40-Day Reading Challenge


KeithLBrown
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Prior to being baptized on 10 March 1998, I told the missionaries that were teaching me at that time that I would not be baptized until after I had read the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price in their entirety. I was blessed in that the Lord inspired me to develop a 40-Day Reading Schedule and so for forty days prior to my baptism, I read the Book of Mormon in its entirety followed by the Doctrine and Pearl of Great Price each in their entirety.

Please come and join me starting on 1 July 2009 for forty days of reading the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. You can view the 40-Day Reading Schedule that I developed by going here.

I will be posting about some of the things that I learn as I read and hope that some of you will also.

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I also invite people to respond to the forum here on this site where I post a scripture from the Book of Mormon and quotes that go along with it.

I'm in Keith.

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I'm in and I'm going to challenge my RS sisters to this as well. I teach the 4th Sunday and I've told them that because I'm teaching, they get to share in my life (they know I have no real life, I live online through my forums).

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Keith perhaps when the time comes I can make up forums for each day of reading..Day 1 day 2 etc. That way we don't have one LONG thread for the entire reading process. Would make it easier to refer back to each day of reading. What do you think?

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keith perhaps when the time comes i can make up forums for each day of reading..day 1 day 2 etc. That way we don't have one long thread for the entire reading process. Would make it easier to refer back to each day of reading. What do you think?

YES! That would be great!

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I'm in and I'm going to challenge my RS sisters to this as well. I teach the 4th Sunday and I've told them that because I'm teaching, they get to share in my life (they know I have no real life, I live online through my forums).

I so wish there was a laugh button for this one! :D

I'm the same way (except not currently teaching RS, although I have).

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Keith perhaps when the time comes I can make up forums for each day of reading..Day 1 day 2 etc. That way we don't have one LONG thread for the entire reading process. Would make it easier to refer back to each day of reading. What do you think?

It's Keith's call, since he's leading this, but I think this is a GREAT idea!

OTOH, we may not all be reading the exact same stuff at the exact same time, since I plan to use a somewhat tweaked version of the schedule.

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Pam,

Keith perhaps when the time comes I can make up forums for each day of reading..Day 1 day 2 etc. That way we don't have one LONG thread for the entire reading process. Would make it easier to refer back to each day of reading. What do you think?

By the way, yes we will be reading all three concurrently and yes, I think your ideal of setting up separate forums is a great one. Go for it!! This is going to be exciting.

Seanette has also put together an excellent plan for this reading in EXCEL spreadsheet if some of you would like to take a look at it. Whichever reading schedule or plan that you choose to follow, the goal is to complete the reading of the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price in 40 days. I know it can be done as I have done it several times now.

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It's Keith's call, since he's leading this, but I think this is a GREAT idea!

OTOH, we may not all be reading the exact same stuff at the exact same time, since I plan to use a somewhat tweaked version of the schedule.

As others may do as well.. However, I will set the forums up according to Keith's schedule.

I'm excited as well.

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I'm in and I'm going to challenge my RS sisters to this as well. I teach the 4th Sunday and I've told them that because I'm teaching, they get to share in my life (they know I have no real life, I live online through my forums).

This sounds like a great ideal! I would be interested in knowing how it works out and how many of the RS sisters accept the challenge.

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I find you get a lot more out of the scriptures if you don't just read them, but study them. I already read the scriptures twice this past year. So instead of reading them in a certain amount of time, I decided to read between the lines, and use tons of exterior sources. I've been doing this for a while, and am only on 1 Nephi 17. But I've gotten more more out of those 17 verses than I've gotten out of the entire book when I read it in 100 days. It's just my opinion. I think that reading challenges are great, but some people miss the point. I know so much more about 1 Nephi now. Things I had missed by simply trying to just read the book and get it over with. Enjoy the race, not the finish. ^_^

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I find you get a lot more out of the scriptures if you don't just read them, but study them. I already read the scriptures twice this past year. So instead of reading them in a certain amount of time, I decided to read between the lines, and use tons of exterior sources. I've been doing this for a while, and am only on 1 Nephi 17. But I've gotten more more out of those 17 verses than I've gotten out of the entire book when I read it in 100 days. It's just my opinion. I think that reading challenges are great, but some people miss the point. I know so much more about 1 Nephi now. Things I had missed by simply trying to just read the book and get it over with. Enjoy the race, not the finish. ^_^

LostSheep,

I certainly understand and appreciate what you are saying. I too like to take the time and study portions of the Scriptures as I read them. I agree that it does help to clarify some of that which I have read.

