To be added upon is to learn upwards, strengthening things we already know. It’s how you describe the feeling when you know something and even have a testimony of it, coupled with knowledge wrapped up in the testimony, and a testimony wrapped up in knowledge, until it spirals you upwards.
“I do not apologize for trying to speak about one of what Paul called “the deep things of God, (1 Cor 2:10) only for my inability to go deeply enough.”-Neal A. Maxwell, “Willing to Submit,” April 1985.
Added Upon
Push way through faith
And pierce the night,
The dark of mind,
And voices blur
(Darrell Turpin and Anna Crowe)
“Added upon” is the phrase that comes to mind as I try to conceptualize the verses that talk about learning the gospel “line upon line, precept upon precept.”
Paul talks about Christ’s believers being living epistles of the word of Christ, not because we are written on with ink, but because the word of Christ is written upon the “fleshy tables of the heart” (see 2 Corinthians 3:3). That’s what my gospel progression feels like. I may know something on one level, but as I progress through life and challenges, I truly come to know the gospel. It becomes written on me, not because I have studied and learned about it, but because I have lived and learned it that way.
It can also be described as patterns or cycles. However, the problem with thinking of our life going in cycles is that cycles whirl without progression. But patterns still repeat, and with the repetition comes learning. As the concept is repeated, often in different situations, it becomes more and more a part of me. Then instead of simply being a repetitious cycle, that pattern turns into a spiral.
Yes, spiral. Not a cycle. And the spiral is pointed upward toward God. In this way, I do not lose what I once was, but I am gained upon as I change for the better. I shed the thing that is holding me back, while deepening and strengthening my understanding, which puts me in an upward trajectory in eternity – a movement forward in addition to circular.
To be added upon is to learn upwards, strengthening things we already know. It’s how you describe the feeling when you know something and even have a testimony of it, coupled with knowledge wrapped up in the testimony, and a testimony wrapped up in knowledge, until it spirals you upwards.
