An Ear to Wisdom, a Heart to Understanding

Dear sisters and brothers, welcome to BYU Education Week!

If you’re happy to be here, would you please raise your hand? We’re excited to be with each of you today.

We are here with many of you from many places. How many are here at BYU Education Week for the first time? Could you raise your hand? For your second to fourth time? Five times or more?

Who comes from outside the United States? Canada, Mexico, Caribbean, Central or South America? Europe or Africa? Asia-Pacific?

Who is from east of the Mississippi River? West of the Mississippi, except Utah? Good! From Utah? Wonderful!

This year we expect some sixteen thousand participants from all fifty states and many continents. We look forward to 280 to 300 presenters teaching one thousand classes, assisted by five hundred volunteers. A warm welcome to all!

With big smiles, some young men and young women recently asked me, “Are you the real Elder Gong or the artificial intelligence Elder Gong? And will you please tell us a dad joke?”

I said, “I am, I think, the real Gerrit Gong.”

I then asked, “Why do they call seagulls seagulls? Because they fly over the sea. If they flew over the bay, they would be called bagels.”

“Why did the busy mother put peanut butter on the road? To go with the traffic jam.”

That’s why they’re called dad—or mom—jokes.

That’s also why it was hard for me to find Sister Gong. It wasn’t easy to find someone who would laugh at my jokes.

For those interested in literature, we begin with a favorite poem: Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “As Kingfishers Catch Fire.” The poem’s title features the word kingfishers, but the poem is really about the splendors of God’s creations and especially about the splendor and love that He sees in each of His sons and daughters.

Would you like to read this poem out loud together? Feel the words with delight.

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.¹

“Whát I dó is me: for that I came” to BYU Education Week—to seek “inspiring lifelong learning to benefit the world.”² In that spirit, I have chosen Proverbs 2:2 as a theme scripture: “Incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding.” We pray the Holy Ghost will inspire us in our minds and hearts, for “this is the spirit of revelation.”³

Today we discuss three spiritual applications of seeking wisdom and understanding as part of our “lifelong learning.”⁴

First, we will study instructive scriptural passages that contain the words wisdom and understand.

Second, we will use scriptural wisdom and understanding to place the current conversation about artificial intelligence (AI) in a gospel context.

Third, we will “incline” our ears and “apply” our hearts to understand that Jesus Christ can bless and heal each of us.

President Dallin H. Oaks teaches that just as we pray with gratitude for physical nourishment before we eat, so we can begin scripture study with a prayer for spiritual nourishment.⁵ I am grateful that we began this devotional with prayer and that we can pray in preparation each time we study the gospel.

Elder Richard G. Scott studied the scriptures sequentially and thematically. Elder David A. Bednar searches the scriptures for connections, patterns, and themes.⁶

Today we examine thematically—looking for connections and patterns—scriptural verses that contain the words wisdom and/or understanding.

In this discussion we can mention only a few such verses. But, for the record, I reviewed all 354 scriptural verses that contain the word wisdom and all 435 scriptural verses that contain the words understand or understanding.

Scriptural Passages Containing the Words Wisdom and Understand

Here are five initial observations. I hope your own scripture study will deepen your wisdom and understanding. We can read these verses on our big screen, as if we were opening them in our individual scriptures.

1. Wisdom and Understanding Are Characteristics of God

Wisdom and understanding are characteristics of God.⁷

God . . . has all power, all wisdom, and all understanding; he comprehendeth all things, and he is a merciful Being. [Alma 26:35]

And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. [Isaiah 11:2; see also 2 Nephi 21:2]

Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth. [Mosiah 4:9]

2. Don’t Confuse Man’s Wisdom or Understanding with That of the Lord

Please be careful not to confuse man’s wisdom or understanding with that of the Lord.⁸

There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord. [Proverbs 21:30]

O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness. [2 Nephi 9:28]

