My New Calling: Sunday School Lesson Recaps

[Anonymous]

I consolidated two lessons again this week in order to be able to teach one lesson at a time for the rest of the year. Therefore, we covered all of Mormon today. I also had only 30 minutes, since we had a wonderful missionary homecoming in Sacrament Meeting, and the missionary spent an extra ten minutes on his talk. (It was worth it; I haven’t heard a better homecoming talk, especially since he was totally open and honest about how brutally difficult it was at first and at one more point later.) Given the time constraints, I focused the lesson exclusively on two main topic questions:

“According to Mormon and Moroni, why was the Book of Mormon recorded in the manner in which it was recorded, and what is its purpose?”

Mormon 3:17-22 = To teach that all will be judged by Jesus and need to prepare for that judgment. I also mentioned that verses 20-22 are a good example of a short chiasmus. We have talked more than once in past lessons about the nature of the judgment being simply a recognition of who we are / who we have become, so I didn’t talk about it explicitly again today.

Mormon 5:8-24 = We focused on the fact that, at the most fundamental level, books are written to be read – and that almost all books are written to be published and read when they are written. We read verse 13 and talked about the Book of Mormon being published “when he shall see fit, in his wisdom” – that the Book of Mormon wasn’t written to be read at the time it was written but rather at the time it would be published.

Mormon 8:35 = “I speak unto you as if ye were present.” I mentioned that one of the criticisms of the Book of Mormon is that it contains so many things that are related directly to the days of Joseph Smith and now but that it would be strange if it didn’t do so, given the words of Nephi, Mormon and Moroni in it. I mentioned that we will talk next month about the Book of Moroni and the chapters that are the most obvious example of this – the ones that don’t fit the historical flow in any way whatsoever and obviously are relevant explicitly to the time of the publication.

Mormon 7 = I kind of rushed a bit through the previous passages in order to spend as much time as possible in this chapter – which was only the last 15 minutes, but we still did a pretty good job covering it. Usually, I have the students read the passages we discuss, but I read the entire chapter (10 verses) a bit quickly due to the time constraints, vocally emphasizing the 11 reasons for recording the Book of Mormon listed in those verses and the five things about Jesus that Mormon highlights in verses 5-7. We then spent the remaining time focused entirely on verse 9.

We went through that verse statement-by-statement and talked about how one of the primary reasons for the recording of the Book of Mormon is to lead those who read it to believe the Bible – and I talked about the difference between believing “in” the Bible and actually believing what it says. I talked about how the earliest missionaries in the Church used the Book of Mormon – not as a source for sermons but as a missionary tool. I talked about how they would sell it to get money to support themselves on their missions (one of the students brought that up when I asked how it was used) and how they would give it to people and ask them to read it cover-to-cover, then return and ask if they had prayed about it and about Joseph Smith’s prophetic role as its translator. Then, they would teach about the Church and the Restoration – generally through the Bible. I mentioned that they didn’t really teach out of it but, instead, used it as a tool to start teaching out of the Bible in a new way – or teaching out of the Bible things that the people hadn’t understood from it.

I mentioned that I personally have had experiences where people who had studied the Bible for decades and could quote extensively from it had read the Book of Mormon, gained a testimony of it and, suddenly, saw things in the Bible that they never had seen previously. Believing the Book of Mormon caused them to believe the Bible in a way that they hadn’t previously.

I mentioned that we study the Bible for two years in Seminary – twice as long as any other part of our scriptural canon, but that after Seminary too many of us read and study the Book of Mormon almost exclusively. I told them that I love to study the Book of Mormon, but that we, as a people, ought to know the Bible much better than we do – and that, in a very real way, not knowing the Bible inside and out is a rejection of the Book of Mormon, since believing the Bible is one of the primary reasons the Book of Mormon was written in the manner in which it was written. I told them that it is every bit as important in their preparation to serve missions to understand and know the Bible as it is to understand and know the Book of Mormon – especially if they serve in mostly Christian nations or areas. I said that one of the best things we can do in the Church to increase the effectiveness of our missionary efforts is to study and understand the Bible better, and I ended with a request that they not neglect the Bible in their scripture study, especially after Seminary ends.

