Primarily Scripture with Cindy Young

Search and Highlight: Finding Purpose in Scripture | CFM 2025 Mar 17-23 | D&C 23-26 | Primarily Scripture with Cindy Young

• Cindy Young • Season 3 • Episode 12

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In this episode of Primarily Scripture, Cindy Young is joined by her friend Atticus, who shares a unique technique of using different colored crayons to highlight specific parts of scripture verses. Together they search Doctrine and Covenants section 23 to find and mark phrases, ponder their meanings, and demonstrate how these techniques can enhance personal scripture study.



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Don't forget the parable of the snowball: listening to someone else talk about the gospel is like having snowballs thrown at you. Reading the scriptures is like making your own snowball. Taking the time to search, ponder, and pray about what you've read is like rolling the snowball around and around so that it grows and grows. So don't just listen to me - please go read for yourself so your knowledge and testimony can grow and grow!!

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Cindy:

Hello friends, and welcome back to Primarily Scripture today. I'm excited for you to meet my friend Atticus. How are you? Atticus?

Atticus:

Good.

Cindy:

Tell me, what are some things that you love to do?

Atticus:

Uh, I like to play sports and I like to talk whenever it's Fast Sunday.

Cindy:

Awesome. What's your favorite sport?

Atticus:

Football.

Cindy:

What position do you play?

Atticus:

Running back, wide receiver, and a middle linebacker.

Cindy:

What's your favorite position to play?

Atticus:

Oh, my favorite middle linebacker. Because it's defense and I get to play it constantly. It's really fun because I, because I'm in the middle of everyone and usually coach puts that as like the specialist position 'cause you're controlling the entire field.

Cindy:

Awesome. Okay. Tell me about scripture study. What does scripture study look like in your house?

Atticus:

I usually like study with my family one day, and then the next day I study by myself. Sometimes I even study by myself two days or I study with my family two days

Cindy:

Is there one thing that you found helps you to have a good scripture study session?

Atticus:

My mom bought these crayons, and whenever I like read something that's good.

Cindy:

Yeah.

Atticus:

Then I highlight those words with yellow. And whenever I see something that's bad, I highlight it in red.

Cindy:

I love that you said that you have something specific that you're looking for. Why does that help you?

Atticus:

To understand, like, Hey, we wanna do this more than we wanna do that.

Cindy:

Yeah.

Atticus:

And hey, we don't wanna do this, but we wanna do this.

Cindy:

Yeah. So when you look for things as you study, even if it's as simple as good and bad, you're gonna find so much more than if you just read it. Put it away. Do you know the song"Search, Ponder, and Pray"

Atticus:

I had to do a talk about that, so.

Cindy:

Oh, awesome. You know all about it.

Atticus:

It's one of my favorite songs, too.

Cindy:

It's such a good one. Okay, so when you're looking for good and bad or other things, that's the searching, right? We're looking for something specific. How do you ponder the scriptures?

Atticus:

You read the scriptures and then you, like there's this one specific like sentence or this one specific word, and you just like think about that for like a long time. And then you come across this other one that you think about for a long time. This one word, I can't remember what it was, but it made me think about it for like, two weeks. And then I came across this another sentence, and then I was thinking for a long time.

Cindy:

So, so you've had parts of the scriptures that you pondered for weeks at a time?

Atticus:

Yes.

Cindy:

Weeks and weeks? That would stick in your head?

Atticus:

Mm-hmm.

Cindy:

That is so fantastic! Does that mean you're thinking about the scriptures when you're playing football or soccer?

Atticus:

Sometimes, yeah.

Cindy:

Awesome. Okay, so let's dive into the worksheets. We follow Come Follow Me, and this week we're in Doctrine and Covenants sections 23 through 26. I do make free worksheets. They're available on the website. You can go and download these. Let's look at the first page of this worksheet. The first activity on this worksheet says, Ponder the Lord's Intent. Do you know what intent means?

Atticus:

Hm-mmm.

Cindy:

No? Okay, so it's the meaning or purpose behind it. So if we want to ponder the Lord's intent, then we need to know what the Lord meant - what was his purpose in giving these scriptures. Sometimes, especially in the doctrine and covenants, the section headings will tell us what the purpose was. So if I open up to section 24, it'll say section 24, right in the middle of the page, and then there's a paragraph there. Can you read that for me? And this tells us what was going on at the time, and it might tell us the purpose behind this revelation.

Atticus:

Revelation given to Joseph Smith, the prophet and, and Oliver Cowdery at Harmony, Pennsylvania, July, 1830. Though less than four months had elapsed since the church was organized, persecution had become intense and the leaders had to seek safety and partial seclusion. The following three revelations were given at this time to strengthen, encourage, and instruct them."

Cindy:

There was a lot of persecution. What is persecution? That's a huge word.

Atticus:

I have no idea what that means.

Cindy:

Persecution means people were picking on them.

Atticus:

Oh.

Cindy:

It was so intense that they were only safe if there was partial seclusion. Which means basically, they quarantined themselves. They just had to stay away from everybody. So right at the end, the last sentence there says the following three revelations, so 24, 25, 26, were given at this time to... What are those three words right there? Did you catch it?

Atticus:

Uh, strengthen, encourage, and instruct.

