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With all due humility, I taught the lesson in Relief Society, and it was pretty awesome, and didn’t mention the priesthood once. After reading through the manual and crossing out many sections that I simply refused to teach, I focused on this quote ““It is difficult to imagine what we should have done, or what progress the work of the Lord would have made, without them” From chapter 13 of the Lorenzo Snow manual.
Then I talked about women in the history of the scriptures and what we can learn from their examples:
The Hebrew midwives who disobeyed by not killing the male children
Deborah the Judge of Israel who lead the people into battle and Jael who brought a whole new meaning to stake temple night.
Mary the mother of Jesus
The women who were the first witnesses of Christ
Abish, who stayed strong in her testimony, even though all alone. (and Lamoni’s wife)
The daughters of the Nephites who were sent to stop the Lamanites from slaughtering their people.
The early pioneer women, many of whom crossed the plains alone because their husbands were with the Battalion or on missions.
Then talked about the 3 pillars of the church
The Creation: Crowning creation was woman
The Fall: Eve gets all the credit for figuring out this one
The Atonement: Women were the first witnesses of the resurrection.
LOVE it, rebecca. Awesome lesson. Quote:After reading through the manual and crossing out many sections that I simply refused to teach, I focused on . . .
That is a perfect example of how lessons in the Church can be taught by a teacher who uses the manual but is not entirely bound by it.
I especially loved the following line, which will make me chuckle regularly for the next few years, I’m sure.
Quote:Jael who brought a whole new meaning to stake temple night.
😆 :clap: 😆 :clap: 😆 :clap: The notion of priesthood has morphed tremendously since the restoration began in the early days of the church. It was originally more of a power to commune with God. Today, it is almost exclusively only an administrative hierarchy structure — an organizational chart. So yes. The “power of the priesthood” makes the jello salad appear at the ward social. But that is organizational power, not spiritual power. A string of managers from the top down designed organizational programs, handed off the orders to implement them to middle managers down the chain, until at the bottom of the chart, workers fill the order making the jello salad and deliver it to the “customers” in the ward.
The best historical references for this are Daymon Smith’s social anthropological works on Correlation (new book coming out called “A Cultural History of the Book of Mormon”) and D. Michael Quinn’s two volume “Mormon Hierarchy” set.
I think we just had this lesson. It was said right from the manual that our planet and everything was created by the power of the priesthood. Also that priesthood is the power through which God redeems his children. Is this to say that the atonement was accomplished through the priesthood or that we can only access the atonement through the priesthood? What followed was everyone coming up with ideas of what we have thanks to the priesthood which quickly devolved into…everything.
I remember distinctly being told that priesthood is not synonymous with the men – Priesthood is awesome power…a portion of which has been delegated to the men.
:eh: If ‘priesthood’ is synonymous with ‘god’s power’ I’ve no problem with it being the source of everything we should be grateful for. If God’s power gave me life it therefore gave me the opportunity to experience to do what I do in using my agency. If it’s synonymous with ‘Mormon men’ then I do have a problem.
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