If Nothing Else, Do This! Feb 26-Mar 3 - Week 9 2nd Nephi 11-19

Hi, friends! Welcome back to Primarily Scripture. I'm Cindy Young, and this is a beginner's guide to scripture study. This is made to help you learn to go from reading your scriptures, to studying them.  This year we're studying the Book of Mormon, and we're following Come Follow Me.  Now, most of the chapters this week are Isaiah chapters, 

but, Isaiah can be so hard to understand! So hard! Nephi even says that he knows Isaiah is hard to understand.  So, the first tip that I want you to remember for this week is, don't worry that you don't understand all of it,  because none of us do!  

So when scriptures feel complicated, Anytime, not just when you're studying Isaiah, Anytime the scriptures feel complicated, that is when you need your  list of study tips. So, I hope you're keeping track of the tips that we share, and if you haven't, it's not too late to start. Grab a notebook, a sheet of paper, anything, and start writing down these tips, and then you can use them in the future when you're studying on your own.

 There are three categories that almost all of my tips fit into, and you'll see why, because this is what scripture study is. Ready? It is these three things: search, ponder, and pray, okay? So, those are very broad terms, and so what I do here is I'm going to break it down into smaller pieces to help you learn different ways to  search, different ways to  ponder, and of course, always reminding you to  pray when you study the scriptures.

So when we search, we're going to be  looking for things, and when we ponder, we're going to be  asking questions and thinking about the answers. So are you ready to try  it? Let's do that with today's study.



So first we will open up to 2 Nephi chapter 11. 

If you're studying with the worksheet, be sure you still open up your scriptures, because that way when you find something cool, you can mark it straight in your actual scriptures.  Okay, so this will start our searching-  we're going to look for something. Today I want you to look for FEELINGS. Sometimes we forget that people in the Book of Mormon were real people and they had real feelings just like us.

 So let's read verse two and I want you to listen very closely and see if you can find one of Nephi's feelings.

It says, "And now I, Nephi, write more of the words of Isaiah, for my soul delighteth in his words. For I will liken his words unto my people, and I will send them forth unto all my children, for he verily saw my Redeemer, even as I have seen him." 

Okay. Did you find it? Did you hear how Nephi feels? What was one of his feelings? 

It's not a word that we say very often.

Nephi said he would write the words of Isaiah, "for my soul delighteth in his words." What does delighteth mean? That is such a big word, and it's not one that we use very often today. If you delight in something, then it makes you happy. And usually, usually not just a little bit happy, but you're like, so super glad. 

Nephi delights in the words of Isaiah. 

 Why? Why  does he delight in the words of Isaiah? He knows these words are confusing.



 Oh, wait, did you see what I did just then? I switched from  searching to  pondering   because now I'm asking questions  and thinking about it.



So let's ponder together. Why did Nephi love or delight in the words of Isaiah? Hmm. You could even pause the video and think on your own for a little bit. Let's come up with a few possibilities. We'll just think about it and see what comes to mind.

And that's part of pondering. Really slow down and take the time to think. Don't be afraid of sitting and thinking for a little while because it's such an important part of scripture study. 

So what are some possible reasons that Nephi loves Isaiah? Hmm, maybe he's so smart that he understands it all.  One reason we don't love it so much is because it's hard to understand. Maybe Nephi understood it perfectly.  Or, maybe, when he didn't understand it, he still was feeling the Spirit, and feeling the Spirit made him happy, even if he didn't understand it all. 

Or, maybe it's because they were both prophets, and Nephi thought, hey, we've got something in common, and so he loved to read those words.  Do you remember my parable of the snowball? Just like a snowball grows when you roll it around in the snow, your gospel knowledge and testimony can grow as you read the scriptures over and over again.

So let's read the verse one more time. And see if we pick up anything else, okay? Why else might Nephi love Isaiah?  "And now I, Nephi, write more of the words of Isaiah, for my soul delighteth in his words.  For I will liken his words unto my people,  and I will send them forth unto all my children, for he verily saw my Redeemer, even as I have seen him."

Did you catch them? There are a few more things in this verse that we can add to our list of reasons why Nephi maybe loved Isaiah. He said, I will liken his words unto my people, and I want to highlight that.  I'm gonna go with purple. 

Do you know what liken means?  Liken means you're going to think about how it's like your own life and then learn a lesson from it. Okay? What a great reason to love Isaiah! Because there are lessons to learn!

 Okay. What else?  "I will send them forth unto all my children for he verily saw my Redeemer." I'm going to get a new color and highlight that. That's another reason that Nephi loves Isaiah. He saw Jesus.  What a great reason! I would love to read the words of people who saw Jesus Christ. Wouldn't you?

Hey, newsflash: you can! You can read the words of Isaiah. You can read the words of Nephi.  They saw the Savior. That is awesome!  Okay, what else? One last thing.  "He verily saw my Redeemer, even as I have seen him." I'm going to highlight that too. New color.  Wasn't that one of the things we thought might be a reason Nephi loved him?

 Maybe he felt like they had things in common? They both saw Jesus,  and Nephi loved that. 

So some of our ideas were right. Does that mean that our other ideas were wrong?  No, not necessarily. As long as our other ideas are still in line with the gospel, and there is doctrinal teaching in the scriptures and from the prophets that back it up, then they're just fun maybes to think about.

But I do want to point out something here. Of the  things that we highlighted in this verse, two of those, are the two most important things that anybody should be doing any time that they read the scriptures. Which means you. Anytime you read the scriptures, you need to do these two super important things, okay? Number one, liken his words.  What if we liken the words that we're reading to ourselves? 

And we always think, how is what I'm reading like my own life? And what lesson can I learn from this? That is such an important thing!  What's the use of reading scriptures if you're not going to learn lessons from it, right? Liken the scriptures. So important. And the other thing, "he saw my Redeemer."

Finding Jesus Christ in the scriptures is even more important than finding lessons. Because if you find Jesus first, eventually you'll find the lessons, too. But building a testimony of Jesus Christ is the most important thing you will ever do in your whole life. In your whole life! Do you believe me?

I hope you do, because it's true. You have to build a testimony of Jesus Christ, and the scriptures can help you do that.  Nephi loved Isaiah because the words of Isaiah would help him do those things. And I hope that you will do that in your scripture study, too. 

Okay, do you see how we?  Searched the scriptures and we found  Nephi's feelings and then we  pondered the feelings.  Why would he feel that way? We thought about it,  came up  with our  own ideas, went back and read it again,  found  even more.   This is how you study the scriptures. It takes time. We've only done one verse, you guys, just one verse, and there are eight whole chapters to read this week. You might not be able to get through all of them, and that's okay, because studying is better than reading, okay?   Now, if you want more study ideas, you can go to my worksheets and it even gives you a side by side comparison of Isaiah said this, and here it is in more modern language that maybe you can understand better.

And then it's got a bunch of activities that will help you know what else you can do. And there's another look for feelings activity. 

   Isaiah is hard to understand, but you can still strengthen your testimony and find little lessons.  Look for those little pieces of treasure hidden in the scriptures this week as you study. I'm Cindy Young. I'll see you next time!  

Thanks for tuning in to Primarily Scripture with Cindy Young. Don't forget, you can subscribe to the newsletter and download free worksheets on the website primarilyscripture. com.  And if you like the channel, be sure to subscribe, like, share, and leave a review. See you next time!