What do most people think of when they hear people
discussing the matter of higher education? Likely college, undergraduate and graduate studies,
and possibly PhD or Masters’ programs.
However, when Orson Whitney referenced Doctrine and Covenants 88:118 in
his speech Home Literature, I automatically thought of the divine higher
education that is taught in the House of the Lord and through other means. What do temporal and spiritual learning have
in common, and how can we use one to aid the other?
Nephi Anderson’s novel Added Upon discusses the knowledge we gained while still living in the
premortal life. The narrator talked
about how the experiences we had in heaven were “wholly within the compass of
spiritual life” and how we must “become acquainted with the existence of
properties, laws, and organization of matter” other than those we knew as
spiritual beings. This concept made me
think about what I need to be learning of temporal importance while on this
earth, and how I can use my spiritual knowledge to further advance my
education.
After pondering this topic for some time, I came to the
conclusion that my desire is to obey God’s every command, which specifically
includes D&C 88:118. Through Joseph
Smith, God instructed us to “Seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom;
seek learning, even by study and also by faith.” Through obeying this commandment, we can
fulfil the mission which we were sent here to complete. Whitney defines it as such, “to draw all men
unto Christ by means of knowledge, wisdom and learning revealed from heaven and
recorded in the best of books.”
Through
these teachings, I know we can fulfil this mission and obey God’s commandments
to educate ourselves and those around us in the temporal and spiritual things
of the world, as taught in Nephi Andersons’s Added Upon and Orson Whitney’s Home
Literature.
