Searching the Scriptures

President Packer said at a new mission president seminar, “If you visit the scriptures only in time of emergency, you may miss the very verse that will tell you plainly what to do against a very serious challenge.  Your guide as to handling problems of discipline is found in the revelations. That is our book of principles and our book of law.”  That idea reminds me of a thought about the scriptures that I heard a friend give in a lesson many years ago.  He related reading the scriptures to a missionary contacting people or tracking.  The missionary doesn’t expect every door to be someone eager to hear the message of the gospel; rather he must search and continue knocking until that person prepared to hear the gospel is found.  In the same manner, we shouldn’t expect that every single verse of scripture that we read contains an earth-shattering message for us.  Rather, we search in the scriptures with the hope that some verse will stand out and that the Spirit will distill some truth to us through something that we read.  Elder Holland once spoke of general conference suggesting that while every message given may not be what we need, “In the wide variety of sermons given is the assumption that there will be something for everyone.”  

While sometimes we “feast” upon the scriptures and everything we read fills us with the Spirit in a Parley Pratt sort of experience as he read the Book of Mormon for the first time, I think more often than not we have to really search until we find that nugget that is the message we need and which speaks to our soul.  Many scriptures teach us to “seek, and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you” (3 Nephi 14:7).  Surely that applies to how we look for guidance and answers in the scriptures.  It takes effort and sometimes we have to cover a lot of ground in order to get the inspiration that we need from the words we find in holy writ.  Christ told the Jews of His day that they needed to “search the scriptures,” and Alma said this to the Zoramites as well when they didn’t understand what true worship was (John 5:39, Alma 33:2).  Speaking of the Doctrine and Covenants specifically, the Lord told us in our day, “Search these commandments, for they are true and faithful” (D&C 1:37).  To find answers to our questions sometimes we must really dig and hunt in the scriptures, which means that we must devote adequate time to studying and pondering.  The people that Paul taught at Berea gave us the example to follow: “they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily” (Acts 17:11).  Because they searched in the scriptures, they believed, and our faith is strengthened as we seek and find answers in the scriptures.  Ultimately what makes the scriptures powerful is when the Spirit testifies to us and teaches us, and the words themselves are not really what is most important.  Rather, it is the Giver of the words that counts, and when His Spirit is felt because of His words it is worth whatever sacrifice in time and searching that it took.