“What Are We to Understand?” – How Doctrine and Covenants 77 Helps Us Ask Better Questions

In 2019, I wrote 365 blog posts each based on a spontaneous question—something I was wondering about at the time. Looking back, I can group most of them into a few categories:

1. Practical application (How can I make better decisions?)
2. Doctrinal discovery (What does the Book of Mormon teach About tithing?)
3. Understanding God’s purposes (Why were the children of Israel scattered?)
4. Significance of specific words and phrases (What does it mean to “publish peace?”)

Doctrine and Covenants 77 is also a collection of questions and answers—15 questions Joseph Smith asked while revising the King James Version of the book of Revelation, and the corresponding answers he received from God. What kinds of questions was he asking, and what can we learn from his questions to improve our study of the scriptures?

Twelve of the questions fall into what I would call “seeking deep insight.” They begin with phrases like “What are we to understand?” or “What is to be understood?” The closest equivalent in the Book of Mormon is a set of questions Nephi’s brothers ask him about their father’s dream:

• “What meaneth this thing which our father saw in a dream? What meaneth the tree which he saw?” (1 Nephi 15:21).
• “What meaneth the rod of iron which our father saw, that led to the tree?” (1 Nephi 15:23).
• “What meaneth the river of water which our father saw?” (1 Nephi 15:26).

Two of the questions are about timing: when will something happen? They are similar to the question the disciples asked Jesus about the destruction of the temple: “Tell us, when shall these things be?” (Matthew 24:3, Mark 13:4, Luke 21:7). Knowing when something will happen, or at least what will happen before and after, can help us put things into context.

Finally, one of the questions is an either-or question: “Are the four beasts limited to individual beasts, or do they represent classes or orders?” The answer appears to be “both.” They are “limited to four individual beasts, which…represent the glory of the classes of beings” (Doctrine and Covenants 77:3). In the Book of Mormon, Nephi’s brothers twice ask a similar question and receive a similar response. “Are these things temporal or spiritual?” they ask. Nephi answers, “Both.” (See 1 Nephi 15:31-32; 1 Nephi 22:1-3.)

We can learn from each of these types of question.

1. I like the humility in the question, “What are we to understand?” It implies that God has something specific to teach us, and that instead of looking for a universal, absolute meaning, we might be wise to ask, “What message does God have for me right now? What does He want to teach me today?”
2. Timing questions remind us to make connections and look for context. “How does this piece of information relate to other truths I have been taught, and is there a sequence I need to be aware of?”
3. Finally, either-or questions serve the important purpose of demonstrating that we’ve thought about the topic and have more than one hypothesis. But as illustrated by the answers above, we should be prepared for answers like “both” or “none of the above.”

Today, I will incorporate section-77-style questions into my study. I will strive to learn what God wants to teach me today. I will place new learnings into a context. And I will share my hypotheses with God while allowing Him to teach me truths which transcend my current understanding.