The following is excerpted from the Church News. To read the full article, CLICK HERE.

The introduction to the Doctrine and Covenants calls the book “unique” among the Church’s standard works as it is not a translation of an ancient text as are the Bible, Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price.

Initially called the Book of Commandments, the Doctrine and Covenants — this year’s focal point for “Come, Follow Me” curriculum for members of the Church around the world — is a compilation of revelations given to prophets in answers to prayers as they worked to establish the Church and do the Lord’s work.

“One of the things that people find challenging in engaging with the Doctrine and Covenants a lot of the times is that it does not have a narrative,” said Lisa Olsen Tait, who is a Church historian with an expertise on Latter-day Saint women’s history. “The text itself doesn’t tell a story that you can hold on to in the way that the Book of Mormon does, for example, with people speaking, characters to follow and a storyline.”

Tait joined fellow historians Matt McBride, director of the Church’s Publications Division, and Matthew Godfrey, managing editor of the Joseph Smith Papers, in sharing several ways and resources that can help those studying the Doctrine and Covenants.

Real people in real situations

McBride suggested looking from “the outside in.”

“Do what you can to understand the setting and circumstances in which each section was given or produced,” he said. “The Doctrine and Covenants has been called a book of answers, but it is on us to try to understand what the questions were,” McBride said.

The headings can help provide some of the context quickly, he added.

To read the full article, CLICK HERE.