By Kyna Taylor
Explaining a difficult passage in Isaiah, Terry Ball, dean of Religious Education, told students at devotional on how his secular education in botany helped him gain a stronger testimony of the scriptures.
To the untrained eye, the verses in Isaiah 28: 24-29 run together and seem to make little sense, Ball said. Using his training as a botanist, Ball helped the students see the principles of the gospel contained in the passage about a farmer plowing a field and sowing seeds.
The seeds are sown according to their needs and individual characteristics in straight rows or tightly clumped together. Some of the seeds are planted in the center of the field where the soil is the finest, and some on the outside to form a barrier around the field.
'Obviously Isaiah is trying to do something more here than teach us about Old Testament agriculture,' Ball said. 'I believe Isaiah wants us to liken the farmer to our Heavenly Father, and the seeds to our selves. Have you ever wondered why you were born where and when you were born?'
A fundamental principle of the LDS faith is that before arriving on the earth, everyone lived in a pre-mortal existence with God, he said.
'We believe that when it came time for us to experience mortality,' he said, 'a loving Heavenly Father who knows each of us well, sent us to earth at the time and place and circumstances that would best help us reach our divine potential, and help him maximize his harvest of redeemed souls.'
Some people can be seen as fitches and cummin, planted in tight-knit communities. Others can be paralleled to wheat, who like the staff of life, have been placed in promising places. Still others have been placed in some difficult circumstances, perhaps having to face handicaps and hardships.
'I believe, I really believe, that when an engineer, a musician, a social scientist, or anyone educated in a given discipline reads the scriptures, they too can gain insights and make discoveries unique to that discipline, if they are looking for them- if they are observant,' Ball said.
'I hope you will develop the habit of being so observant- of regularly considering what your learning can tell you about the gospel, and what the gospel can tell you about your learning,' he said.