President Nelson challenged first the young adults then the church world-wide to study the Savior by using the topical guide, and wrote about it in this blog post (with pictures of apostle study pages - bonus!).
I decided to take that challenge, however long it takes me.
One early experience - I opened up to study about Jesus as the Creator, read one verse and thought, "Okay, not much earth shattering there..." Before I could go on to the next verse, a family member came in to talk, and by the time they left I was ready to get to sleep. I sent a little prayer up, "Okay Heavenly Father, I only read one verse then this family member needed to talk for a while. What do I need to learn from that?" I immediately felt the powerful answer - not only did Jesus create the world, He created you, and He can help you create whatever you need to.
Wow.
With so many scriptures (President Nelson says it's over 2,200 citings on those 18 topical guide pages), I'm still at the very very beginning, but I know this will be a meaningful study. I was already getting frustrated with the flipping back and forth between topical guide and scriptures, so I was going to photocopy those pages, then thought I could create a document with them all (it's an addiction), then thought maybe someone else already did it. After searching I found that some had, but I didn't love any of them so I adjusted theirs to make by own.
And so, for your own Topical Guide study of Jesus purposes . . . here you go.
P.S. A couple months ago I read the book The Robe by Lloyd Douglas, which added so much to my love and understanding of the Savior as well. It turned my black and white reading of the New Testament to full and beautiful color. Highly, highly recommended. I loved it so much I had to read more of Douglas' work, so I got a copy of The Big Fisherman and loved that almost as much. Several more of his on my to-read list.
Wow! I am excited to try this! What a great personal experience too and powerful message. I am looking forward to reading "The Robe" and am also grateful you reminded me of this challenge. Glad to have you as a friend and inspiration :).
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ReplyDeleteHi - I'm looking for interested people to help me with an extensive project to cut and paste all of the scripture verses together per topic. I've recruited some friends to help. If you're interested, contact me at goldenrulestories@yahoo.com THANKS!
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ReplyDeleteThere's this new program that makes studying the topical guide really easy!!! I've been using it recently and am now like "What can I study in the Topical Guide for scriptures?" XD
ReplyDeleteHere's a link to the site it's on!
https://scripturenotes.com/the-3-plus-levels-of-topical-guide-study