Years ago Elder Howard W. Hunter taught that it was more
important to study the scriptures consistently every day for a certain
amount of time than to try to read a certain amount of chapters or
verses. He said, “Sometimes we [may] find that the study of a
single verse will occupy the whole time” (Reading the Scriptures, October 1979 General
Conference [Nov. 1979 Ensign] the whole talk is excellent). I had that
experience this morning.
I have been going through the Book of Mormon with
the Online class I teach through BYU Idaho. Next week when the term ends we
will finish Moroni. This morning I started to read Moroni 10. As I read Moroni
10:3 a light came on and I went to find my scripture journal so I could
record some thoughts. In this verse Moroni “exhorts” us to read the Book of
Mormon, to remember God’s mercy, and to ponder it in our hearts.
As missionaries we used this verse to encourage
people to read the Book of Mormon and to ponder its truths as they prayed about
its truthfulness (v. 4-5). Later the Church produced a set of flip
charts for the missionaries. The caption that went with Moroni 10:3 encouraged
investigators to ponder a specific question as they read—“Could any man have
written this book?” Pondering is an important step in the process of
receiving revelation (see 1 Nephi 11:1; D&C 76:19, and D&C 138:1). But
just like “faith in Jesus Christ” is more important than “faith” (see 4th
Article of Faith), Moroni is teaching us more than the principle of pondering
in this verse.
Later someone pointed out that this verse doesn’t
just say to ponder, but it asks us to ponder something in particular—to “remember
how merciful the Lord hath been … and ponder it in your hearts.” In this regard
this verse can be seen as a “bookend” with 1 Nephi 1:20 where Nephi says he
will show in his writings that “the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those
whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the
power deliverance.” And has been pointed out by Elder Bednar and others there
are many examples of the tender mercies of the Lord in our lives and in the
scriptures.
This morning the Spirit gave me a nudge as I read
and I saw that these two ideas go together. Moroni is teaching us how to read
the Book of Mormon and is telling us what to “look for,” so to speak.
You can read the Book of Mormon in many different
ways. If you read it with a particular set of "glasses," looking for
something in particular, that is probably what you will find. A colleague
recently told us of some debates in the “blogosphere” about the historicity of
the Book of Mormon. Are its stories to be taken literally or are they
metaphorical? I read an essay once by one who had intellectualized himself out
of the Church who thought he had found some anachronisms in the Book of Mormon
that proved Joseph Smith was the author of its words. Others have carefully gone
through it looking for geographic clues that will fit this or that hypothesis
of the ancient setting of the Book of Mormon.
But here Moroni is exhorting us to look for and
see examples in the Book of Mormon of how merciful the Lord has been “unto the children of men,” from Adam
to our day, and ponder [that] in our heart. He
is asking us to look for and to see God’s hand in the stories and teachings in
the Book of Mormon. He is asking us to look for and see the miracles in its
pages (“I will show unto you a God of miracles”—Mormon 9:11). He is asking us
to look for and see the power and blessings of the Atonement in its stories and
teachings. He is asking us to look for and see “how merciful the Lord hath been
unto the children of men … and ponder it in your hearts.”
This calls to mind Alma’s discourse on planting
the seed of God’s word in our heart to see if it will enlarge our soul,
enlighten us, and be delicious to us (Alma 32:28). The Zoramites wondered if it
mattered which words they planted in their hearts. Alma and Amulek responded
absolutely! (see Alma 33-34) Alma taught them to believe in the Son of God and
His redemption—to “plant this word in [their] hearts,” and promised them these
words would become a “tree, springing up in [them] unto everlasting life” so
that their burdens would be “light, through the joy of his Son.”
Years ago (35+??) we had 40 scripture mastery
scriptures. One of them was D&C 59:21 which teaches that we offend God when
we don’t acknowledge (“confess”) His hand in all things and when we don’t obey
His commandments.
To read the Book of Mormon in the way Moroni is
suggesting is to read it with an eye of faith. And if we will read it this way—remembering
and pondering how merciful the Lord has been (and continues to be) and ask with
sincerity and real intent, we will (we absolutely will) have its truthfulness manifest
to us by the power of the Holy Ghost. What a tender mercy blessing this is.
