Searching the Scriptures

Unintentional Jokes in the Scriptures

You know how sometimes when you read a passage in the scriptures then suddenly you see it differently and in a way that it was definitely not intended by the prophetic author? Here's a few:

1- Like when Nephi writes "wo, wo, wo be unto them" you can read it like he's trying to slow down a horse named "be unto them."

Preeeeettttty sure that's not what Nephi was talking about, but it's a funny read.

Yes, I'm writing this on fast sunday.
Why do you ask?

2- Did you hear about the food-fight in heaven? "Then I [Zechariah] turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a flying roll."

Duck! Hahaha. (But seriously, he describes how big it is in the next verse and if that was the size of a dinner roll flying at me you'd better believe I'd be sprinting outta there.)

3- Or the motorcycles in the Book of Mormon? "round tires like the moon; The chains and the bracelets, and the mufflers;" (2 Ne 13:18-19)

There are loads of those little unintentional jokes in the scriptures and any seminary student could point out half a dozen others as well. 

(Perhaps) Unintentional Lessons

I had a moment like that the other day myself, but instead of drawing unintended humor from it I was instead taught a unique lesson.

I was in Pocatello Idaho at the time staying with a cousin of mine and lounging on the guest bed while reading the scriptures on my phone. At the time for my scriptures study I was reading through any scriptures that mentioned the word "love" and I hit upon Jacob 7:23

"And it came to pass that peace and the love of God was restored again among the people; and they searched the scriptures"

I was intrigued by the link between loving God and searching the scriptures. I wanted to see if this particular pairing happened elsewhere in scripture where loving God and searching the scriptures had such a direct link.

So I opened a new page in the gospel library app in my phone and searched the scriptures for "search the scriptures."

See what I did there?

Let me explain again. 

In the Gospel Library app there's a search bar where you can type in whatever word or phrase you wish to find and it will bring up all the scriptures (and any other church materials) that have that word or phrase. 

So what I did was typed "search the scriptures" into the search bar and the app then ran a search through the scriptures to find any verses that said "search the scriptures."

(Do you feel like you're in Inception yet? Cause I sure do. I had to read that paragraph like four times to make sure I said all that right.)

Now at the time then I got a good laugh. Isn't it funny that with as many times as the scriptures tell us to "search the scriptures" we literally have a function on our phones that literally allows us to do just that! And with very little effort on our part!

I'm gonna go on a limb here. I'm gonna say that when the ancient American prophets were scratching the "search the scriptures" Book of Mormon verses onto metal plates they probably didn't fathom that we could search the complete standard works and other gospel sources in seconds using our phones. 

I'm gonna go on another limb here and say that God probably knew exactly what kinds of resources we were going to have available to us and directed those prophets to write accordingly.

Searching the Scriptures

For the majority of my life my scripture study has consisted of reading chronologically. I start in 1st Nephi and quit halfway through 2nd Nephi.

Nah I'm kidding. But I do tend to just read straight through; beginning to end, start to finish, and then do it all over again.


Understand that in no way am I saying reading chronologically through the scriptures is not an effective way to study! It's treated me well for many years and I'll keep studying like that till the day I die (and probably after that too to be honest!).

But maybe we can switch up our normal study habits with a little bit of searching. 

In the scriptures themselves the phrase "search the scriptures" is found 48 times. Said by everyone from Christ in the New Testament to Alma in the Book of Mormon. Now you can study the scriptures without "searching" them, but usually the two go hand in hand.

"Studying" the scriptures doesn't have to be anything huge. We don't have to be preparing a sacrament meeting talk or engrossed in some intense probing of the depths of human understanding to make a "study" of the scriptures. But studying is definitely more involved than just "reading." After all, reading, studying, and pondering are three very different things. President Eyring said it like this in the October 2010 General Conference.

We read words and we may get ideas.

We study and we may discover patterns and 

connections in scripture.

We ponder and we invite revelation by the Spirit.

I have found that a great tool in helping me study and ponder the scriptures, instead of just merely reading them, is using the search function on my phone or on lds.org to read scriptures by topic. 

Some people think that using this search function would be a waste of time unless you're going to be making an intense study of the scriptures or preparing a lesson or a talk. But let me show you how easy it can be. Even if you don't have much time for your scripture study a few verses can always be read and thought about during the remainder of the day.

Here's a quick tutorial to show you how easy it is to "search the scriptures." 

1) Here's a search for the word "love." I selected to search in the scriptures in the Book of Mormon and then it will just give me all the verses in chronological order. If I select the first verse it will take me to it.

2) Now I'm seeing the verse with the word "love" highlighted. It's also telling me at the bottom of my screen that there are two more instances of "love" later on in the chapter. If I tap the arrows in the blue bar at the bottom of my screen it will jump to them automatically. Once I'm finished then I tap "Done" and then tap the magnifying glass again to go back to my search.

3) Now when I look at my search results I can see that the first result is in gray instead of black. That's telling me which search results I've already looked at.

What to Search For?

When Alice, in Lewis Carol's Alice in Wonderland, comes to a crossroads she has an interesting discussion with the Cheshire cat:

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'
'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
'I don't much care where -' said Alice.
'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
'- so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation.
'Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, 'if you only walk long enough.”

I really REALLY hated this movie as a kid.
Still do in fact.

(Sidenote: I thought the last two lines of that quote were particularly interesting. I've heard the first four lines a lot, even in general conference and such, but the last two were new to me. In order to get somewhere, even if we don't know exactly where we're going, we have to walk; and sometimes for a long time. I've felt like that in my life particularly as a young adult. I don't know exactly where God it taking me all the time, and that makes for very fretful moments of decisions when I reach these Wonderland crossroads. But the longer I walk the more clear the path becomes.)

Sometimes I feel like this when I go to search the scriptures. I've been reading chronologically for a while and I want to shake up my scripture reading with a search on some topic, but I'm not sure what to study. The low hanging fruit, of course, is anything to do with Christ, Christlike attributes, basic principles, and doctrines.

All in all I've never done a search that I thought afterwards was worthless. These are the words of God after all; you're going to get something good out of them if you're looking for it!

All in All

I want to keep this post relatively short. Another day, perhaps, I'll write on pondering and how vital that is. Sufficeth to say that when I'm "searching" the scriptures and studying by topic the pondering comes much more naturally and fluidly than when I'm reading chronologically. But maybe that's just me!

Whatever you're doing for your scripture reading/study then just remember to do it consistently. You can't run a marathon if you're only eating a couple times a week, and this life is so much more than just a marathon.

Keep Pushing On

Andrew