Scripture Study

Well, if you are keeping track you will have noticed that I have finished my backwards round through The Book of Mormon, and am now starting the New Testament—just forwards. Am I going too fast? Possibly. I may read the gospels twice before I get into the epistles. Sometimes Paul just wears me down.

In family scripture study we have one week left in the Doctrine and Covenants, and then we will be starting the Book of Mormon. Since Sunday school is Old Testament now, and will be New Testament next year, I guess it is fairly balanced.

Personal scripture study started for me when a church speaker said you should read the scriptures every day. This was back when I was a child who spent most of the meeting drawing on the program, but for some reason I looked up at that moment, and it stuck. I have not read the scriptures every day of my life, but I have had many periods where I was doing so, and I think that is something that has helped me.

Family scripture study came much later. A few years ago there was an institute class on the Teachings of John, and Julie and Maria said maybe we should take it. I was stunned that they would suggest such a thing, but you have to encourage stuff like that so we enrolled. Unfortunately, we were quite busy, and our attendance was erratic. One night when they were asking if we could skip, I said it would be okay as long as they read all of the material, and they kind of agreed.

As it was, they did not get around to reading, and I said, Okay, let’s read it together. Each class covered about three chapters, so that is what we did. Well, after we finished that, it should natural to go back and do the rest of the Gospels, and as long as you are doing that you might as well read Acts, and eventually we decided to read the epistles too, and somehow it became something we agreed to keep going, and it has been a blessing for us.

After we finished the New Testament we started the Pearl of Great Price, but I realized it was not going to make any sense unless we read Genesis, so we did that, then went back and finished the Pearl of Great Price, followed by the Doctrine and Covenants which we are just finished.

My estimate is that the Book of Mormon will take a year. We have been reading eight pages a week now, but I want us to bump it to ten, and I don’t think that should be too onerous. (We read on Sunday nights.)

The question is afterwards, do we take on the Old Testament? All of it? Maria thinks she likes it because of Genesis, but we could totally lose her in Numbers, and it was only on my fourth time through that I enjoyed Ezra and Nehemiah. Plus, every time I go through the Old Testament I am tempted to skip the Song of Solomon, and then I feel guilty, and I read it anyway, but seriously, even as a metaphor it is not spiritually fulfilling. Also, last time through I had to spread the Psalms out over the course of the prophets, because one psalm is beautiful, but read a few and they start to cloy.
Well, at least we have a year to figure it out.


27 minutes walking outside
Push-ups
Matthew 11 – Matthew 18