The Gift of the Scriptures

Scriptures are writings or teachings that are inspired by God. The scriptures have been given by God to men through the teachings of His prophets, and they are readily available to us today. We can enjoy easy access to the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and to many other words of modern prophets on our own personal electronic devices. With just the click of a button, we can find plain and precious truths and principles that can help us in our daily lives. However, things have not always been this way.

In earlier periods of the history of the world, things were much different. There wasn’t technology to conveniently copy and print written language, so all copying of words had to be done by hand. Not many copies of the scriptures existed because it would've taken days and weeks just to copy a small section of written word. You’d have to be really lucky and probably very rich to own a copy of the scriptures in the ancient world.

At other times in the history of the world, access to the scriptures was practically impossible for most people. Even if you could read, chances are, you probably couldn’t read Latin. And even if you could read Latin, you could only access the scriptures if you were an appointed ecclesiastical leader. Many laws were put in place to keep the common man from reading the scriptures in the Middle Ages, and on top of that, not many copies of the scriptures even existed. Many people sacrificed their lives just so that we could have the scriptures today.

To have access to the scriptures like we do today is a very underappreciated blessing from God. Much truth and light is available to us, but many of us hardly take the time to access that truth. We too often take for granted what has been given to us. Will those sacrifices that men made for the words of God be in vain? Let us take more advantage of what we have been blessed with. Let us read and study our scriptures more diligently every day.