They . . . sought for things that they could not understand. . . . Looking beyond the mark, they must needs fall; for God hath . . . delivered unto them many things which they cannot understand, because they desired it. [Jacob 4:14]

3. Heavenly Father Can Bless Us with Wisdom and Understanding

Heavenly Father can bless us with wisdom and understanding, especially as we diligently desire and seek them.⁹

And he hath filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge. [Exodus 35:31]

For behold, the Lord doth grant unto all nations, of their own nation and tongue, to teach his word, yea, in wisdom, all that he seeth fit that they should have; therefore we see that the Lord doth counsel in wisdom. [Alma 29:8]

Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me. [Doctrine and Covenants 9:7]

4. Scripture Verses Teach Us How to Seek the Lord’s Wisdom and Understanding

Instructive verses in scripture teach us how to seek the Lord’s wisdom and understanding.¹⁰

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. [Proverbs 3:5]

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. [Proverbs 9:10]

As testified in Joseph Smith—History, the young Joseph Smith took literally the biblical promise in James 1:5 to seek wisdom and understanding:

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

We gain wisdom and understanding as we learn to recognize God’s voice and Spirit. In the Book of Mormon, when Jesus Christ came to the Americas after His Resurrection, the people did not understand the voice of God our Father introducing His Beloved Son. Only after hearing the voice the third time did the people “open their ears”¹¹ and understand it.

And it came to pass that . . . they heard a voice as if it came out of heaven; and they cast their eyes round about, for they understood not the voice which they heard; and it was not a harsh voice, neither . . . a loud voice; nevertheless . . . it did pierce them that did hear to the center . . . ; yea, it did pierce them to the very soul, and did cause their hearts to burn. . . .

And again the third time they did hear the voice, and did open their ears to hear it. . . .

And behold, the third time they did understand. [3 Nephi 11:3, 5–6]

In 3 Nephi, Jesus Christ taught the people that pondering, preparing their minds, and opening their hearts were all¹² needed to understand:

Therefore, go ye unto your homes, and ponder upon the things which I have said, and ask of the Father, in my name, that ye may understand, and prepare your minds for the morrow. [3 Nephi 17:3]

And the multitude did hear and do bear record; and their hearts were open and they did understand. [3 Nephi 19:33]

5. With Wisdom and Understanding from God, We Can Begin to See as He Does

When we receive wisdom and understanding from God, we can begin to see as He does—things we would otherwise not understand.¹³

By the power of the Spirit our eyes were opened and our understandings were enlightened, so as to see and understand the things of God. . . .

And while we meditated upon these things, the Lord touched the eyes of our understandings and they were opened, and the glory of the Lord shone round about. [Doctrine and Covenants 76:12, 19]

Neither is man capable to make them known, for they are only to be seen and understood by the power of the Holy Spirit, which God bestows on those who love him, and purify themselves before him. [Doctrine and Covenants 76:116]

In summary, as we incline our ear to wisdom and our heart to understanding, we learn:

1. Wisdom and understanding are characteristics of God.
2. Please be careful not to confuse men’s and women’s wisdom or understanding with that of the Lord.
3. Heavenly Father can bless us with wisdom and understanding, especially as we intentionally desire and diligently seek wisdom and understanding.
4. Instructive verses in scripture teach us how to seek the Lord’s wisdom and understanding, including by trusting, asking, and “opening our ears.”
5. When we receive wisdom and understanding from God, we can begin to see as He sees—things we would otherwise not understand.

Using Scriptural Wisdom and Understanding to Put Artificial Intelligence in a Gospel Context

Now, a second application of our theme: Scriptural wisdom and understanding can put the current conversation on artificial intelligence, commonly known as AI, in a gospel context.

Last month, on July 29, 2025, I was asked to speak on “Faith, Ethics, and Human Dignity in an Age of Artificial Intelligence” at a Religions for Peace conference in Istanbul in the Republic of Türkiye.¹⁴ In that historic city, with distinguished world religious leaders, I said we can address three AI-centered themes.

