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Last week we talked about doctrine and how it is eternal truth and answers the question of WHY. This week we are talking about principles and how they answer the question of WHAT. So stick around and we'll talk about WHAT together. I'm Cindy Young, and this is Primarily Scripture. Elder David A. Bednar taught that"A gospel principle is a doctrinally based guideline for the righteous exercise of moral agency." And I love that, that principles are guidelines for helping you make good choices. He also said, "Correct principles are always based upon and arise from doctrines, they do not change, and answer the question of what." Last week we talked about how we need to understand the Why of the doctrine before the What of the gospel principles will make sense. Otherwise, the principles just seem like arbitrary rules. Think about it, principles like fasting and the Word of Wisdom might seem like silly ways to just be controlling about food, unless we understand the doctrine behind these principles. It is part of Heavenly Father's plan for us to be given bodies, to learn to take care of them, and to control them so that our spiritual desires outweigh physical appetites. Fasting can also be linked to the doctrine that God is our loving Father, and He wants to connect with us and bless us, so He gave us fasting as a way to accomplish that. So do you see how understanding the Why of the doctrine helps us understand the What of the gospel principles? But we still need those principles Every single principle can be traced back to at least one core doctrine of the church. Between this week and last week, I've quoted Elder David A. Bednar several times, and I want you to know where these quotes come from. Most of the quotes come from two places. He wrote about doctrines and principles in his book titled "Increase in Learning," and then he also spoke about it in general conference in 2021. And both of these are linked in the show notes so that you can find and reference those. So in the book, Elder Bednar shares a Venn diagram. You know what that is. It's the overlapping circles, and we've got multiple overlapping circles. Or to save space here, we're doing ovals. It's fine. We've got them lined up, and these represent doctrines. For our purposes here, we will look at just a couple of them. Elder Bednar teaches that doctrines can overlap. For instance, the doctrine of the plan of salvation includes doctrine about Jesus Christ's atonement and his role as our Savior. The plan of salvation also encompasses truths about the nature of the Godhead, with God being the father of our spirits. So these three doctrine ovals of Jesus Christ, the Godhead, the plan of salvation, are all going to overlap. And then under those three ovals, we will have three more ovals representing principles, and those overlap with each other left and right, and they overlap with the doctrines above them. Because remember, what is doctrine? It is eternal truth. And these principles also contain eternal truth; they are "subsets of broader truths," as Elder Bednar puts it. So the principles related to the Godhead would include things like love and unity and prayer. The principles related to the plan of salvation would include obedience and service, and the idea that we're here to progress and become. And then principles related to the doctrine of Jesus Christ include faith, repentance, and enduring to the end. So the principles are what we do, the way that we live, the guidelines we strive to follow as we make choices every day. And then the doctrines are why we choose to live that way, the truths that will inform those choices. Okay, so then in our diagram, we can have another set of circles underneath, and these would be the applications, or How we would execute these principles in our own lives and circumstances. Now, this is where we might get caught up in the checklist mentality. Did I read my scriptures? Did I say my prayers? Did I go to church this week? And if we don't focus on the principles and the doctrine, then all we're doing is checking off a list, when really our goal should be to act in holy ways by living the principles and live in harmony with the doctrine that we know and believe to be true. And we're seeing quite a shift in the way that the Church teaches, that we are getting less and less focus on these applications and more and more focus on the doctrine and principles. All right, so now let's look at scripture study through this lens. Some chapters and verses teach us doctrine, like we talked about last week, and then there are a lot of places in the scriptures that are focused more on principles. And again, sometimes it's very clear, very specific, like Alma saying,"Let me tell you about faith." But what do we do if it's not specifically spelled out for us? How can you find these principles in the scriptures? First of all, I want you to remember what principles are. They are guidelines for how we should live, and there are dozens of them, literally dozens. I came up with a list of almost 40 principles, and I'll put that list in the show notes so that you can go look at it, and I'm sure you'll be able to find things to add to it.

But here are just a few: 6:15

faith, charity, humility, sacrifice, ministering, virtue, gratitude, and prayer, just to name a few. These are WHAT we should be focusing on, what we should do. So as you read scripture stories, look for what the people did. But then we also have to be careful because what they did might be following a principle, or it might be an application. So remember that Elder Bednar said principles are "based on doctrine" and "do not change." So we're going to use that as our guide when we are looking to see if something is a principle or an application. So let's look at this week's reading and find a gospel principle. This week we're reading chapters 16 through 25 of 2 Kings, And for some background, in these chapters, there are two groups of Israelites. The tribe of Judah is in Jerusalem with their king, and then there are 10 tribes who've split off to the north, and they have a king. And then there are also non-Israelite people like the Assyrians and the Babylonians, and they try to capture the Israelites. Sadly, because the Israelites mostly stopped following the Lord, and they had a lot of wicked kings, they were captured and sent away into other lands. And this is what we call the scattering of Israel. But in the middle of all this wickedness, there were two kings who tried to keep the commandments. So let's read about one of them in 2 Kings, chapter 23, and we're gonna focus on verses 3 and 4. You can find these verses on the second page of my worksheets this week. You can download those for free on my website, primarilyscripture.com. All right, let's start in verse three, and as I read, watch for the principles - things we can do, that are based in doctrine, and don't change. Starting in verse three, and King Josiah is at the temple with his people.

