Where's the mark?

I have to hand it to the correlation committee. This year the linkage between the Sunday School lessons and the George Albert Smith lessons is pretty awesome. Several weeks this year I’ve been really touched by how well the two lessons fit together. Yesterday was a great case in point, especially given the season we’re in.

As I read for each lesson during the week (and I am one of those who actually reads the lessons ahead of time, even if I’m not teaching), I found this familiar verse in Jacob:

But behold, the Jews were a stiffnecked people; and they despised the words of plainness, and killed the prophets, and sought for things that they could not understand. Wherefore, because of their blindness, which blindness came by looking beyond the mark, they must needs fall; for God hath taken away his plainness from them, and delivered unto them many things which they cannot understand, because they desired it. And because they desired it God hath done it, that they may stumble (Jacob 4:14, emphasis mine).

Jacob teaches that one reason the Jews lost the plain and precious truths is because they did not want to hear those things. They preferred instead the things which they could not understand. They were blind because they looked beyond the mark.

We read this verse in family scripture reading recently, and I asked my daughter what happens if she aims her new-at-Christmas bow and arrow above her target. Her response: the arrows go over the target. (Fortunately, she did not say, "Duh, Dad...")

Then I read this passage in the GAS manual:

There are those among us … who have been blinded by the philosophies and foolishness of men. There are those who reject the advice and counsel of the man that God has placed at the head of this Church. …

People who haven’t very much information suddenly come along with a bright idea, and they suggest “this is the way” or “that is the way,” and although it is in conflict with the advice of the Lord some are persuaded to try it. The Lord has given safe advice and appointed the President of his Church to interpret that advice. If we ignore what he advises, as the President of the Church, we may discover that we have made a serious mistake.

President Smith and Jacob are well-aligned.

Soon General Conference will be upon us again, and I, for one, will be looking for my mark from our living prophets. I invite you to do the same.

What I wish I had said in my GAS lesson yesterday

I taught priesthood yesterday. That’s not such a big deal, except that I completely forgot I was teaching. I also spoke in sacrament meeting, and had concentrated on my talk this past week. On Friday, I wondered if I was teaching or not, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t. Well, Sunday just before class, the group secretary handed out new lesson schedules, and there was my name next to this week’s lesson.

The good news: I had gotten my wires crossed and carefuly read the lesson a couple of weeks earlier, forgetting that it was “teaching for our times” lesson, so I had some ideas. And on Friday, I read through the lesson again, just in case.

I said a silent prayer as our group leader conducted a bit of business, and I quickly looked over my highlighted passages in my Kindle Fire (I didn’t have my paper book, which I prefer on days I teach). The lesson was #5 about the blessings of the restored priesthood, a subject near and dear to my heart. Looking at the questions at the end of the lesson, I found where I wanted to begin and where I wanted to end, so with a little faith and some bravado, I stood to teach.

We started with D&C 84:21, which makes clear that the blessing of the priesthood is in priesthood ordinances. We spoke a bit about those ordinances required for exaltation (baptism, confirmation, priesthood ordination, temple endowment, temple sealing). And we read several passages from the manual about President Smith’s love of the priesthood, the blessings of ordinances, and his sensitivity not to offend others, but to be clear that the proper authority to perform priesthood ordinances rests in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

We turned to blessings of the priesthood, and read D&C 84:33-38, what has often been referred to as The Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood. We pointed out specific blessings to faithful priesthood holders (sanctification, renewing of their bodies, membership among the seed of Abraham and the elect of God – see verses 33-34).

In the next few verses come the Great Blessing, namely All That The Father Hath (v. 38). I asked the group who can receive that particular blessing. A visitor said (without my calling on him) “men only.” I ignored his comment and walked through the logic of verses 36-38:

For he that receiveth my servants receiveth me; And he that receiveth me receiveth my Father; And he that receiveth my Father receiveth my Father’s kingdom; therefore all that my Father hath shall be given unto him.

Who receives the Lord’s servants? Anyone who receives priesthood ordinances.

What is the path to exaltation? The saving ordinances of the gospel.

Who receives the Great Blessing from verse 38? Anyone who receives all of the saving ordinances.

Our visitor then said, “Well, I see where you’re going with this, but….”

I don’t know what his real concern was. I sensed a resistance in him (my impression was driven by his first “men only” comment, I suppose) to think that these verses applied to anyone outside the priesthood club.

I didn’t have time to pursue it. I wish I had the time. It would have been interesting to unpack his concern and examine it more closely, and to see if we could reason together to understand it. But we were at the end of our class time.

What I really wish I had done (and had I been better prepared, maybe I would have) is followed my discussion with this quotation from President Smith from near the end of the lesson:

The authority of our Heavenly Father is upon the earth for the blessing of mankind, not to make those who receive that authority arrogant, but to make them humble; not to make those who have received special privileges feel that they are greater than others, but to make us humble in our souls, prayerful in our hearts, and considerate of all men in all that we do, and thus exemplify by upright lives that which our Heavenly Father desires us to teach.

By citing that quotation, I don’t mean to suggest that our visitor was arrogant. I don’t think he was. But This quotation, taken with the rest of President Smith’s words from the lesson, make clear that President Smith saw the blessing of the restored priesthood in the service that the priesthood requires, not in the mere holding of it.

Pretty much as I expected (feared)...

