Sunday School Supplements

Each of the four accounts of Jesus’ resurrection contains different details and emphases (see Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20). But one thing that they have in common is that in all four accounts, the primary witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection are women.

In the first five chapters of Acts we see the apostle Peter transform into a prophet. He who, not long before, three times denied knowing Christ becomes a mighty witness.

To address the lesson manual’s question: “How does diversity among members enrich and strengthen the Church? How can we differ from each other and still be unified?”

Consider Peter, commissioned by Jesus at Galilee to establish the Church of Christ. Jesus didn’t use those words, “establish the church;” instead he said, “feed my lambs,” and “feed my sheep.” (John 21:15-17). But in Acts 10, Peter sees in vision another kind of flock: Descending from heaven is an assortment of odd animals, and Peter is told “Rise, kill, and eat.”

How are churches established? Or how do wards and branches become strong in the faith? In these chapters, we catch a glimpse of the process. Keep in mind that the author of Acts is Luke the Evangelist, the same writer who gives such close attention to the eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ ministry. So while the main character of these chapters might be said to be Paul, the great missionary of the early church, Luke’s history in Acts also details the contributions of many other me

Once I sat in a room with a friend right after she put her daughter to sleep with a story, and I asked her what stories the young girl liked best. My friend told me that her daughter liked very complicated stories, and that of every tale, she asked the same question: “Where’s da mama in this story?” because at two, she was young enough to know that a mother should be present, and old enough to know that she often wasn’t.

A friend recently told me that his favorite articles are the ones that are hard to read, because they challenge him. I felt that way, reading the passages for this lesson.

According to Paul, what are the purposes of the sacrament? Why is examining our worthiness an important part of the sacrament?

For years, I’ve claimed to be a proponent of gender equality. I’ve made myself hypersensitive to many injustices connected with women, some of which were real; some I may have perceived. It wasn’t until I started dating my husband two years ago that I really started to grasp the need for gender equality.

We teach writers to “show, don’t tell.” Paul shows, not tells, us how women functioned in early Christianity in Romans 16. This chapter consists of Paul’s comments to people in the church in Rome and gives us an interesting glimpse into the experience of the early followers of Jesus.

Mormons believe that a war in heaven took place before the foundations of the earth over the question of human agency. Unfortunately, LDS thinking around it and the counsels that preceded remain somewhat obscure and over-simplified. Generally, it is thought that Satan’s plan entailed coercion of some sort.

We come to the final narratives of Paul’s trials and journeys in this reading, and, much as I like to live in the past and be immersed in the experiences of biblical missionaries, these old place names and stories of hardships have been launching me forward in my mind to the present day, to those thousands upon thousands of people whose road from Damascus, Syria fills our hearts and sympathies.

I had been to many LDS churches around the world as I traveled. It was always an adventure trying to find the building. But this time I had MOVED… this was to be my home… and it just didn’t feel like it. I looked around and thought, “These are my people?” Well, yes and no.

In the 13th Article of Faith we read, “we believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous…if there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.” These Christ-like attributes are ones we should seek and develop as His disciples. Also in this verse, we find the declaration: “we follow the admonition of Paul”. In today’s lesson, the class will review several letters of Paul: Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon, where

Note that there was no similar passage regarding bishops’ wives earlier in the chapter, but there are other references to female deacons in the New Testament (see Romans 16:1, the KJV translates “servant” to describe Phoebe, but this is the same word translated as “deacon” in 1 Timothy 3:8 and 12). The author’s advice to these female deacons is that they do not gossip (slander) and that they are completely trustworthy (“faithful in all things”).

I was a newborn mother. My child was beautifully pleasant during the day, but at night he would cry on and off for hours. I was teaching full-time at BYU, and had to leave the house at 6:30am every day. I was dead with fatigue. Every night, my husband and I took turns sitting on the yoga ball, and bouncing while we sang to our son as he cried.

In 1 Peter 3: 1-7, Peter directs faithful wives to “be in subjection to [their] husbands” even if the husband is a nonbeliever for obedient and amiable wives may be able to convert their husbands. Furthermore, wives are not be concerned with their outward appearance but instead focus inward and adorn themselves with “the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit.”

Some years ago, I watched a piano tuner work on repairing our very old grand piano. It is a wonderful piano of high quality. It has a worn and scratched finish, since it is over 80 years old and was used in a night club for many of those years. This man was an expert tuner and repairman, and it was a pleasure to watch him remove the keyboard, and mechanism, then carefully find a small, intricately carved wooden part which was broken, and work on repairing it.

John was one of the Savior’s original Apostles. He was banished to Patmos for bearing testimony of Jesus Christ. While there, John was visited by an angel and given a revelation that he recorded in letters to the seven branches of the Church in Asia. These letters became the book of Revelation.

“And I took the little book out of the angel’s hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey” (Revelation 10:10). So records John the Revelator in the last book of the New Testament. Together with Jeremiah (Jer. 15:16) and Ezekiel (Ez. 3:3) of the Old Testament, and Lehi and Nephi of the Book of Mormon (1Nephi 8), John is invited to eat of the gospel message and he finds it sweet. These prophets taste, hear, see, and internalize the word of God.