Line upon Line

Have you ever wondered why you are not getting as much out of reading the scriptures as you think you should? Do you sometimes read verses or even chapters and not know what you just read? Do you feel like something is missing in your gospel study? Does it ever feel as if you are reading your scriptures because you are supposed to do it, but take no joy in the task, and perhaps even dread it? You are not alone, and I have heard many people express similar sentiments. I would like to suggest several strategies for more intentionally (purposefully) reading your scriptures.

Look up Unfamiliar Words. If you don’t know what a word means, look it up! My oldest son recently showed me two examples of looking up unfamiliar words. Moroni 10:17 reads: “And all these gifts come by the Spirit of Christ; and they come unto every man severally, according as he will” (emphasis added). But what does the word severally mean? Does it mean several, as it is literally part of the word? But that is not accurate. It’s an archaic term that is rarely used today but was quite popular in the 19^th century. A particularly good dictionary for studying Book of Mormon word usage is Webster’s 1828 dictionary, which defines words as they were used at the approximate time Joseph Smith was translating the Book of Mormon. Severally actually means separately, or distinctly, or apart from others. In other words, individually. This enhances the meaning and changes our understanding of the verse! Another example: my son also talked about reading 2 Nephi 10:24 and the phrase “reconcile yourselves to the will of God” jumped out at him. He had heard the word “reconcile” many times, but decided to look the word up to enhance his understanding of what the verse was saying. Again using Webster’s 1828 dictionary, we  find: “To conciliate anew; to call back into union and friendship the affections which have been alienated; to restore to friendship or favor after estrangement; as, to reconcile men or parties that have been at variance.” With this new understanding of the word reconcile, he was able to get greater insights into Jacob’s teachings.

Slow Down. Slow WAY Down. Sometimes, we set goals for ourselves, to read a chapter or two each day, or perhaps spend 20 or 30 minutes reading the scriptures. Often, in the pursuit of a goal, we do a forced march through the scriptures without really understanding what we are reading. I know this from personal experience, as I have done this many times. But lately, I have been slowing down, slowing way down in my reading of the scriptures. The Primary song, “Search, Ponder and Pray” teaches a great truth, as often, when doing a forced march through the scriptures, we are not searching, pondering, or praying about what we are reading. We are simply reading to achieve a goal. Slowing down is a great way to read the scriptures more intentionally. Study each word you read, especially in the Book of Mormon. This great book is a revealed gift and each word in it contributes to the greater meaning of the text. Often, I will spend all my scripture reading time on a specific passage of scripture. A while back, I pondered Moroni 7:44-48 for many hours over several weeks. I asked questions and looked up words for greater clarity. For example, why does Mormon tell us to cleave unto charity? What does cleave mean? How is it typically used in scripture? What are we supposed to understand when that word is linked to charity? Another example: Mormon states that “… charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him” (Moroni 7:47). What is the pure love of Christ mean? Is it my pure love of Christ, or Christ’s pure love? What does the phrase possessed of it mean? Does it refer to us possessing charity, or charity possessing us? And how will it be well with us? I spent several weeks pondering these verses, and how they fit in with other scriptural teachings about charity in the scriptures. Answering these questions led to an article I co-authored that appeared in the Interpreter (and a summary of that article in Meridian Magazine).

Look for Secondary Meanings of Phrases. This next suggestion builds upon the previous two suggestions. I often ask myself if a verse or a phrase can have a second, less obvious meaning, like “possessed of it” meaning both possessing and being possessed of charity. What I have discovered is that many phrases are fruitfully ambiguous, meaning there are many possible lessons for the scriptural phrases in question. Let me give a more concrete example. In Alma 19:16, we read:

“And it came to pass that they did call on the name of the Lord, in their might, even until they had all fallen to the earth, save it were one of the Lamanitish women, whose name was Abish, she having been converted unto the Lord for many years, on account of a remarkable vision of her father—”