[Anonymous]

Old Timer wrote:

Mormon 8:35 = “I speak unto you as if ye were present.” I mentioned that one of the criticisms of the Book of Mormon is that it contains so many things that are related directly to the days of Joseph Smith and now but that it would be strange if it didn’t do so, given the words of Nephi, Mormon and Moroni in it. I mentioned that we will talk next month about the Book of Moroni and the chapters that are the most obvious example of this – the ones that don’t fit the historical flow in any way whatsoever and obviously are relevant explicitly to the time of the publication.

Hmmm… I guess this is a nice spin on it. I might have to look up your post when you cover those chapters again. I’ve loved the BoM my whole life. But when I think about it’s parallels to OT/NT/19th C culture/theology there’s not much else new. I think that’s why I/we enjoy it so much – it’s a re-staging and clarification of some of the sometimes scattered teachings in the OT/NT. Could God and Mormon have planned it that way? Course they could. I currently am undecided on the original writer, but given I know the impact of reading the words, I currently choose to worry less about the origin.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

when I think about it’s parallels to OT/NT/19th C culture/theology there’s not much else new.

I agree. Nearly all of our uniquely Mormon teachings aren’t found in the Book of Mormon. Rather, they are based on (primarily Joseph Smith’s) interpretations of Biblical passages. Again, that fits the wording of the Book of Mormon itself, since it never claims to have lots of “new doctrine”. In fact, as I mentioned about Mormon 7, it says one of its main purposes is to help people believe the Bible – and that would be difficult to accomplish if it contained lots of teachings that aren’t in the Bible by any reasonable reading.

[Anonymous]

We covered Ether 1-6 today:

1) I started by drawing on the chalkboard a written comparison of the Lehi-ites and the Jaredites. I asked the students a bunch of questions about each group and wrote the answers in parallel columns on the board. I listed the location of their origin (Jerusalem / Israel vs. NE Asia / Asian steppes), the date of the beginning of their record (circa 600BC vs. circa 3,000BC), the size of their originating party (two families vs. multiple families and friends that might have numbered in the thousands , the length of their record (about 1,000 years vs. probably at least 3,000 years), etc. I did this to emphasize that the Book of Ether and the rest of the Book of Mormon are, in practical terms, two completely different records contained within the same scriptural compilation.

2) I told them that this lesson was very difficult for me to prepare, simply because there was so much I wanted to share with them about the Book of Ether. I told them that I just didn’t have time for most of it, but that I would encourage them to read outside commentaries for further insight into it. I mentioned reading Hugh Nibley’s “The World of the Jaredites” years ago and enjoying his attempt to analyze the culture described in the Book of Ether from the perspective of a historian – and how much I enjoy reading it from that perspective, especially being a former History teacher. I emphasized that the first few chapters of 1 Nephi and the Book of Ether are the only parts of the Book of Mormon I believe we can analyze quite comprehensively in light of a specific location and culture (knowing the Asian homeland is only an educated guess for the Jaredites), since we don’t know authoritatively where the rest of the Book of Mormon occurred.

3) One of the students asked why we think we know the name of the brother of Jared, so I shared the origin of that folklore and talked again briefly about not being able personally to accept without question second-hand statements made by people years after the time of the claimed experience. He joked about the two names (“Mahonri Moriancumer” and “Jared”) in a way that made it pretty clear he thought the first name was ridiculous. We read Ether 2:13, where they named the land at the “great sea” where they stayed for four years “Moriancumer” – and explained that the assumption is that, just like the Israelites, they named their lands in honor of their leaders – and stressed that they were a completely different people who might not have shared that practice with the Israelites. In other words, I stressed clearly that I personally am not willing to believe that we know the name of the brother of Jared, even though it is commonly accepted throughout the Church. I told them that might have been his name, but I can’t accept it as being settled in any way.

4) Going back to our discussion last week about why the Book of Mormon was written, we read 2:11 and talked about how it was Moroni who included Ether in the record – and I stressed that it was AFTER the destruction of his own people during the years he was on his own. We talked about how Moroni had witnessed the annihilation of his own people and then read about the annihilation of another civilization in “the promised land”. We read the verse again, focusing on the idea of “learning from history” and not repeating the mistakes of our ancestors and others in the past. I mentioned that we can’t avoid doing that unless we read histories and journals – and then strive diligently to understand their achievements and failures.