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"And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments, and his testimonies, and his statutes with all their heart, and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant. And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven, and he burned them." All right, so what did King Josiah do, that is based in doctrine,and doesn't change - meaning it's something we could do, too. Remember, we don't wanna get caught up in how he did it, because that's application, not principle. So we're gonna go back to verse three, and we're going to look at every action word and phrase, and then we'll figure out if it's a principle or not.

Verse three starts with this: 9:16

"The king stood by a pillar." Is standing by a pillar a principle? Well, of course not. There are pillars in many different buildings. But we know that this pillar is in the temple, so… let's dig a little deeper. Is going to the temple a principle of the gospel? I would say yes. Now, temples haven't always been available, but the principle of temple worship does not change. So there is one gospel principle. Let's keep going."The king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the Lord." Make is an action word, so let's look at this phrase. Is making covenants a gospel principle? Yes. It is based in eternal truth, and it is something the Lord offers to all of his children, even if they have to wait until after death to accept those covenants. So there is another principle of the gospel. All right, and what did Josiah covenant to do? To walk after the Lord and to keep his commandments. There's another principle. Do you see how we're finding these? You can do this same thing every time you read the scriptures, and you can identify the principles of the gospel in every scripture story. Let's move ahead now to verse four. It says this, "And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and all the other helpers who were standing there, to bring forth out of the temple all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven, and he burned them." All right, so is telling people what to do a gospel principle? Well, let's check. Is it an action you can take, something that you can do? Yes, it is. Is it unchanging? Well, yes, people were telling other people what to do all the way back to Adam and Eve, so it is unchanging. Is it based on doctrine, eternal truth? Well, in the way that it's talked about here, no. Parents teaching their children or prophets giving direction would be different. That's a different kind of telling someone to do something. But just asking someone to do a job, that is not a gospel principle. So what did Josiah tell them to do in verse four? He told them to take some things out of the temple. Anything that was made to honor Baal, or "the grove," or any other false god, take those things out of the temple because he wanted to only worship the true Lord God of Israel. So is that a gospel principle? Well, let's think about it a little bit. Is this something that you could do? Do you have anything that was made to worship Baal? I'm guessing no. But do you have anything in your life that distracts you from worshiping the Lord? Is there ever a time that you're focused on the wrong things? I'm gonna guess that the answer to that question is yes for each and every one of us, because we all get distracted sometimes, and we all have things in our lives that we can change to help us be able to worship the Lord better. So is removing distractions, specifically those that distract us from worshiping the Lord, a gospel principle? I'm going to say yes, it is! Removing distractions is a gospel principle. The way that Josiah did it was to remove the statues of Baal. That was his application of the principle. How you apply this principle in your life is going to depend on what your distractions are. Maybe you need to stop watching a certain show, or maybe you need to put your phone away during sacrament meeting. Maybe you need to do your favorite hobby a little bit less so that you can have more time to study the gospel a little bit more. There are literally countless ways that you might remove distractions, endless possible applications here, but the principle stays the same, and it is rooted in the doctrine that there is only one true God, and we are commanded to worship Him. All right, so in these two verses, we just found four different principles, just by looking at what Josiah did! And we were able to identify something that he did that is not a principle, it is an application. As you practice doing this, you will get better and better at it, and over time, you will find more and more principles hiding in plain sight in these scripture stories. But remember that the point isn't to check off a list of finding every principle, like doing a word search. We are looking for the principles so that we can strengthen our testimony of the doctrine, so that we can learn how to live in order to get the maximum blessings, and so that we can make decisions about how to apply these principles in our own lives. So reading about temple worship and making covenants might inspire you to go to the temple more. That's where Josiah found strength to make positive changes, so maybe you can, too. I definitely find strength in the temple. Reading about Josiah removing distractions might inspire you to look at your own life and identify the distractions that you can remove, or maybe just focus on a little bit less. How you apply these is up to you, but the principles don't change because they're rooted in doctrine. One last thing - If ever you question if something is a gospel doctrine or principle or not, remember that Elder Bednar said, "True doctrines and principles are emphasized repeatedly in the standard works by the prophets and apostles, and through the illuminating and confirming power of the Holy Ghost," which means there's no such thing as a gospel principle that's only talked about in one place. If you come across something and it doesn't feel quite right, or you've never heard about it before, it might not be a gospel principle. You can check the Gospel Library app, the scriptures, and general conference talks if you have a question about any of this. All right, thank you so much for being here with me this week. Keep looking for those gospel principles, and be sure to join me next week for even more scripture study tips right here on Primarily Scripture. 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