First, we can be clear—and help society understand—that artificial intelligence is not God and cannot be God. Many talk too glibly about “godlike AI” or “AI becoming God.” AI cannot provide inspired divine truth or independent moral guidance. As a creation of God, man can create AI, but AI cannot create God.

Second, we can consciously choose and intentionally use AI as a tool for good. Exponentially compounding AI technologies promise new ideas and new possibilities. The pursuit of artificial general intelligence (AGI) is pushing frontiers of algorithmic ability to simulate human reason, decode emotions, and solve complex issues in sequencing, prioritization, and risk management, among others.

Third, we can invite leaders and citizens across industry, research, civic, and government bodies as well as faith leaders to align rapid AI developments and enduring faith-based principles and moral values. A Faith Community AI Evaluation can champion safe, responsible, human-centric AI.

With that background, let me remind us that artificial intelligence came center stage when ChatGPT was publicly launched in November 2022.

In GPT, G stands for “generative,” P for “pre-trained,” and T for “transformer”—or generative pre-trained transformer. This form of artificial intelligence interacts in a conversational way. It answers follow-up questions, admits mistakes, challenges incorrect premises, and rejects inappropriate requests.

Immediately after ChatGPT came out, our Gong family began a Saturday morning online conversation like this.

[ChatGPT, write a journal entry about the Gong reunion.]

[ChatGPT: Today was the Gong family reunion, and it was a truly special occasion. We arrive at the lodge early in the morning, eager to catch up with our extended family. . . . The food was delicious, and we were all impressed by the skills of the chefs at the lodge.]

(Impressive—but not true. Gong reunions don’t have fancy lodges or chefs. We have a lot of fun and make great memories, but not in the way that ChatGPT fantasized.)

[Next request to ChatGPT: Write an imaginary business plan for a business to train dogs to operate nuclear power plants.]

[ChatGPT: Our company, Nuclear Paws, is a unique and innovative business that trains dogs to operate nuclear power plants. . . . Once a dog has completed our training program, they are able to safely and efficiently operate a nuclear power plant, providing a reliable and cost-effective source of energy.]

[ChatGPT, please provide a testimonial for a happy customer of Nuclear Paws.]

[ChatGPT: I recently had the pleasure of working with Nuclear Paws to train my dog, Max, to operate our nuclear power plant. I was skeptical at first, but the team at Nuclear Paws proved me wrong. Now Max is able to safely and efficiently operate our power plant, and he does an incredible job. . . . Thank you, Nuclear Paws!]¹⁵

Well, we all know that AI has developed rapidly since those early days!

In the Church, we use guiding “Principles for Church Use of Artificial Intelligence” in four categories as found at the Church website:

• Spiritual Connection
• Transparency
• Privacy and Security
• Accountability¹⁶

Church departments are carefully exploring practical uses for artificial intelligence. For example, AI and related technologies can facilitate Church language translation, production, and publication. Each week across the Church, members and friends in 195 countries and territories meet in 31,000-plus congregations, speaking 125 languages.

Technology as powerful as AI also raises concerns.

One concern is for what we call deepfakes. Deepfakes occur when AI is used to create deceptive or misleading images or videos.

We are establishing protocols to guard against deepfakes, call out intentional misuse of AI, and mitigate the tendency for people to disbelieve everything when they can’t trust some things.

We are, of course, greatly concerned for AI’s societal impact, digital divides, necessity for transparency and constant evaluation, and challenges when some individuals choose AI companions instead of authentic human relationships.

As Church members, we will not grow spiritually if we let artificial intelligence write our sacrament meeting talks or do our seminary homework. AI cannot replace our individual effort and spiritual preparation as we prepare lessons, prayers, or blessings. However, AI may be helpful as we research, edit, translate, or do similar tasks.