First of all, let me just say I’m following apostolic counsel in this post. A number of years ago, Elder Eyring told a story about walking home from church with his dad. Young Hal had been bored in Sacrament Meeting, and his dad thought the meeting was great. Then Dad explained to Young Hal that if he listened to a talk that wasn’t up to snuff, he’d simply imagine how he would have given the talk instead, and he’d get more out of the meeting.

This past Sunday, we did the GAS Lesson #3. It was fast Sunday, but we have Ward Conference next week, so our group leadership decided to do the GAS lesson as their “presidency” lesson.

I had been slated to teach this lesson before we all realized there was a conflict with Ward Conference. And I was looking forward to it, too. President Smith’s words all point to a common theme: We believe in Christ; the Bible testifies of Him; the Book of Mormon testifies of Him; Joseph Smith testified of Him. And we can testify of Him in our words and deeds.

In our group, the discussion quickly descended into a “Why don’t they think we are Christians?” session. To me, that was a lost opportunity.

It was telling to me that the word Christian did not appear in the GAS lesson material. There were plenty of references to the Savior, but none to that particular label. And that, to me, was a signal of where the discussion could go (instead of where it actually went).

I understand the desire to complain a bit about the treatment we get from “the world,” especially here in the mission field. I understand that some of that talk may be inevitable, especially in an environment with a prominent Mormon presidential candidate drawing fire from evangelical Christians and sometimes candidates who appeal to them. And it was interesting to hear of personal experiences people in our group had confronting the issue with their friends and associates. (Our HPGL told of his wife’s experience: she participates in a Bible study at a local protestant church. On one particular week, another woman kept insisting that the HPGL’s wife did not believe in Christ. Finally the protestant woman was so upset that she left, and the HPGL’s wife stayed at the Bible study.)

I was glad that another member of the group mentioned our opportunity to demonstrate our faith in Christ by the way we lead our lives. (His question: If you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?)

It reminded me of a post from blogger Middle-Aged Mormon Man in which he puts a great perspective on the question of the label of Christian. You can find it here. (Go ahead, click on the link!)

I would have preferred spending more time affirming our faith in Christ and discussing how we could show it, rather than defending our faith in Christ to an opposition that was not even present.

What I taught about GAS...and how nobody died

Last Sunday I taught Lesson One from the new Teachings of the Prophet manual. As I was preparing for the lesson, I determined to use parts of the overview of President Smith’s life included in the manual, since I assumed many of the high priests in our group are like me and don’t know a whole lot about President Smith. Furthermore, there’s plenty from the historical sketch that illustrates that President Smith practiced what he preached in Lesson One, namely living the gospel instead of being a member in name only.

I was also aware of some research about President Smith’s life that was not included in the biographical material. During the week of my preparation, J. Stapely over at By Common Consent provided more detail in that regard by linking an outstanding article in the Journal of Mormon History (J.’s post at BCC is here; the article is here, starting on page 120). In that article, BYU Rel. Ed. Professor Mary Jane Woodger presents compelling evidence from President Smith’s own journals that in addition to whatever physical maladies he may have had, President Smith also likely suffered from depression and anxiety disorders.

Prior to reading the article in JMH, I had decided not to mention what I’d heard about President Smith’s mental illness, but after reading the article, I felt like I should include it in my lesson. I can't say for sure I was inspired to do so, but I certainly could have been, and maybe I was. Of course, then I wondered about the balance of introducing material from outside the manual in my teaching compared with whatever benefit might accrue from sharing the information. I'm aware of the counsel to use the manuals and official sources in our lessons. And I'm also aware that the teacher, in the end, is the one called to teach.


Let’s be clear: the lesson I taught was from the manual. We read and discussed scriptures. We read passages of President Smith’s words. We illustrated them with examples from his life which were included in Lesson One and in the historical introduction in the manual. I did not teach a lesson on mental illness; I did not advocate for the rights of the mentally ill; I did not offer diagnostic or treatment recommendations (nor could I; I’m not qualified to do so).

What I did, however, is I pointed out, as J. did in his post, that there is considerable evidence from President Smith’s own journals that he likely suffered from depression and anxiety issues, and that those were likely a large part of his reason for his recuperative period mentioned in the historical overview. I also observed that it was unlikely that there would be any contemporary (to President Smith) diagnosis since the study of mental health at the turn of the 20th century was insufficiently developed to offer such a diagnosis. I added that perhaps this knowledge might comfort some who either wrestle with mental illness themselves or who have family members or close friends who do. I suggested that there is value in understanding that any illness need not be taken as an indictment of our worthiness or fitness for service to the Lord, as evidenced by the fact that President Smith served significantly and faithfully despite his illnesses, whatever they were. (We pointed out that he was not alone in serving while suffering with health challenges.)

There was, frankly, no discussion of the point. A few heads nodded. No one wondered why I had introduced this information that was not part of the manual (I identified it as such, by the way, since I suspect a fair number of our group would not have read the historical summary). (Oh, and no one died.) I think I was completely consistent with the instruction given to teachers at the end of Lesson One:

To help us teach from the scriptures and the words of latter-day prophets, the Church has produced lesson manuals and other materials. There is little need for commentaries or other reference material (quoted from Teaching, No Greater Call: A Resource Guide for Gospel Teaching [1999], 52).

It would have been interesting to go into more detail about his illness, but that was not the purpose of our lesson. The lesson was to talk about how we can live the gospel and not be members in name only, and I was happy to have ample material to illustrate that President Smith was a great example of that principle that he taught.