Learning New Things

My biggest struggle in Church -- especially Sunday School -- is staying awake, because I rarely hear anything new. Part of this comes with being a genius, learning things quickly, and retaining much. I'm always striving to learn new things and keep my brain going. But church is more about the interactions and repeating the obvious over, and over, and over, and over again. This is because most of us (including me) need this.

The scriptures tell us every now and then about the mysteries of God and how we can learn them. Often I wish: why can't we learn these gems in church? I could take it -- the "real" explanations as to what's going on. But all too often we hear: "our minds are too small to understand how God operates, so we shouldn't worry about it." But that's not what the scriptures say. The mysteries CAN be known. Our minds have plenty of capacity to understand a lot. All we need is to be told, and we'd likely understand it. In my own vivid imagination, I've come up with plenty of theories (science fiction), but no way of knowing if any of it is true.

We're unlikely to learn these gems in church, because most people are not ready. There are always people newly converted, or those who are satisfied with what they know. And when someone does wax wise about one of these mysteries, it often sounds wrong -- as if they had made it up, and it becomes an awkward moment. For this reason, church will always be about the lowest common denominator.

Plus, knowing the mysteries of God is not a requirement of salvation. I don't think ANY Christian church teaches this. That's why church is often about the basics. And I must admit, many of us are still struggling with the basics -- the main reason why we must be constantly reminded.

But man -- I want to know these mysteries. Partly because I'd like to know what to say to investigators who ask the tough questions, and partly because I just want that knowledge. Give me more!

However, I'm learning that with what we already know, it is very easy to lift ourselves up in pride. The only reason I shut down in church is because I believe I can't learn any more. I fall asleep, and ironically miss stuff I need to hear.

And this is where my church's recent "Come Follow Me" program comes into play. We have completed four full years in this program, and we're now starting the fifth one. Each week, the whole world of Latter-day Saints concentrates on a specific reading assignment. In our first year, we did the New Testament. The next year featured the Book of Mormon. And then Doctrine & Covenants with Church History. And finally last year we did the Old Testament, finishing up our Standard Works. This year we restart the cycle with the New Testament.

The Church provides a rather small manual to help guide us each week. But then Biblical and religious experts from all around the world chime in and create their own videos. Some are illustrative, explaining the narratives of the stories. Some are all-out discussions diving deep into how people of the times would interpret certain scripture and prophecies. In other words, there is a plethora of discussion arising from this program.

With my busy schedule, it's very difficult to dive into these videos, but my wife does so, and she reports back to me some of the more juicy details. I'm always surprised to learn something new in the realm of basics -- often reminding myself that I need less pride and more listening.

For example, last year, I learned for the first time that Nineveh was an enemy state to Jonah. Up until 2022, I had thought that city was another Jewish community that needed saving and couldn't understand Jonah's reactions. But knowing that Jonah wanted them to die from the get go -- it all falls into place. It's knowledge not exactly pertinent to my salvation, but it helps me understand Jonah a lot more, making it easier to understand its lessons.

This year, even though I'm a little dismayed at going back to material we've already gone over, I've already learned something new this past week about Matthew 1. When Matthew lists the generations to Jesus' father, and points out the 14 / 14 / 14, it turns out that he may have skipped a couple of kings/fathers in an attempt to force the 14's to work. He was just being some weird numerologist (like Bach was), trying to find importance in a world of math that he understood. It is another reminder that our scriptures are written by humans and will thus have many of these types of small imperfections. Knowing this can help us understand better what's important, and what's just interesting.

Either way, we could all do better learning new things in church. Because we'll never run out of things to learn. We can all have faith, pay attention, and possibly even stay awake.