5) We read 2:14, and I took them through the evolution of emotion / interpretation in that verse. (starting with what looks like a wonderful experience and ending with the realization that the brother of Jared might have gotten a three-hour butt kicking from the Lord for not praying / asking for help for the four years they had lived near the sea) I mentioned that the brother of Jared might have thought they had reached the promised land and not “needed” the Lord any more and that regular prayer might not have been part of his culture. I also told them that I empathize a bit with him, since it is easy for me to have a real and meaningful prayer in my heart but that I have struggled for years with formal, kneeling, verbal prayer.

6) We mentioned the vision in chapter 3, but, after verifying that they knew the details quite well, I focused on the idea of confounding languages and the development of new languages from other languages. We went back to the idea of the languages being confounded at the time of the tower of Babel and what that might have meant in practical terms. (for example, some wide-spread natural disaster that scattered the people and led to the evolution of multiple languages over time) I explained in some detail the development of modern written Japanese and how it can be called “reformed Chinese” in exactly the way “reformed Egyptian” is described in the Book of Mormon.

7) We talked about the passage over the sea to the promised land and the idea again that we assume lots of things about our scriptures that aren’t said explicitly in them. I told them I have no idea about the composition of the stones, and one of the students who has high-functioning Asperger’s and whose father is a geologist (a former Bishop of the ward and the current Gospel Doctrine teacher) said, about seven times throughout the lesson :silent: that he thinks they were made of uranium. (I love that kid dearly, but sometimes . . .) 🙄 We then looked closely at the building of the “barges” and read the actual descriptions to see what they might have looked like. I mentioned the common assumption that they looked like submarines (cylindrical and fairly small), but I stressed that they almost surely carried at least hundreds, if not thousands, of people AND their flocks and seeds and honey bees and their hives. We read about their length (of a tree) and how that might have been any number of lengths, including very long lengths. We talked about how the use of the phrase “tight like unto a dish” has been seen to indicate the general shape of a dish and that “buried in the deep” has been seen to indicate a type of submarine – but then we read 6:7 that says they were “tight like unto the ark of Noah”, which adds an element that opens possibilities outside of submarine-like vessels. I told them that when I look at the totality of the descriptions I personally don’t see submarines – that I see boats that could be sealed shut during storms as the sea waves crashed over and “buried” them temporarily, but that, again, that’s just me trying to understand things that aren’t written explicitly.

I concluded the lesson by talking very briefly about how we would look much more closely next week at the Jaredite culture and why they ended up being destroyed.

[Anonymous]

Interesting summary. I think we must be a week behind you as were in Mormon last Sunday.

I have to say that I’d consider a lot of the Jaredite story to be a written record of an oral history that evolved, like an epic saga over the years, with a bit of fact and a bit of fiction.

That’s assuming the BoM has any fact at all. I hope so.

[Anonymous]

That’s exactly how I view the Book of Ether – and I also view it as an incredibly sparse record, given the length and the time period covered.

I will get to this in the next lesson, but I also view it almost entirely in light of the “purpose verse” I mentioned (2:11) – that Moroni’s only purpose was to include the reason the civilization / kingdom was destroyed so others could avoid that fate.

I also don’t believe all of the descendants were killed in the final battle. I believe it was just those who were close enough to the central kingdom to have been forced to gather in the fight. I think that’s the only explanation that makes demographic sense. I’m not sure if I will mention that next week, but I probably will.

[Anonymous]

We covered the last half of Ether today.

1) We went back to Chapter 1 to start the lesson and looked at the lineage verses that trace the leadership of the people. I showed them that there are about 25 named “sons” and three other points where the people named are “descendants”. I told them that we have absolutely no idea how many generations got skipped with the use of “descendants” – that it might have been as many as 1,000 years or more, given the average length of time covered in a typical generation. I pointed out again that the rest of the Book of Mormon and the Book of Ether are VERY different records. We listed all of the named writers in the Book of Mormon and ended up with around 20; I mentioned that Ether and Moroni are the only named writers in the Book of Ether. We talked about having a fairly thorough “religious history” of the “Nephites” but only a tightly-focused “dynastic history” of the Jaredites. I mentioned that thinking of the Book of Ether as a traditional history of all of the descendants of Jared, his brother and their friends would be like reading a history of the US Presidents while they served in Washington, DC and thinking it was a history of the American people – but one of the students gave a different example. He said it would be like reading a history of the English monarchy successions or the changing of German rulers and thinking it was a history of the European people. Given the general length of time being discussed and the way some of those changes occurred, Europe is a much better example than America.

