[Page vii]Abstract: When I was young, I learned an important lesson that has stayed with me through my life. This lesson has led me, on many occasions, to reread great works by great authors. The scriptures are no exceptions, and rereading them can be beneficial to any reader.

When I was still quite young, perhaps around fourteen or so, the bishopric of my southern California ward asked the ward’s home teachers to invite the families they visited to set goals for the coming year.

One night soon thereafter, my senior companion and I visited one of the homes to which we were assigned. It belonged to a couple in their fifties or early sixties, transplants from Utah (as many of the California Saints of that generation were), who had occasionally been active members of the ward but whose recent participation had been, at most, sporadic.

My senior companion told them of the challenge from the bishop and asked if there were any goals that they might like to set. The husband thought for a while and then, quite seriously, said he would like to have a million dollars in the bank.

My companion chuckled and replied that, while that might be a good ambition, he imagined that the bishop probably had goals in mind of a more spiritual nature, goals with which home teachers might be able to help.

The man and his wife could think of none.

After a couple of minutes, my companion suggested the goal of, say, reading the Book of Mormon or the New Testament during the coming months.

“Oh,” the husband immediately responded, “but I’ve already read the scriptures.”

It’s a small thing but, for some reason, that little experience has stuck in my memory ever since. I can still remember the name of my senior [Page viii]companion and of the married couple — though I think that I was only assigned to him and to them for a very short time — and in my mind’s eye I can still see that scene in their living room.

Even then, as a young boy, it seemed odd to me to think of the scriptures as books you read through once and then are done with.

That’s the way one reads escapist literature, pulp fiction. When, having completed a none-too-good detective novel, you know that the butler did it — in the kitchen, with a wrench — there’s usually not too much reason to go back and read the book again. And certainly there would be little point in rereading it very carefully, lingering over each line, weighing each word, seeking to plumb the depths of the writer’s mind.

For very good books, though, and especially for truly great ones, there is enormous value to be gained from reading them again and again, poring over them, reflecting upon them, reading them in different ways.

They can be read rapidly (say, the Book of Mormon or the New Testament in a month or a week or a long weekend) or slowly, lingering over every word and phrase or tracking down every cross reference. They can be read thematically, working through the Topical Guide. The Bible can be read in a fresh translation, or even in the original languages. The scriptures can be read in a language different from one’s own or heard in an audio version. Read silently or aloud. Read alone or with a group.

I can confidently guarantee, based on at least some experience with every one of those approaches, that each of them will yield new insights and unexpected discoveries. Permit me to share a simple example from my own life.

For many years, I regarded the opening rhetorical salvo by Samuel the Lamanite as an example of bad, repetitious prose:

And he said unto them: Behold, I, Samuel, a Lamanite, do speak the words of the Lord which he doth put into my heart; and behold he hath pu...