What can we learn about Abish from this passage? Abish is one of the few women named in the Book of Mormon, and that suggests something important. She is likely older, having been converted many years ago. She is described as “Lamanitish,” but what does that mean? Is she a mixture of Lamanite blood and a local, indigenous population? Or perhaps part Nephite? Under any event, she is not a pure Lamanite. She is a servant (see verse 28), so she occupies a low-status position, perhaps even a slave. She is also a Christian in Lamanite society. In other words, as an elderly, female, part Lamanite, Christian, servant or slave, she had, like Christ, “no form or comeliness” and “we esteemed [her] not” (Mosiah 14:2-3; cf. Isaiah 53:2-3). And yet, she was converted because of “a remarkable vision of her father.” But what does that phrase mean? Did her father have a vision, which he shared with her? Did she have a vision of her father? Or did she have a vision of her Father, that is, her Father in Heaven? Why is Abish named in the Book of Mormon when so many other women (e.g., Nephi’s sisters; 2 Nephi 5:6) are not named? Is there anything special about her name? Matthew L. Bowen points out that one possible meaning of Abish’s name is “father is a man,” in Hebrew (“ab-“ means “father” and “ish” means man). If her father was the “Man” of Holiness, this is a direct reference to Heavenly Father. Val Larsen and I explore the possibility that she had a vision of her Father in Heaven in some detail in a recent article published in the Interpreter (see especially pages 309-319) and it all grew out of looking for secondary meanings of scriptural phrases.

Catch Allusions. This is the hardest of the strategies because it assumes you have understood what you have read or learned about previously. But when it works, it opens new avenues of comprehension. For example, in Alma 12:7, Amulek tells us an angel of the Lord told him to look for a man (Alma₂) who “has fasted many days because of the sins of this people, and he is an hungered” (emphasis added). The phrase an hungered tickled something in my mind and I looked it up on WordCruncher (see below for more information about WordCruncher). It turns out that Christ, after fasting in the wilderness for 40 days, was also an hungred (notice the spelling difference; Matt. 4:2). Later, Christ teaches that “I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat… Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matt. 25:35-40). In both cases, the person who was “an hungred” was Christ, and when we learn that Alma₂ was “an hungered,” we see that he is also a type, or an image, of Christ.

Study Helpers. There are also a lot of free resources out there to help make your scripture study more intentional. I’ve already mentioned Webster’s 1828 dictionary. Here are four other sources.

            The Scripture Citation Index. Each time a prophet, apostle, or other general authority cites a verse of scripture in a General Conference talk, that use is linked in this index, which includes conference addresses from 1942 onward, plus Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith and the complete Journal of Discourses. This is an excellent place to start if you want to know what church leaders have said about selected verses.

WordCruncher. WordCruncher is a search engine you can install on your computer or iPhone (but not Android) that lets you search, study, and analyze words or phrases in many helpful ways. As a bonus, there are also scores of other gospel texts and many works of world literature that may also be analyzed with WordCruncher. And best of all, WordCruncher, a product of BYU Digital Humanities, is free.

BibleGateway.com. I love the language of the King James Version of the Bible, but sometimes the archaic language gets in the way of comprehension. That’s where BibleGateway.com comes in. On the home page, you can enter any verse into the search engine, hit enter, and then you have the option of seeing how that verse was translated in dozens of different versions of the Bible. Recently, I was reading Ephesian 5:33, which reads: “Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.” The word reverence contains overtones of worshipfulness, which is not necessarily what Paul intended. Most other versions on BibleGateway.com replace reverence with respect, which entirely changes the meaning of the verse. I often come away with new and expanded perspectives on Bible verses when I visit this site.

The Polyglot Bible. Those of us in the English-speaking world get to read the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price in English, which is the original language in which they were written or translated. This is not the case with the Bible, which has roots in Hebrew, Greek and Latin. If you are confused by a word in the King James Version of the Bible, you can also go to the Polyglot Bible and get an explanation in English of the word in question. For example, I was recently wondering what Paul meant when he said, “For now we see through a glass darkly” (1 Cor. 13:12). I looked this verse up in the Polyglot Bible and learned that glass is translated from the Greek word ἔσοπτρον (esoptron), which means mirror. Now it makes more sense.

Summary. These are my recommendations for more intentionally reading the scriptures, for searching and pondering. Look up unfamiliar words, slow down in reading, search for secondary meanings, watch for and catch allusions, and use study helpers. But please do not forget to pray in your quest to better understand the word (Word?) of God. When these strategies are combined with inspiration from the Spirit, you will find greater light and knowledge in your scripture study as you more intentionally read them.

Newell D. Wright is a professor of marketing and international business at North Dakota State University in Fargo, ND, USA. He is also a lifelong student of the Book of Mormon.