2) We read the chapter headings from 7-11 and established that 3,000 years or more could be summarized in the following way:

Quote:

“People fought for control of the kingdom from the beginning of the kingdom to the end of it. Control of the kingdom changed constantly, with some kings being killed and others being held captive.”

I pointed out that, from strictly a standpoint of military control tactics, holding a former king captive and allowing him to have children and grandchildren in captivity is stupid – but it fits perfectly other historical records we have of the cultural practices of political intrigue and rule that occurred in some ancient societies, especially those from the same general area from which I believe the Jaredites originated.

3) We read quite a few verses from Chapter 12, and we focused on faith, repentance and human weakness.

a) I asked why witnesses only come after trials of faith – and why it is important that they only come then. One of my students said it was because of the definition of faith itself – believing in something for which we hope but can’t see. He said that getting a witness without having to exercise faith would eliminate faith itself.

We talked about a specific, simple example – of believing there was a room next to the one in which our class meets without ever having seen it. I asked what I would have to do in order to receive a “witness” that my belief was correct. A student said, “Buy some explosives.” I nodded and added, “or do something else to break through the wall and actually see whether or not there was a room.” I said that doing what it took to see something previously unseen is the “trial” – and that we can’t expect to see the currently unseeable unless we are willing to walk the talk, so to speak, and take the journey we believe will lead to what we want to see – that it’s not God trying our faith in some magical way as much as us putting our faith to the test and living in a way that we believe will bring what we desire.

b) We read the verse that says the people didn’t believe the wonderful things Ether prophesied. I had the student re-read the verses that explained what Ether prophesied and asked them why the people might not have believed it – and I asked them to think about the chapter headings we had read from the previous chapters while they thought about why the people couldn’t believe Ether. Ether said the people could avoid destruction, be sure and steadfast, have hope for a better world, abound in good works, etc. When I asked again why the people might not have been able to believe Ether, one of the students said, “Those things hadn’t been part of their history for thousands of years. They had never seen any of those things, so they didn’t believe they were possible.” I asked one of the students point-blank if it would be easy to accept it if I listed specific things with which he struggles mightily – really deeply ingrained inclinations or characteristics – and told him he could change and be a totally different person than the person he sees when he looks at himself. He said it wouldn’t be easy at all – that it would be very hard.

I told them that it is easy to read the scriptures and judge or even condemn people who are described as making bad choices or as lacking faith, but it’s important to fight that tendency – that we have to try to learn what lessons we can from their lives while not judging them in any way, since we have no idea how hard it might have been for them and since we believe the Atonement pays for all natural transgressions and weaknesses we didn’t choose intentionally and consciously.

c) That led directly to verses 23-26, in which Ether laments the weakness of his writing and his inability to write powerfully due to the “awkwardness of our hands” and how he feared that the Gentiles would mock him as a result. We talked about what that phrase might mean in detail. The Bishop mentioned that it can be really hard to take what’s in our minds and put it into words on a page; one of the students mentioned the difficulty of engraving words on plates and stone tablets; I mentioned how hard it is for Shaq and Dwight Howard to shoot free throws, since their hands are so huge (like the students trying to shoot free throws with a baseball). I emphasized that Ether had to let go of that fear and have faith that the words would be powerful somehow to those who would read them – that the words would NOT be powerful if Ether let his recognition of a weakness keep him from writing the words – that the “trial of his faith” in that regard was doing what it says in verse 27 – relying on the Lord to make his weakness strength somehow, even if he personally couldn’t see how it could be done.

d) I finished by talking once again about the danger of taking individual verses and passages out of context and quoting them in isolation. I talked briefly about repentance in many cases being nothing more than believing in a hope enough to make the necessary changes do what it takes to make the unseen visible and how the people didn’t see what Ether saw because they didn’t believe it was possible and, therefore, didn’t try to make it happen. I showed them how Chapter 12 teaches an integrated lesson about faith, repentance and atonement, with an actual case study imbedded in it, but that we can miss that full lesson if we isolate verses 6 and 27 and treat those “scripture mastery scriptures” as the only important parts of the chapter.

