It's all there really (Understanding Scriptures)

Luke 24:45 

( http://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/luke/24.45?lang=eng#44)

What does it say inside this triangle?

Did you notice that there are 2 "THE's"

How easy is it to miss important details? How often can that change the situation? 

I am so very guilty of it, I can't tell you how many times I've gone into a shop with some voucher only to find that I missed the deadline (it said in the small print). 

I can also tell you that I do that so often when reading my scriptures as well.

I will read a passage, think about it.then read it again later and realize I got the wrong end of the stick there,

seems like its not just me either. In Luke 25 is the story about Christ's resurrection (coming back from the dead) and I would like to focus on the part where he is talking to travelers afterwards

Something read as Good to one person
 could be read as evil to another.

Verse 45 says

"Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures"

Even in the time of Christ people didn't understand the scriptures, probably because each individual scripture can be interpreted so many ways. Thats partly why there are so many different christian churches. Each one of them thinks the scriptures mean something different.

The scriptures are the word God given to us today, but if we don't understand them, then they can't help us at all. Use a dictionary for words you don't understand or read the scriptures around the one you are stuck on. but most of all make sure that you always start reading your scriptures with a prayer. God is the one that always knows what the scriptures means.

What would you do? (How to react)

 Acts 17:2-5

(http://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/acts/17.2,3,4,5?lang=eng#1)

If a good friend of yours came up to you today, and told you something along the lines of...

(photobucket.com)

What would you say/do?

1. My friend is crazy. They need to be sent to the hospital.
2. I wonder how they're going to pull off this magic trick?
3. If they have a golden goose I would love to see this.
4. What are they talking about? Why would they tell me this?
5. Wow a real live golden goose?! 

There have been too many times (From personal experience) where I have done something that has ended up more like this:

So to link this to the scriptures when Paul the Apostle goes into Thessalonica and "Reasoned with them out of the scriptures. Opening and alleging, that Christ must need have suffered, and risen again from the dead" (verse 2-3) 

This was just as big a thing to them as someone, ranting about a gold laying goose. They had a whole range of reactions. (Similar to what we do today)

 "And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas" (verse 4) But

"The Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar" (verse 5)

These Jews weren't able to learn about the Christ whom they had been waiting for all their lives, because they were too set in their ways. What about us? Have we lost opportunities because we were to set in our ways?

We need to always try and be open to what people tell us. Never assume that we know everything. What they have could be the golden egg we need.

Map and compass (Scriptures)

2 Peter 1:20

(http://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/2-pet/1.20?lang=eng#19)

(bbc.co.uk)

Looking at this map you would probably be able to guess what most of it means strait away. The green part covered with trees is fairly easy to guess, and so is the gray box with houses put into it, but what about that purple line at the top, or the red ring to seems to around the island.

Everything on this map means 1 thing. if you don't know what a symbol means then you would likely mean that your going on the wrong road and could end very badly (I have enough experience with maps to know that this is very easy to do even when you do know what everything means). You can't just say, "I know what the green part is so I know enough." 

(lds.org and pixlr)

The scriptures are the maps to heaven, and just like the maps above, its very easy to go the wrong direction when you don't know what you are looking at. So what can we do to help us know what the scriptures mean? I can give a few suggestions that I have found helpful. but please feel free to put more things that you think would be good in the comments at the bottom.

1) Read them as much as you can. A map is no good if you never look at it.

2) Explain word's If there is a word you don't know or unsure about look it up in a dictionary, there no point going to a Fortress thinking it will be cool to see, only to find out it's a forest

3) Write down what you learn. If you find some cool spot next to a lake, you write it down so you don't have to search for it again. Don't lose cool things you find in the scriptures