Building Faith in Christ with the Book of Mormon

Years ago I had the opportunity to meet Reid E. Bankhead at a rest home. He presented me with a signed copy of Building Faith in Christ with the Book of Mormon, which he co-wrote with Glenn L. Pearson. This book is divided into multiple topics with a brief explanation of the topic, followed by a list of passages from the scriptures that teach about the topic, and then concluded with study questions for the reader.

The authors clearly wanted this book to get into as many hands as possible. They even requested the retail value to be no more than $5.00. Probably because of this, their book was not edited  very carefully. Not all the scripture passages matched the topic they were assigned to. In fact, one entire topic had no supporting scriptures, they were all references for a different topic. At other times, there would be a scripture reference that did not exist. But despite these occasional mistakes, the book is still worth using.

In order to ensure that I was getting the best use out of this book, I read every single scripture reference associated with each topic. Sometimes this got very repetitive (for example, I think I read all of Alma 30 at least five times!) However, I was very impressed with the work the authors must have done to compile a study guide such as this. In the future, when I need to find some good scriptures about a certain topic, I will certainly turn to this book for help.

One of the neatest features about this book is that, despite its title, it does not stay solely in the Book of Mormon. It gives supporting scriptures from all of the standard works, showing how the Lord's principles are eternal and found in all His words. Using this resource helps the reader become more familiar with Gospel topics, while at the same time helping the Stick of Judah and the Stick of Joseph become one in his hand.