John 5 "Troubled the water" & "Search the Scriptures"

John 5:4 "Troubled the water"

• There may have been a spring that occasionally flowed into the pool and caused the surface of the water to bubble, which may have provided some relief to these people’s ailments [see Bible Dictionary, “Bethesda”].)

Elder Bruce R. McConkie

“No doubt the pool of Bethesda was a mineral spring whose waters had some curative virtue. But any notion that an angel came down and troubled the waters, so that the first person thereafter entering them would be healed, was pure superstition. Healing miracles are not wrought in any such manner” (Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, 3 vols. [1965–73], 1:188).

John 5:39 “Search the scriptures; … they are they which testify of me”

President Hinckley said, 

Read the word of the Lord. . . . I promise you that if you will read the words of that writing which we call scripture, there will come into your heart an understanding and a warmth that will be pleasing to experience. “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me” (John 5:39). Read, for instance, the Gospel of John from its beginning to its end. Let the Lord speak for himself to you, and his words will come with a quiet conviction that will make the words of his critics meaningless. Read also the testament of the New World, the Book of Mormon, brought forth as a witness “that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations” (Book of Mormon title page). (Gordon B. Hinckley, Be Thou an Example [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1981], 83)

Elder McConkie said,

"Yet man's hope of gaining salvation is in direct proportion to his knowledge of God and the laws of salvation. No man can be saved in ignorance of Jesus Christ and the laws of the gospel. Man is saved no faster than he gains knowledge of God and the saving truths recorded in the scriptures. A fountain cannot rise above its source; a people cannot live laws of which they are ignorant, nor believe in a Christ about whom they know little or nothing. The Lord expects his people to learn the doctrines of salvation. “Search these commandments” (D&C 1:37), is a decree which applies in principle to all revelations of all ages." (Bruce R. McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, 3 vols. [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1965–1973], 1:201).

President Benson said, 

"The more we are familiar with the scriptures, the closer we become to the mind and will of the Lord. It will be easier for us to allow the truths of eternity to rest on our minds." (Ezra Taft Benson, Come unto Christ [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1983], 20)

Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught:

“In the end, the central purpose of all scripture is to fill our souls with faith in God the Father and in His Son, Jesus Christ—faith that They exist; faith in the Father’s plan for our immortality and eternal life; faith in the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, which animates this plan of happiness; faith to make the gospel of Jesus Christ our way of life; and faith to come to know ‘the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom [He has] sent’ (John 17:3)” (“The Blessing of Scripture,” Ensign or Liahona, May 2010, 34).