Education
School can seem very boring. Going to class every day (whether you want to or not) and doing homework as soon as you get home might be much less immediately interesting than going out with friends or playing video games. “Playing hooky” can be a constant temptation (if not often all that possible—every time you skip they find out, don’t they?). And when most of the jobs open to teenagers are unskilled labor and pay very badly, it can be difficult to work up enthusiasm to train for jobs. What if you put in all these years at high school and then all those years at college and end up flipping burgers anyway?
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It is important to be educated even to be competitive, though. Many jobs with even reasonable salaries require a degree and almost all jobs look poorly on applicants who dropped out of high school. In a purely realistic mindset, education is necessary for survival. To make it through a full education speaks of a certain dedication that employees like to see—it shows that you’re willing to do things (at length and at length) that are far from fun or leisure to better yourself. But even beyond that, education is very valuable. |
In Mormons’ beliefs, the glory of God is intelligence, which is not necessarily to say raw knowledge. But God would have us progress in mind, body, and spirit. He would have us be eager to learn—learning is a reward in and of itself. We should seek out things that interest us and delight in newness—whatever is good and praiseworthy is ours to know. To be Mormon is not to close our mind to anything that is not immediately part of the Church. We should be aware of what happens in the world, of the nature of nature. We should be wise. We should seek out good books, even if we don’t completely agree with every conclusion the author draws. We should seek to expand our mind with the many things that the world has to teach us.
And scripture study, the study of the Word, is ever essential to us all. It isn’t enough to have faith and believe in basic precepts if we never study the scriptures and never intend Church. Spiritual knowledge is essential, more important than any other knowledge we can obtain. Through it, we learn more of our Heavenly Father, of Jesus. We form a relationship with them. We learn more of ourselves and of others—our nature as spiritual sons and daughters, spiritual siblings. The scriptures contain that which God would tell us. We only help ourselves in listening and reading.
Mormons have more books of scripture than most other faiths, believing, as they do, in continual revelation. God hasn’t stopped speaking to mankind and will continue to speak to mankind until the end, they believe, and they are very concerned with making sure they know what the Lord would have them know. Scripture study is supposed to be daily, to keep the Lord’s precepts fresh in their mind as they go through their day. To read the scriptures daily is added spiritual protection against temptation.
These books of scripture are the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, and the Doctrine and Covenants. Since Mormons believe that prophets stand at the head of the Church, they also listen carefully to what the prophets say. (Gordon B. Hinckley is the prophet today.)