[Anonymous]

Hang on… An American teenager knew the difference between European rulers and dynasties? I am impressed

Your lessons sound fantastic and your students equally so. Can you come and teach our adult SS please?

[Anonymous]

I didn’t teach Sunday School today, since we had training on the new curriculum for next year.

I absolutely LOVE the curriculum and can’t wait to start teaching it. It is concept geared, emphasizes choosing from multiple, generalized learning outlines (not even called “lessons”), tailoring the instruction to the needs of the class members, spending as much time as necessary to have in-depth conversations with the students, etc. It is really exciting.

Some of my favorite excerpts from the materials:

1) For everyone here, this is an exact quote from the “Guide”:

“All of us are converted as we learn to walk the gospel path for ourselves.”

I don’t care if the exact intended meaning is how it reads in this forum; those are the exact words in the guide.

2) The calling is framed in terms of helping the youth be converted to the “gospel”. In the context of the purpose for the instruction, gaining a testimony of “The Church” isn’t mentioned once.

3) “Conversion does not happen in a meeting, class, or activity alone.”

4) In talking about determining what to teach, the guide says:

a) “You can invite class members to discuss what they want or need to learn.”

b) “Let the needs of the youth, not a predetermined schedule, guide your teaching.”

c) “Consider ways you can inspire them to act for themselves in seeking, finding, and sharing answers to their own gospel questions.”

5) Under “Uniformity and Adaptation:

a) “Many suggestions in this guidebook can be adapted to work in local circumstances . . . find alternatives that will meet the needs of (your) youth.”

b) There essentially was NOTHING classified as “uniformity” that dictated how or what to teach within the general guidelines of the topics chosen each month. The focus was on thoughtful, focused, prayerful consideration and collaboration, where necessary, among those who teach the youth.

[Anonymous]

That’s great news about the new manual. Great emphasis. Is that only for youth teachers?

Is it still D&C next year though?

You might want to start a new thread on this, it deserves a conversation of its own.

[Anonymous]

It is for all teenage classes: Sunday School and YM/YW.

It is not focused on the scriptures or any part of them, specifically. It is focused on concepts, like God, the Atonement, what I call the history of religion, ordinances, scriptures, etc. There is at least one “concept” that I’m sure will get dogmatic treatment in some wards and branches (“Marriage and Family”), but I’m fine with it being one of the concepts, since it is so central to our theology – and since the guidelines are going to allow me to have some in-depth discussions about aspects of that topic that are relevant to the way my own students see the world. Teenagers today don’t see a lot of things like I did when I was their age, and the guidelines give me the authority to acknowledge and address that difference. For example, I’m almost certain that the Church’s new website about homosexuality is going to end up being part of a lesson at some point, given the students I will be teaching, their questions and the parts of that website that focus on loving gay children and not expelling them from the family. I’m not going to insist on it if it doesn’t end up being part of what I feel impressed to teach or what they ask to discuss, but I love that the opportunity and explicit permission are there to talk openly about that topic in a different way than I could have even last week.

[Anonymous]

Since we had the new curriculum training last week, I combined two lessons today and taught Moroni 1-7.

1) We started by looking at the time line note at the bottom of the first page of Moroni. We talked about why it says 400AD-421AD and how that relates to why Moroni is one of my favorite characters in the Book of Mormon.

2) We read quickly through the headings of Chapters 1-6 and talked about how meetings still are supposed to be conducted by the influence of the Holy Ghost (that even though we use a standard format, those who conduct are supposed to have the ability and authority to alter that format when impressed to do so).

3) We spent the rest of the time on Moroni 7:1-19, verse by verse. The main points I made were:

a) verses 5-11 — Those who do good things for bad reasons “have their reward” and, thus, are not rewarded additionally by God. To use an obvious example, if someone makes friends with someone else in order to rob that person, they will have the reward of the extra money – but it won’t change them into a better person and make them closer to becoming like God.

b) verses 12-17 — We listed things the students thought are good ways to judge if something is good or bad. There were some good suggestions, including if we would do something in front of our grandmothers or Jesus.

