Using the Scriptures | Robert J. Matthews | 1981

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It is not enough to be casually reading the scriptures; we need to be using the scriptures to learn the gospel thoroughly and learn how to live it.

This speech was given on July 14, 1981.

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"I think this is one of the greatest opportunities that I have ever had to give a public address. I would like to do well for a number of reasons, and I want you to know that I am very serious about what I’m going to say. One reason I would like to do well is that if I do not, it might reflect adversely upon the role of Religious Instruction at BYU and upon the office I hold as dean. I would not want to say or do anything to minimize that important assignment. Also, I would not want the subject that I wish to talk about—the scriptures—to be minimized because of my poor delivery. So I think you would know that I have prayed much and read much and sought much for help and inspiration in order to give this address today. I feel a great need for the help of the Holy Spirit, not only to be with me in order that I might think clearly and speak clearly, but also to be with you so that you might hear clearly and that that same Spirit, because of your willingness, might draw out of me the things that ought to be said.

I feel a little today like something Elder Matthew Cowley said one time. He said when he was a young man getting ready to leave on a mission, his father went to the railroad station with him and said, in effect: “My boy, when you go out on that mission, you will stand before groups to speak, and you will think you are wonderfully prepared, but when you stand up your mind will go completely blank.”

Brother Cowley said to his father, “What do you do when your mind goes blank?”

And his father said, “You stand up there, and, with all the fervor of your soul, you bear witness that Joseph Smith was a prophet of the living God, and thoughts will flood into your mind, and words to your mouth, to round out those thoughts in a facility of expression that will carry conviction to the heart of everyone who listens.”

Brother Cowley, being a man with a great sense of humor, said,

And so my mind, being mostly blank during my five years in the mission field, gave me the opportunity to bear testimony to the greatest event in the history of the world since the crucifixion of the Master.

Try it sometime. . . . If you don’t have anything else to say, testify that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, and the whole history of the Church will flood into your mind. [Adapted from Matthew Cowley Speaks (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1954), pp. 298–99]

Those are the kinds of things we’ll talk about today. I would like to express some views and quote some of the Brethren, and I would like to read some scripture and reflect upon a few things; then I hope that by the time the clock says it’s time to depart, we’ll all feel good for having been here. I listened carefully to the opening prayer and to the words that were said about this being an uplifting time. I was uplifted by that prayer and by the beautiful music that we’ve heard, both the solo and the congregational singing. I would like to continue my portion of this experience by talking about some very spiritual things. I would say, first of all, that there is nothing we can study in a secular way that will ever influence our lives as much as does our religion. Religion influences what we eat, what we drink or don’t drink, and what we wear. It influences our speech, our choice of friends, whom we marry, where we marry, and when we marry. It influences how we spend our time as well as most of our money. There is nothing as encompassing as what we believe about religion and about the gospel. And since it is so encompassing, we ought to expect that in the gospel of Jesus Christ, there are answers to all other disciplines and all other fields of endeavor.

There are two phrases that I find in the scriptures that I will reflect upon a bit today. One is gaining a hope in Christ, the other is filling the measure of our creation; in other words, our lives have a purpose, and it is good for us if, while we are in mortality, we can discover that purpose.

I will read a statement from Elder Orson Pratt, from the Millennial Star, volume 28, p. 72–73. This statement by Elder Pratt gives a broad, expansive, and very realistic view o..."