While AI is developing quickly, we have lived through rapid technological change before. Sister Gong’s grandmother—called Gram—was born in 1883. She was twenty years old at the time of the Wright brothers’ first flight. Gram was eighty-six years old at the time of the first Apollo moon landing.

Put another way, in Gram’s one lifetime we went from Orville and Wilbur Wright’s Kitty Hawk flight on December 17, 1903, to Neil Armstrong’s “one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind”¹⁷ on July 20, 1969. The total elapsed time between the two events was only sixty-six years—again, in Gram’s one lifetime.

Of course there were continuous aviation innovations all along the way. I remember seeing a Boeing B-52 aircraft and a Boeing 777 aircraft parked next to each other on the Boeing flight line. An aeronautical engineer told me, “Each engine on a Boeing 777 aircraft generates eighty thousand total pounds of thrust. That is the total thrust equivalent of all eight engines on a B-52 aircraft.”

Nor is societal concern for information, knowledge, and wisdom new.

In 1934 the poet T. S. Eliot famously lamented:

All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?¹⁸

In 1791, long before T. S. Eliot, the Chinese author Cao Xueqin published the classic novel Dream of the Red Chamber. The story in Dream of the Red Chamber begins with two couplets found at the entrance to the Land of Illusion:

When untrue becomes true, true becomes untrue.

and

When the unreal becomes real, real becomes unreal.¹⁹

The warnings about the blurring of truth and fiction and the real and unreal remain relevant in our day.

In the Church, we are blessed by scriptural doctrine regarding intelligence, moral agency, and covenant belonging in our divine relationships with God and each other. These points of doctrine and covenant relationships lead to and ground us in spiritual truth and reality.

We know:

The spirit and the body are the soul of man. [Doctrine and Covenants 88:15]

The elements are eternal, and spirit and element, inseparably connected, receive a fulness of joy. [Doctrine and Covenants 93:33; see also verse 34]

Spirit, element, and human moral agency are at the heart of our capacity to grow through intentional choice.

As the Lord revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith:

The elements are the tabernacle of God; yea, man is the tabernacle of God, even temples. [Doctrine and Covenants 93:35; see also 1 Corinthians 6:19–20]

The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth. [Doctrine and Covenants 93:36]

Intelligence, truth, and light cleave unto each other.

All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also. [Doctrine and Covenants 93:30]

We also know:

Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection.

And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come. [Doctrine and Covenants 130:18–19]

We can understand and use AI and other technological innovations in the context of faith. On May 24, 1844, Samuel Morse compressed time and distance with his single-wire telegraph. What we know as Morse code translated messages into dits and dahs where dahs are three times as long as dits.

The first Morse code message flashed between the U.S. Capitol and Baltimore was

    What            hath           God              wrought?

.– …. .– – / …. .– – …. / –. — -.. / .– .-. — ..- –. …. –

“What hath God wrought” is a question we can ask as we seek God’s wisdom in our day. We are not afraid of artificial intelligence, nor do we think it is the answer to every problem. As we work hard and smart, AI can be a valuable tool to enhance but not replace our own efforts.

The Lord’s restored Church—The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—is not primarily a purveyor of information. We are, or should be, primarily a source of His truth and love.

Artificial intelligence cannot replace revelation or generate truth from God. We have the responsibility to ensure that the Holy Ghost can attest to the truth and authenticity of all we say and share—in our form and in our content.

As we seek the Lord’s wisdom and understanding, He will continue to guide and bless us.

Understanding That Jesus Christ Can Bless and Heal Each of Us

This brings us to a third application of our theme. Our most important personal wisdom and understanding is to know that the blessings and Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ are meant for each of us.

Recently, following a large youth devotional, I was visiting amidst a happy swirl of wonderful young men and women. A young man came up.

With great earnestness, he asked, “Elder Gong, can I still go to heaven?”