I mentioned that there are some things I would do in front of one of my grandmothers but not in front of the other one, so, while that might be a good general starting point, we have to be careful about defining what we should do based on others being able to see us. We then talked for about 5 minutes about how much I am concerned about the idea of doing only what we would do if Jesus was with us – not because I think it’s a bad standard, but because I think we tend to focus so much on our perception of Jesus, the God, that we ignore all the evidence about Jesus, the man, and end up thinking we can’t do lots of things that I believe would be perfectly fine to do.

I asked if they could think of anything we probably wouldn’t do with Jesus now, given our culture, that we probably would do with him back in his time and culture. “Drink wine” was the first response (which answer impressed me, since the girl who gave it was clear that it would have been just fine to drink wine with Jesus back in the day), so we talked about the fact that he was criticized for drinking wine, unlike John, the Baptist. I mentioned that I hope he would enjoy my sense of humor, even the parts of it that I don’t share with very many people in church – that I could have a really good laugh with him and just be silly at times.

We then listed the things that are mentioned in chapter 7 (invites and entices to do good, love God, serve him, persuades to believe in Christ — and their opposites) and discussed how those things are independent of who can see us as we act.

c) Before moving on to the next verses, given the time constraints, I mentioned again the need to not pull verses out of context and in isolation and, thus, miss the “big picture” concept being taught throughout an entire chapter. I stressed that the rest of the chapter to which we wouldn’t get deals with charity and how critical it is to obtain. I wrote “charity” above the two lists (good and bad) and then moved to the next verses.

d) verses 18-19 — I stressed that the focus of these two verses is NOT on avoiding embracing the bad; rather, the focus is on avoiding rejecting the good. That is fascinating and extremely important, in my opinion.

We talked about how I don’t agree with lots of things that are taught in other denominations, but that, if I was to hazard a guess about how much of what is taught in any random church is “good” vs. “bad” on any given Sunday, I would put the ratio at no lower than 90% good and 10% bad – and, in most cases, higher than that. I told them that I try really hard to allow charity to influence how I make that determination.

In practical terms, that means I see the “good list” reasons as “either/or” statements (that as long as something does at least one of the things on the list, I accept it as good and of God), while I see the “bad list” reasons generally as “and” statements (that bad things have to do more than one thing on the list or be focused exclusively on one of them). I used the example of Islam teaching lots of good things, even though it can be classified as “denying Christ” if we choose to look at it that way, as well as the example of an evangelical, anti-Mormon rant on the radio that also includes lots of teachings that really do invite and entice to do good, love God and serve him. Just because I don’t like some of what is said or the actual people saying it, that doesn’t mean I can reject everything that is said. Charity dictates to me that I listen for what I can learn from everything and not obsess so much over the disagreement(s) that I miss the chance to be taught and edified. I told them there is an important difference between hearing something and automatically thinking, “That’s bad, so I won’t listen to anything being said,” and, “What good can I take from this, even if I don’t agree with most of it.”

4) I also stressed that I want them to let me know what they want to learn next year within the new curriculum – that absolutely no topic is off limits within the categories we will be discussing. I mentioned as an example the month that will be dedicated to Family and Marriage – telling them that there are lots of potential topics we can discuss that month and that absolutely none of them are off limits. I told them that they are old enough that we can talk about anything, no matter how controversial, awkward, difficult, etc. they think it might be.

[Anonymous]

We covered Moroni 8-10 today.

1) We talked at length about why baptizing little children would be called a “solemn mockery“. We looked at what “solemn” and “mock” mean – and the difference between a “solemn mockery” and a “comical mockery“. We talked about the object of the mockery – meaning what and/or who is being mocked when children are baptized. We talked about the Atonement and how “transgressions” are covered already within it – that only “sins” need repentance. I mentioned James’ definition of sin as acting in opposition to what is known – knowing to do good and not doing it, or knowing not to do something and doing it – and how that takes mistakes caused by ignorance out of the realm of sin. We revisited the difference between sins and transgressions. I talked about how I believe we kill Jesus’ mortality in a very real way when we picture him as a superhuman child never cried (“little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes“), “never got vexed when the game went wrong” and “always told the truth” (as a little child). We talked about how requiring baptism of little children denies our 2nd Article of Faith by denying that the Atonement covers the things little children do in ignorance of the law – and how that extends beyond little children to include all people who have lived and died without understanding the law. Thus, baptizing little children denies the very nature of the Atonement (the universal scope of God’s grace that redeems innocent transgressors) and reinforces the Protestant notion of a more Calvinistic puppeteer God.

