The Savior’s life and teaching

A group of religion instructors were taking a summer course of the life of the Savior and focusing particularly on the parables. The following story related by President James E. Faust may be useful at this point in helping you understand the difference between studying the parables and applying them.

"When the final exam came . . . the students arrived at the classroom to find a note that the exam would be given in another building across campus. Moreover, the note said, it must be finished within the two-hour time period that was starting almost at that moment.

"The students hurried across campus. On the way, they passed a little girl crying over a flat tire on her new bike. And old man hobbled painfully toward the library with a cane in one hand, spilling books from a stack he was trying to manage with the other. On a bench by the union building sat a shabbily dressed, bearded man in obvious distress.

"Rushing into the other classroom, the students were met by the professor, who announced that they had all flunked the final exam.

"The only test of whether they understood the Savior's life and teaching, he said, was how they treated people in need.

"Their weeks of study at the feet of a capable professor had taught them a great deal of what Christ had said and done. In their haste to finish the technicalities of the course, however, they failed to recognize the application represented by the three scenes that had been deliberately staged. They had learned the letter but not the spirit"