scripture mastery hypocrisy!

In teaching seminary, I ask my students to master a set of verses from our course of study each year. This year is the new testament. As with most years, there are 25 "scripture mastery" verses.

In class, I teach that I don't worry about whether they are memorized, verbatim, but rather than the concepts are understood, they can explain them clearly, and can quote them "close enough".

In the interest of testing myself (so I'm not asking things of my students that I don't know well), I went to http://seminary.lds.org/scripture-mastery/, and hit the link for memorization. I then quizzed myself by seeing if I could type all 25 verses accurately, without help. I'm proud to report I was able to do 18 of the 25 exactly, and another 3 with only a minor miss on a phrase. So 21 of 25 to an acceptable level. The other four I'm able to teach, explain, and quote the bulk of, so there's not much work left to do on them.

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In other news, I'm trying to get my check engine light fixed, finally. It's a minor problem, but I'm annoyed enough with it finally to do something about it.

scriptures that speak

I like talented people that can make the scriptures come alive. A few weeks ago, I read the Gerald Lund series The Kingdom and the Crown. Good stuff. He has an unusual ability to put ancient things into a context that has meaning today. Much of it comes in thorough explanations of the traditions and customs of that time. It lends fullness and humanity to our view of those the came before us.

In seminary this morning, we talked about Jesus' role as The Good Shepherd (John 10). That parable is unusual in that Jesus is represented by two things in the parable, as opposed to the usual one - he is both the shepherd and the door of entry into the sheepfold (pen). While I don't have the gift for putting those things in context, I did begin to see the more deep symbolism in a different way than I did when I first read the chapter. As the door, Jesus is the way in which we must enter. And so our thoughts naturally go to the difficulty of the straight and narrow. But a door is also a protection from the outside, just as the door to your home is locked at night...it's there to not only let you in, but to keep others out. Jesus stands as a guardian for us, and as long as we choose to enter in, then he will make sure we are kept safe as we feed and find rest.

I'm thankful for those times that the scriptures speak to me in a way that gives clear visualization of a principle.