That is a surely a symbolic key for us in our scripture study as well; we must keep them such that they remain bright and fresh and that they are continually new before our eyes.  If they become so commonplace that they are just another book, then we need a small and simple miracle to transform them before our own eyes.  This small thing, that the scriptures remain bright before us and that they always speak to us no matter how much time we have already spent in them, is how the Lord will “bring about his great and eternal purposes” and how we will be “brought to the knowledge of [our] God unto the salvation of [our] souls” (Alma 37:5-8). 

                So how do we then keep them continually bright before us so that the Lord can use them to speak to us?  I believe one key is found in the parenthetical expression in verse 16 of this chapter.  Alma said to Helaman as he gave his son instructions about keeping the record, “for you must appeal unto the Lord for all things whatsoever ye must do with them.”  He was of course talking about how Helaman should take care of and protect the physical plates that he had, but surely this comment can be applied directly to us.  We must “appeal unto the Lord” to know exactly how we should be studying the scriptures.  Prayer must be a guiding part of our study of the scriptures to lead us to where the Lord would teach us from.  We should seek Him in prayer to know what it is He would have us know, what it is that He would have us read and study and ponder.  This is another small and simple thing that can make all the difference in our time in the words of the Lord. 

                Another key to keeping the scriptures bright before our hearts and minds is what Alma said at the very beginning of this chapter to Helaman.  He said, “And I also command you that ye keep a record of this people, according as I have done, upon the plates of Nephi, and keep all these things sacred which I have kept, even as I have kept them; for it is for a wise purpose that they are kept” (v2).  The commandment to Helaman was to write, to keep the record for himself, and to trust that it would indeed be for a wise purpose.  There is no way that Helaman could have foreseen, for example, that over two millennia after he was writing that disciples of the Savior would be inspired by his account he wrote of the 2000 stripling warriors.  And yet we have that incredible story—in which Helaman himself played such a key role—because Helaman wrote it down and Mormon then abridged it for us in the Book of Mormon.  Surely the invitation that was given to Helaman has value for us as well.  The Church has emphasized the importance of us writing down our own record of our thoughts and feelings and testimonies in the new Come, Follow Me program that starts out every chapter with the invitation “RECORD YOUR IMPRESSIONS.”  Writing down our impressions and reflexions can indeed keep the scriptures bright before us as we ponder them deeply and search for ways that they apply to us in our own lives. 

                In the end there is no silver bullet for how to make our scripture study effective and powerful.  We have to come to the words of the Lord each day with fresh eyes, with a prayer in our heart to guide us, and with the hope that the words can remain “bright” before us and that we can again, for another day, be “brought to the knowledge of [our] God” through their words.