Standard Works

The volumes of scripture accepted as the official canon of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are collectively known as the standard works. Included are the Holy Bible (the King James Version of the Old and New Testaments), the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. These canonized writings are the standard by which all other teachings in the Church are measured. The written word of God as found in the four standard works “fixes permanently the general truths which God has revealed,” wrote Elder B. H. Roberts. “It preserves, for all time and for all generations of men, the great frame-work of the plan of salvation—the Gospel. There are certain truths that are not affected by ever-changing circumstances; truths which are always the same, no matter how often they may be revealed; truths which are elementary, permanent, fixed; from which there must not be, and cannot be, any departure without condemnation. The written word of God preserves the people of God from vain and foolish traditions, which, as they float down the stream of time, are subject to changes by distortion, by addition or subtraction, or by the fitful play of fancy in fantastic and unreliable minds. It forms a standard by which even the living oracles of God may instruct themselves, measure themselves, and correct themselves. It places within the reach of the people, the power to confirm the oral words, and the ministry of the living oracles, and thus to add faith to faith, and knowledge to knowledge” (576–77).

The standard works—those fundamental revelations, doctrines, principles—are universally applicable and binding upon the entire Church. In a revelation “embracing the law of the Church,” given to the Prophet Joseph Smith in 1831, the Lord declared: “Thou shalt take the things which thou hast received, which have been given unto thee in my scriptures for a law, to be my law to govern my church” (D&C 42:59). President Joseph Fielding Smith elaborated upon the role of canonized scripture as this governing law, or standard: “It makes no difference what is written or what anyone has said, if what has been said is in conflict with what the Lord has revealed, we can set it aside. My words, and the teachings of any other member of the Church, high or low, if they do not square with the revelations, we need not accept them. Let us have this matter clear. We have accepted the four standard works as the measuring yardsticks, or balances, by which we measure every man’s doctrine” (3:203).

Resting upon each individual is the personal responsibility to search the scriptures and obtain an in-depth, sound understanding of the doctrines of the gospel as found in the standard works. Only when we have devoted ourselves to serious, extensive, and continual study of the scriptures can they serve as measuring rods in helping others and ourselves discern truth and dispel error. Thus, the responsibility to know, teach, and judge truth by the standard works is an individual as well as an institutional obligation and blessing.

Sources

Roberts, B. H. “A Nephite’s Commandments to His Three Sons.” Improvement Era, June 1900, 570–78.

Smith, Joseph Fielding. Doctrines of Salvation. Compiled by Bruce R. McConkie. 3 vols. Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1954–56.

BLT