With that being said, in my humble opinion, I do believe that sometimes we can, if we are not careful, spend more time pondering over what has been written about the Scriptures by others, than actually reading the Scriptures themselves. After all, it is the Word of God, which stands firmly on its own, that is the ultimate and final authority. Sometimes I fear that people can get too caught up in becoming concerned about what someone has written about a subject than they do about the actual subject at hand. In short, what I am saying is that there needs to be a delicate balance. Again, the Word of God itself should always be our final authority.

I particularly like what President Ezra Taft Benson taught us about this. He said, "Always remember, there is no satisfactory substitute for the scriptures and the words of the living prophets. These should be your original sources. Read and ponder more what the Lord has said, and less about what others have written concerning what the Lord has said." (Address to educators, Salt Lake City, September 17, 1976.) To me, those are great words of counsel.

I also concur with the strong counsel of President Romney, given to a group of seminary and institute coordinators in 1973. He told them, “I don’t know much about the gospel other than what I’ve learned from the standard works. When I drink from a spring I like to get the water where it comes out of the ground, not down the stream after the cattle have waded in it. … I appreciate other people’s interpretation, but when it comes to the gospel we ought to be acquainted with what the Lord says. … You ought to read the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants; and … all the scriptures with the idea of finding out what’s in them and what the meaning is and not to prove some idea of your own. Just read them and plead with the Lord to let you understand what he had in mind when he wrote them.” (Address delivered at Coordinators’ Convention, Seminaries and Institutes of Religion, 13 Apr. 1973.)

Each of us have our own methods of reading and studying the Scriptures. Please understand that I am not in any way saying that one method is better than another, or that a particular method is wrong and another is right. One of the main purposes behind the challenge is to help motivate those who have never read the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price in their entirety to pick up those blessed Scriptures and read them and perhaps for some, for the very first time discover what is actually written in each one. Believe it, or not, there are some who have been members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints their entire lives and have never read either of these volumes of Scripture in their entirety. It is my hope, my sincere prayer, that once they read them for perhaps the first time in their entirety, they will gain a thirst to want to read them again and again. I have now in my 11 years as a member of the Church read the Book of Mormon 7 times in its entirety, and the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price each 8 times in their entirety. I find that each time I read them I learn something that I did not learn before. It is indeed a continual learning process.

The Prophet Joseph Smith gave us this great admonition in 1832. He said,"“Search the scriptures—search the revelations which we publish and ask your Heavenly Father, in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, to manifest the truth unto you, and if you do it with an eye single to His glory nothing doubting, He will answer you by the power of His Holy Spirit. You will then know for yourselves and not for another. You will not then be dependent on man for the knowledge of God; nor will there be any room for speculation. … For when men receive their instruction from Him that made them, they know how He will save them. … Again we say: Search the Scriptures, search the Prophets and learn what portion of them belongs to you.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, comp. Joseph Fielding Smith, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1938, pp. 11–12.)

For me personally, I enjoy the race as well as the finish. Perhaps I enjoy the finish even more than the race itself, because once I have crossed the finish line, I find myself excited, wanting to run the race again and again. The beauty of reading the Scriptures is just as J. Richard Clarke once said, "Brothers and sisters, you don't have to be a natural student to read the scriptures; you just need to love the Lord." (Ensign, November 1982, p.15.)

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changed, that was one of my tweaks to the original schedule, adding the introductory material (intro, witness testimonies, and such) as a chapter in the Book of Mormon. JS-H gets covered in the Pearl of Great Price (my version has that cycling several times, Keith's once).

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