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In Ephesians 4, the Apostle Paul wrote:
11 And he agave some, bapostles; and some, cprophets; and some, devangelists; and some, epastors and fteachers;
12 For the aperfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the bedifying of the body of Christ:
Today, Paul could have written – And he agave some, bapostles; and some, cprophets; and some, patriarchs, and to some primary teachers, and to some, YW presidents, and to some ministering companionships, and to some; caring neighbors.
All of these callings though are intended for one purpose – to teach doctrine. God gives us different kinds of teachers (depending on our needs) to help us grow and become perfect. It’s helpful to remember that the word “perfect” was translated from the Greek word “teleios” (telios) which means “complete”, “fully mature”, or “having reached it’s end”, which is a little different than flawless – which is how we use the word today. It seems remarkable to me that simply learning correct doctrine lead us to become more like our savior. I tend to think of knowing and becoming as two very different things and would think that strength, commitment, and endurance would be more important than knowledge.
But in Alma 31:5 we read:
“And now, as the apreaching of the bword had a great tendency to clead the people to do that which was just—yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them—therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God.”
Elder Boyd K. Packer likewise taught:
“True doctrine, understood, changes attitudes and behavior…The study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than a study of behavior will improve behavior. … That is why we stress so forcefully the study of the doctrines of the gospel”
From the Prophet Joseph Smith:
“Knowledge is necessary to life and godliness. Woe unto you priests and divines who preach that knowledge is not necessary unto life and salvation. Take away Apostles, etc., take away knowledge, and you will find yourselves worthy of the damnation of hell. Knowledge is revelation. Hear, all ye brethren, this grand key: knowledge is the power of God unto salvation.”13
“Knowledge does away with darkness, suspense and doubt; for these cannot exist where knowledge is. … In knowledge there is power. God has more power than all other beings, because He has greater knowledge; and hence He knows how to subject all other beings to Him. He has power over all.”14
“As far as we degenerate from God, we descend to the devil and lose knowledge, and without knowledge we cannot be saved, and while our hearts are filled with evil, and we are studying evil, there is no room in our hearts for good, or studying good....A man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge, for if he does not get knowledge, he will be brought into captivity by some evil power in the other world, as evil spirits will have more knowledge, and consequently more power than many men who are on the earth. Hence it needs revelation to assist us, and give us knowledge of the things of God.”
As I’ve thought about family and friends that I know who have rejected hearing the Gospel, or rejected it after once embracing it, there are three common elements:
· They simply don’t know true doctrine (or are certain of the wrong things)
o It’s been said that “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
· They forget what they once knew
· They don’t understand how to apply the knowledge they do have into their daily lives
A devout Christian friend of mine testified that “Christ really is in the Eucharist” – she could feel it. I’ve thought a lot about her conviction and wondered - what doctrine does that teach?
Joseph Smith
One great evil is that men are ignorant of the nature of spirits; their power, laws, government, intelligence &c., and imagine that when there is anything like power, revelation, or vision manifested that it must be of God:—hence the Methodists, Presbyterians, and others frequently possess a spirit that will cause them to lay down, and during its operation animation is frequently entirely suspended; they consider it to be the power of God, and a glorious manifestation from God,—a manifestation of what?—is there any intelligence communicated? are the curtains of heaven withdrawn, or the purposes of God developed? have they seen and conversed with an angel; or have the glories of futurity burst upon their view? No! but their body has been inanimate, the operation of their spirit suspended, and all the intelligence that can be obtained from them when they arise, is a shout of glory, or hallelujah, or some incoherent expression; but they have had “the power.” … A man must have the discerning of spirits, before he can drag into daylight this hellish influence and unfold it unto the world in all its soul destroying, diabolical, and horrid colors: for nothing is a greater injury to the children of men than to be under the influence of a false spirit
When we teach in the church we should focus on:
· Teaching the doctrine
· Remembering the doctrine
· Understanding how the doctrine applies in our daily life
Elder Lawrence Corbridge if the Seventy has said:
People say, “You should be true to your beliefs.” While that is true, you cannot be better than what you know. Most of us act based on our beliefs, especially what we believe to be in our self-interest. The problem is, we are sometimes wrong.
Someone may believe in God and that pornography is wrong and yet still click on a site wrongly believing that he will be happier if he does or he can’t help but not click or it isn’t hurting anyone else and it is not that bad. He is just wrong.
Someone may believe it is wrong to lie and yet lie on occasion, wrongly believing he will be better off if the truth is not known. He is just wrong.
Someone may believe and even know that Jesus is the Christ and still deny Him not once but three times because of the mistaken belief that he would be better off appeasing the crowd. Peter wasn’t evil. I am not even sure he was weak. He was just wrong.
When you act badly, you may think you are bad, when in truth you are usually mistaken. You are just wrong. The challenge is not so much closing the gap between our actions and our beliefs; rather, the challenge is closing the gap between our beliefs and the truth. That is the challenge.
So how do we close that gap? How do we avoid deception?
Begin by answering the primary questions. There are primary questions and there are secondary questions. Answer the primary questions first. Not all questions are equal and not all truths are equal. The primary questions are the most important. Everything else is subordinate. There are only a few primary questions. I will mention four of them.
1. Is there a God who is our Father?
2. Is Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Savior of the world?
3. Was Joseph Smith a prophet?
4. Is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the kingdom of God on the earth?
By contrast, the secondary questions are unending. They include questions about Church history, polygamy, people of African descent and the priesthood, women and the priesthood, how the Book of Mormon was translated, the Pearl of Great Price, DNA and the Book of Mormon, gay marriage, the different accounts of the First Vision, and on and on.
If you answer the primary questions, the secondary questions get answered too, or they pale in significance and you can deal with things you understand and things you don’t and things you agree with and things you don’t without jumping ship altogether.
As teachers, we should keep our focus on the primary questions
According to Louis Midgley, “The Book of Mormon uses terms related to remembering and forgetting
- Remembrance refers to action. King Benjamin taught his sons about how their forefathers suffered afflictions in the wilderness “to stir them up in remembrance of their duty” (Mosiah 1:17).
- The call to remember is often a passionate plea to see God’s hand in delivering His people from bondage and captivity (Alma 29:10–12). Formal acts of remembrance—such as the performance of ordinances or ritual actions—allow us to feel like we are actually participating in the past events of God’s deliverance.
- Remembrance includes active participation in some form; it means turning one’s heart toward God, that is, repenting.
- To remember God leads to prospering and being lifted up at the last day (3 Nephi 15:1; Alma 38:5). In contrast, forgetting God leads to perishing and being cut off from Him (Alma 37:13; 42:11). Those who forget are in a dreadful sleep (2 Nephi 1:12–13); they suffer from spiritual blindness and disbelief (3 Nephi 2:1–2).
- To remember is also to keep the commandments (Helaman 5:14). In fact, to remember and to keep are sometimes used interchangeably in both the Old Testament and the Book of Mormon (Deuteronomy 5:12; Exodus 20:8; Jarom 1:5; Mosiah 18:23).
- Remembering, in the Book of Mormon, is to keep the terms of the covenant between God and His people (1 Nephi 2:24; Alma 37:13; Mosiah 1:5–7).3
The main thrust of all these points is that to remember is not merely to recall or think about some past event. It means to do something. It’s much like when a parent asks a child if he or she has remembered to accomplish a chore, such as taking out the trash. The parent isn’t just asking if the child has intellectually recalled that task; rather, the parent wants to know if the child has done it!
13 Till we all come in the aunity of the faith, and of the bknowledge of the Son of God, unto a cperfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
14 That we henceforth be no more achildren, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of bdoctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
