We have so very much, and take it all for granted.

Take the scriptures, for example.  I am rereading the New Testament.  I very much enjoy the 117 chapters that comprise Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Acts of the Apostles.  I likewise very much enjoy the 43 chapters that comprise the end of the New Testament.  I even enjoy the book of Revelation although many parts of it are obscure because of changes which were obviously made before it came down to us in its present form.

But between the 117 chapters that are the beginning of the book, and the 43 chapters that are the ending, are the epistles of Paul.  They comprise 100 chapters—over one-third of the New Testament.  Paul has many gems of wisdom scattered throughout his writings, but for the most part I’m hard put to understand what he’s saying.

The last time I read the New Testament from beginning to end, I decided to underline the parts of Paul’s writings that had meaning for me so that the next time I read the book, all that I’d have to bother reading would be the underlined parts.  I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t be missing anything.

If Paul was writing second Corinthians to get those people back on the straight and narrow, it’s small wonder that they fell away.  They couldn’t understand what he was saying!

You really can’t be judgmental about those early Christians for falling away.  Think for a moment about their position.  Paul came preaching.  They were Gentiles, without scriptures.  Paul was charismatic, believable, enthusiastic, and trustworthy.  They believed his message, and were baptized.  As long as he was with them, their faith prospered and grew.  But when he left them, they had no New Testament or Book of Mormon or talks from general conference to sustain them.  They might have had access to some scrolls of the Old Testament, but even that is doubtful.  The few scrolls would have only been available in the synagogue, and the Jews would not have been anxious to share them with unclean Gentiles or with Jewish believers who had left the Jewish fellowship to become Christians.

These early Christians then were left with these few letters from Paul to serve as their guidebooks.  There is precious little in them that would have enabled me to hold fast to the iron rod had I been among them.  They literally had no rod to hold fast to, so who can be judgmental about them for falling away?

In our day we have the word of God available to us in the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, general conference, the printed copies of general conference, audio recordings of all of the above, Church magazines, hundreds of books and commentaries, church every week, lesson manuals of every type, painstakingly prepared lessons, and talks in sacrament meetings, and all of this available on the Church website at the click of a button.

Consider, too, the saints in the early days of the Restoration.  They had the Book of Mormon, but it was not divided into chapters and verses like it is today.  References were hard to find.  There were no footnotes nor study guides.  They had the Bible, but they were also steeped in incorrect traditions and interpretations.

They also had no hymnal.  Joseph was instructed by the Lord to have Emma compile one.  She put together a book containing the lyrics to 90 hymns.  It contained no notes—no music.  The saints had no pianos for accompaniment, and often met outside in the open air.

When we were on our mission in Vanuatu, it was the same—open-air meetings, no accompaniment, and few hymn books.  The words they sang were familiar, but the tunes were often unrecognizable.  They had their own versions.  Most tunes had variations in the notes and timing which were impossible to remove from the minds into which they were embedded.

We have so much, yet some people are careless and neglect these treasures.  People still fall away in spite of having these advantages.  I suspect that their cases will be less excusable than those of the saints of other eras.

In the beginning the Lord said, “We will go down...and we will take of these materials...”  (Abraham 3:24).  There are a lot more materials available now to make us what we ought to become.  We must use them or we’ll never become what we should.