He was ashamed of some things he had done. He wondered if there was any hope for him. Are repentance and forgiveness real? Could the Lord forgive him? Would he be able to forgive himself? At that moment, it seemed as though time had stopped and it was only the two of us talking.

I asked his name, listened carefully, invited him to talk with his bishop, and gave him a big hug. I think my response may have surprised him: “Trust God and repent, and I promise you can still go to heaven.”

He looked into my eyes until he knew that what I was saying was true.

After that personal, private moment concluded, I returned to the excitement and happy noise of the crowd.

I was so grateful that this good brother could realize with joy that repentance and forgiveness through Jesus Christ’s Atonement can be and are real for him. Sometimes we hear the words, but deep in our hearts we need to know they can be and are real for us—for each of us.

No matter what else you hear today, I hope you will hear that in His time and way, every glorious blessing in the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is meant personally for you.

Dear brothers and sisters, Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ see, know, and love you. They know everything about you and love you all the more. Our hearts and who we are can change through faith unto repentance and our Savior’s Atonement. Please do all you can to make yourself and your relationships celestial—something you can bring into the presence of God our Father and His Beloved Son Jesus Christ.

It is said that there are three arrows of time:

• A perceptual arrow—reflecting past, present, and future
• An entropic arrow of time—where entropy tends to increase, for example, as heat naturally flows from a hot object to a cold object, but a cold object does not spontaneously become hot
• A cosmological arrow—related to the beginning of time and an expanding universe

These arrows of time interrelate in ways I do not fully understand. What I do know is that the great gifts of time and eternity come through Jesus Christ.

In infinite and intimate ways, our Savior and His Atonement can help make things right on both sides of the veil.

The arrow of time is said to point in one direction—from past to future.²⁰ We usually think we can shape the future but not change the past. But, in a miraculous way, Jesus Christ prepares a way for us to escape some elements of the past.

Jesus Christ’s “great and last sacrifice,” His “infinite and eternal” Atonement,²¹ overcomes the monster of death and hell—physical death (of the body) and spiritual death (or separation of the soul from God and each other). Instead of our being held captive to old pasts, His Atonement can free us to new futures. Jesus Christ atones. He redeems. He restores not only what was but what can be.

There may be a spiritual distinction between our lived past and our living past. Our lived past encompasses the lived facts of our intents, decisions, and actions. Our living past reflects the possibility of redemptive changes to our past. Please remember, Jesus Christ and His Atonement can cleanse, sanctify, and transform the effects of our intents, decisions, and actions. Through our faith unto repentance and our Savior’s Atonement, God our Father and His Son Jesus Christ can bless us and those we love with all the divine goodness, change, and forgiveness we are willing to receive.

To those who wait faithfully upon the Lord, Mosiah 2:41 promises that

those that keep the commandments of God . . . are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness.

It’s time to summarize the three applications of our scriptural theme to incline our ear to wisdom and apply our heart to understanding.

In your Education Week classes, conversations, pondering, delighting, and discovering, may you deepen your wisdom and understanding through your study of the Lord’s word in scripture.

May you place current conversations of technological innovations such as artificial intelligence in a gospel perspective.

And, most importantly, may you hear, feel, and know that every good blessing in the fulness of the restored gospel is for you—for you personally and individually, and for those you love.

We end where we began, this time with the second stanza of Hopkins’s “As Kingfishers Catch Fire.” Shall we read it out loud together?

I say móre: the just man [and woman] justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his [or her] goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he [or she] is—
Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s [and women’s] faces.²²

God our Eternal Father lives. Jesus is the Christ, the living Son of the living God. The Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ. All the peoples of the earth are blessed by the unbroken succession of restored gospel truth and restored priesthood authority and power in the ordinances and covenants of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. This latter-day Restoration began with the Prophet Joseph Smith and continues with President Russell M. Nelson today.

With all the love in my heart for each of you personally, I so witness and testify in the sacred and holy name of Jesus Christ, amen.

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