In my Church we call the classes or program that the children ages 1.5 years to 11 years old are in, the primary program or primary for short. They are taught the basics of the gospel, who Jesus is, why He is important, who Joseph Smith, how the Church works, and these kind of things. Very basic stuff, similar to the kind of stuff children are taught in any church. This is what comes to mind for the vast majority of people in my church when you say the word primary.
Among the chief things that primary age children learn are 4 answers that can be given to most questions teachers in my Church ask. These answers are “Read the Scriptures, Go to Church, Follow the Prophet, and Pray” rightfully so these have been dubbed “The Primary Answers” I can’t tell you how many classes I have been in where we were asked something like “what can we do to prevent our selves from loosing faith and falling away?” and with out fail someone responds “Oh the primary answers you know: read, go to Church, follow the prophet, and pray” and the conversation went on.
But today these stood out to me while I was listening to a talk. The talk is entitled “Stand Forever” by Elder Lawrence Corbridge and is fantastic, I recommend it. It about his response to anti- papers and books he had been asked to read on behalf of the church. One of the points he talked about was primary questions vs secondary questions and how some questions are more important than other and how having answers for them will answer a lot of the secondary question or make them irrelevant. A good example would be the question of Jesus’ skin color that is often hotly debated versus the primary question of Jesus being the Savior of Mankind. We can see when you ask and answer the primary question secondary one doesn’t matter as much. If we believe Jesus to be the Savior of Mankind, He could be purple for all it would matter.
This got me thinking on the meaning of the word primary, and not in the way we in the church often use it. Primary means “of chief importance or earliest in time or order” I can see why we call the children’s program primary as it definitely is earliest in time or order. But when thinking of the actual definition of primary it occurred to me, I may have been thinking of those primary answers in the wrong way. This may have occurred to you before, but it had never once occurred to me. Perhaps those Primary Answers are not thusly named because we learned them in Primary but because they are Actually Primary Answers! Answers of chief importance.
When questions come and the world shakes, when all of the devil’s hail and mighty storms beat upon you, when the very mouth of hell gapes wide after you, what are the answers of chief importance? Prayer, Scripture Study, Listening to the Prophet, and Church attendance. These are more than the idle word of long past youth; these are words to bring eternal life. I would go so far as to say that there has never been anyone who has ever fallen away from the church who has not first defaulted in one of these Primary Answers.
David stumbled only after neglecting what he should have been doing, Solomon fell away from God only after he stopped following the council of the prophets, Lamen and Lemuel rebelled against their father the prophet and did not look unto the Lord as the ought long before they led their nation and families down the dark path they went, in my own life the years before the time I spent in unbelief were not marked by these primary answers and it was not until I turned back to them that I was pulled from that dark place.
These are not joke answers to have eyes rolled at and be dismissed. When the questions come and you feel like throwing the town in, if you are on the edge and feel like you are barely holding on turn back to these primary answers, turn back to the answers of chief importance and then what the salvation that the Lord has provided for you.
How many of the very elect have fallen away or been deceived because they did not hold to these primary answers? How many would come back if they turned to them now?
Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. Perhaps the program is named after the answers and not the other way around.
In Jesus name amen