THE WORD

 

Some years ago I fell into following a lovely lady on YouTube who had her own ministry in America.  She was inspirational and called herself ‘the cheerleader of your dreams’. She quoted a lot of scriptures but took many out of context and adapted them to her premise of ‘living your dreams’ and getting everything you wanted.

With time I realized her understanding of the scriptures was rather limited and even shallow because she did not understand the connection of most of them to the House of Israel concept, Christ’s Church or the Plan of Salvation. In other words, she didn’t understand them deeply enough. She presumed the scriptures were tailored to the individual and missed the bigger picture.

In the end her scripture quoting frustrated me because I knew better what those scriptures meant, not because I was smarter but because I had been exposed to additional scriptures we have in the Church which give us the complete truth. I became so grateful for the treasure trove of scriptures we have and the continuous revelation we believe in.

I reflected on all the people in Christendom who believe that the Bible is complete and who cry: “A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible” (2 Nephi 29:3). Christ called such people fools who supposed that the Bible contains all His words. Those who reject so thoughtlessly more of His words, reject Him.  

Just recently I read an absolutely excellent article printed in the January 1995 Ensign titled “Scripture Reading and Revelation” by Elder Dallin H. Oaks. I could not possibly summarise here the wealth of knowledge and instruction given by Elder Oaks but there is something that stood out to me that I would like to share.

The premise of the article was gaining understanding of scriptures with what he called ‘open canon’, meaning the scriptures are open to greater understanding through revelation by the Holy Ghost and the living prophets, just to name a couple. I highly recommend you read this article.

The greatest proof of revelations of the living prophets comes to us through Joseph Smith. The Church has adopted these revelations into our theology and compiled them into Doctrine and Covenants. This set of scripture is actually an ‘open canon’ in a very important way because it continues to incorporate additional revelations as they come from the living prophets.

One example of this is one of my favourite sections in the entire Doctrine and Covenants, Section 138, which records the vision President Joseph F. Smith had of the Saviour’s visit to the spirit world during the three days His body lay in the tomb. This Section records the most powerful moment in time when the Saviour, having completed His crucible, came to the faithful in the world of spirits who awaited Him anxiously ‘rejoicing in the hour of their deliverance from the chains of death’ (v18).

When He appeared “….they bowed the knee and acknowledged the Son of God as their Redeemer and Deliverer….the radiance from the presence of the Lord rested upon them and they sang praises unto His holy name.” (v 23, 24)

This vision was accepted as scripture and added to the Doctrine and Covenants in 1918. The point is this. If our present prophet had a vision that the Council of the Twelve accepted as scripture and they added it to the Doctrine and Covenants, how would each of us feel about ‘open canon’? How we would feel would be a sure indication of how strong our testimony is of our present prophet.

When I study Doctrine and Covenants I know the icing on the cake is coming at the end. I know I will meet the Saviour there in Section 138 and I will cry tears of joy for the life He laid on the sacrificial table for all the faithful who love Him and accept His word.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art by Land of Dreams)