"But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and striving about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain."
The first think I pictured when I read this were people fighting over their genealogies on FamilySearch, and other websites. Each person believing their way is right, ignoring what other evidence may prove. Going so far as deleting others work just so their version would be "correct". Causing family contentions and division.
I knew this wasn't all it was talking about, so I needed to step back and look at the verse again. The part about foolish questions stuck out at me. Don't we often hear there are no foolish questions? What is a foolish question? Then I remembered what the spirit told me about little children. To be like one I needed to adopt their way of looking at things, asking why, how come, what is this. Never with a challenge, but with an honest and sincere intent to know. Then the spirit would explain gospel truths to me.
So if I stepped back again to look at this verse. It seems the foolish question would be one that brings contention. It picks at the little things that don't matter in the scheme of things. The true intent is not to gain knowledge but to prove a vain point or purpose that has no value. This made me laugh. Don't I see people holding tight onto false genealogies, just because they want to be connected to some famous person or their pride won't admit an error. In the scheme of things that profits them nothing. For when truth is gone there is no value. Wouldn't the spirit also flee if we are seeking for things of no value?
All this made me remember an Oct 1987 conference talk by Dean L. Larsen "Looking Beyond the Mark". My favorite part is "I am going to give more time and attention to the study and pondering of the scriptures themselves rather than to the commentaries and criticisms that others have written about them. I am going to be as open as I can be to the Spirit of the Lord so that I can understand these things for myself." He goes on to explain how people miss the mark when they focus on things that don't matter, than what really matters. I have also felt impressed to read and ponder just the scriptures, no additional commentaries, so I know what the spirit really wants me to know about them. No more picking at things that take me beyond the mark of what is really important. I have found that this really works. The spirit really does explain the scriptures to me if I ask questions like a little child.
No comments:
Post a Comment