One of the students asked about if a child kills someone, so we talked about that – and I extended it to the people who highjacked the planes and destroyed the WTC towers on 9/11.

It was a really good discussion, and it stretched them more than they were used to being stretched, since I allowed some silence to wait for their input.

2) We skipped Chapter 9, due strictly to the time constraints.

3) We talked for a long time about Moroni 10:3-5, and I told them explicitly that I was disappointed when I learned that the Seminary mastery scripture was shortened to just verses 4 and 5 – and that I believe one of the biggest mistakes missionaries make relative to the Book of Mormon is to use it as a doctrinal proof text and then focus only on verses 4 and 5 as constituting “Moroni’s promise” (the phrase one of my students used – and I found out that none of them have heard the phrase used in my childhood, “Moroni’s challenge” – which made me happy).

We read just those two verses and listed what people are told to do to gain a witness from the Holy Ghost. The entire list was: pray (with real intent). We then read verse 3 and listed what people are told to do to gain a witness from the Holy Ghost. That list includes: remember (God’s mercy) and ponder (God’s mercy). I emphasized that very few members and missionaries focus on God’s mercy when explaining Moroni’s promise, and missing that focus of the verses themselves changes totally the actual nature of the promise – so much so that I believe it no longer is consistent with the actual promise.

We defined “mercy” and talked deeply about God’s mercy and why the promise is focused on remembering and pondering it. (that remembering and pondering God’s mercy has a direct effect on ones’ attitude – the “softness of the heart”, so to speak – and puts them in a condition of being open to feeling and accepting emotional / spiritual messages more easily than might be “natural”) I shared the example of my father and the “mercy” he extended to my mother when he learned about her schizophrenia after they had been married for about six years. (If you want to read about it, go to my personal blog and search for “My Niece Died This Morning”.)

4) We didn’t have much time left, so we ended by reading the last five verses in the Book of Mormon and talking very briefly about the main points of Moroni’s final testimony.

On a personal note, I really enjoyed teaching what I was able to teach this year and posting about the lessons here. The class lesson format is changing dramatically next month, and I will miss the first two weeks due to starting a Master’s Degree program that includes two full days of classes those Sundays, but I am looking forward to seeing how the classes go with the new curriculum. I really am excited about it.

[Anonymous]

Old Timer wrote:

I emphasized that very few members and missionaries focus on God’s mercy when explaining Moroni’s promise, and missing that focus of the verses themselves changes totally the actual nature of the promise – so much so that I believe it no longer is consistent with the actual promise.

Ray,

Thank you for this.

My DW was working on a talk about gaining a testimony this weekend. She wanted to address why some people don’t get a “burning in their bosom” and why some people have a delayed response when they pray about the Book of Mormon.

We talked about how it seems to be easier to gain a testimony about God’s love for us as his children than a witness about the Book of Mormon. In our experience and in the scriptures it seems that the witness that we are children of God is more immediate and more intense. We felt that the missionaries should first help people get a witness about God’s love for them, then use that experience to build a bridge to gaining a testimony about the Book of Mormon.

It looks like Moroni 10:3 is trying to do just that. Knowing God’s love and mercy towards us can be a gateway to more knowledge. Thanks for your insight.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Earl.

Based on the wording of verses 3-5, Moroni’s promise is about gaining a spiritual witness, not an intellectual one. Focusing on God’s mercy puts the praying directly into the realm of asking if the Book of Mormon is “true” in a spiritual sense – more like “true north” than “factually inerrant“. Given how often the book includes comments about overlooking the mistakes in it and the weakness of its writers, I think that’s not accidental. Thus, the prayer request becomes less, “Tell me if this book is right,” and more, “Be merciful to me, as you have been to others throughout time, and answer my prayer.” It’s more of a connection to the divine than a factual answer – and I believe too many members and missionaries approach it as more of an intellectual question that asks if the teachings in the book are “accurate / right“.

I think that simple difference is more than just significant.

[Author]

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