Cindy:

Yes. Okay. So that tells us right there that that is the purpose that the Lord had in giving these. So now we're going to ponder the Lord's purpose, or his intent. As we read, let's look for what would strengthen them, what would give them courage and what would give them instructions. Okay, so if you use yellow and red for good and bad, let's pick three different colors for strengthen, encourage and instruct. There is a spot on the worksheet to write down the colors that you picked. Do you see on the worksheet where it says strengthens and then there's a line and you can write what color it is. So which one will be strengthened?

Atticus:

Orange.

Cindy:

Orange okay. What about for encouragement?

Atticus:

Green.

Cindy:

Green for encouraging. And so then light blue for instructions?

Atticus:

Mm-hmm.

Cindy:

Okay. I've got my three colors. Let's start reading. The worksheet starts on verse five. Can you read verse five?

Atticus:

"Thou shalt continue in calling upon God in my name and writing the things which shall be given thee by the comforter, and expounding all scriptures unto the church."

Cindy:

Okay, so what's in there?

Atticus:

Comforter.

Cindy:

Oh, comforter. Who's the comforter?

Atticus:

Oh, the Holy Ghost.

Cindy:

Yes, the Holy Ghost. Okay. Do you think that's to strengthen them, encourage them, or instruct them?

Atticus:

Strengthen.

Cindy:

If you knew that the Holy Ghost was gonna talk to you, would that give you some strength? Yeah, I think so. Okay. So let's underline the comforter in orange. We'll mark that.

Atticus:

Wait, we put, You should comfort? Or...?

Cindy:

Um, I just highlighted comforter is all that I highlighted in that one.

Atticus:

Yeah. Okay. Phew. That's what I did.

Cindy:

You're good, you're good! The good news is there's no wrong way to do this. This is your scriptures and what comforts you or what strengthens you might be different from what strengthens me. And that's totally okay. All right. So we found some strength there. What else? Thou shalt what?

Atticus:

Continue in calling upon God.

Cindy:

What is calling upon God? What's that?

Atticus:

Praying.

Cindy:

Praying. So is that strengthening or encouraging them or giving them instructions?

Atticus:

It's either encouraging or instructing.

Cindy:

Yeah. I think that it can be both. cause it's telling you thou shalt, you should keep praying.

Atticus:

But it's also like encouraging it like you shall

Cindy:

So I'll highlight it in light blue 'cause I see it as an instruction and you can highlight it in green because you see it as an encouragement of, come on, you can do it. Keep praying. Isn't that cool that we just found a phrase that can be both, either an instruction or an encouragement?! Okay, let's skip to verse eight. Do you want me to read it this time since you read last time?

Atticus:

Sure.

Cindy:

Okay. Verse eight says, "Be patient in afflictions, for thou shalt have many, but endure them for, lo, I am with thee even unto the end of thy days." Alright, that's a lot of good stuff right there. Be patient in afflictions, which means trials and problems. Be patient when you have problems. Would that give them strength or encouragement or instruction?

Atticus:

Instructions? That's my thought.

Cindy:

I think that's great. Instructions. And then the next line says, "for thou shalt have many." You are gonna have a lot of problems. Would you like someone to tell you that?

Atticus:

No.

Cindy:

If the Lord came to you and said, Atticus, your life is gonna be so hard.

Atticus:

Um, I don't think that's encouraging.

Cindy:

Not very much. But what did he say next?

Atticus:

"but endure them for, lo, I am with thee."

Cindy:

What if I told you, Atticus, your life is gonna be hard, but the Lord will help you every step of the way?

Atticus:

Now that's encouraging.

Cindy:

Now that is encouraging! Okay, let's highlight that with green

Atticus:

orange. Oh, what?

Cindy:

Right. Isn't green encouraging?

Atticus:

No, we put green as encour-... Oh, my bad.

Cindy:

Ha ha ha ha! That's fine.

Atticus:

I got confused!

Cindy:

"I am with thee," that is super encouraging. How is this relevant to you? Because you didn't live with Joseph Smith. You didn't live then, right? You don't have persecution the way they had persecution, but you do have trials. It may not be your neighbor coming and burning down your barn, but you do have Satan trying to get you everywhere you turn! So how will this give you encouragement? Will the Lord be with you in your trials?

Atticus:

Yeah.

Cindy:

Yeah, of course he can. What do you have to do to have him there to help you?

Atticus:

Pray.

Cindy:

Yeah. If you pray and read your scriptures and you keep pondering these things, if you think about what you find in the scriptures and invite the Holy Ghost to be with you, you'll be able to have these exact same blessings. I bet if you went through and read this again with your yellow and your red, you would highlight so much yellow. There's so much good in these verses! So much good! So do you see how when we are looking for things, it helps you to get more out of your scripture study? Yeah. You already knew that.'cause you already did it looking for good and bad. Atticus, thank you so much for being here with me today. Keep looking for things as you study your scriptures. Friends, please go read your scriptures. and I will see you next week. I'm Cindy Young, thanks for being here with us on primarily scripture. Bye guys! Thanks for tuning into primarily Scripture with Cindy Young. Don't forget you can subscribe to the newsletter and download free worksheets on the website, primarily scripture.com. And if you like the channel, be sure to subscribe, like, share, and leave a review. See you next time.