Sunday School Supplements

Our first lesson of the Old Testament concentrates on Moses 1 found in the Pearl of Great Price. A lot happens in this chapter: Moses speaks with God face-to-face. He learns that he is a son of God and the majesty of the Almighty. God shows Moses the creation of the world and humanity throughout the ages. Moses refutes Satan’s temptations. God declares the salvation and exaltation of humanity to be the Divine’s work and glory.

In Joseph’s prophetic expansion on the story of Abraham’s life, the Lord lays his hands upon Abraham’s eyes and he can see all of creation clearly. (Abraham 3:12) Just as the Lord showed Moses “all the workmanship” of God’s hands (Moses 1:4) and Joseph Smith saw the Father and the Son, these theophanies allowed the recipients to see clearly.

The accounts of the Creation in Moses and Genesis are devoid of woman’s role in this series of events outside of the creation of Eve. Yet, LDS theology tells us that we have a Heavenly Mother and that She was involved in the Creation, that She is “a procreator and parent, a divine person, a co-creator, a co-framer of the plan of salvation, and is involved in this life and the next”[1]. We are taught that “all men and women are in the similitude of the universal Father and Mot

Moses 4-6 cover the events in the Garden of Eden and the aftermath. Our first parents go from living in a physical paradise communing with God to being cast from God’s presence into the world. As Latter-Day Saints, we spend a lot of time studying these events in our Sunday School lessons and temple worship.

Each for their own reasons, many women in my freshman ward suffered from eating disorders. To help them, our ward leadership invited a recovered bulimic woman to give a fireside. Although I have not personally experienced an eating disorder, a truth this woman taught has always stayed with me.

“The shore is an ancient world, for as long as there has been an earth and sea there has been this place of the meeting of land and water. Yet it is a world that keeps alive the sense of continuing creation and of the relentless drive of life. Each time that I enter it, I gain some new awareness of its beauty and its deeper meanings, sensing that intricate fabric of life by which one creature is linked with another, and each with its surroundings.”[1]

The Abrahamic Covenant has never really made sense to me. I’m sure that I tried a few times when I was younger to understand it, but scriptural language combined with promises of land and posterity never did it for me, so I pretty much gave up on understanding it. In the past few years, I’ve found a renewed interest in studying the Old Testament (the impetus being women in the scriptures), and I’m trying harder to understand more of the scriptures and doctrine.

The original title of this lesson is “Living Righteously in a Wicked World.” It covers a story most of us are familiar with—the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. We know that these cities were so wicked that God decided to destroy them. He counseled Lot and his un-named wife, to “Escape for thy life. Look not behind thee.” But of course, Lot’s wife did look back and was turned into a pillar of salt.

Frankly, I signed up for this topic but can’t remember why. Rather, I can’t remember what I thought I could offer on the subject of Heavenly Parents being willing to sacrifice Their son. I think I would refer readers to Fiona Givens and Terryl Givens new book The Christ Who Heals. It is a very different look at the atonement — the Lamb as Christ— and would give readers a lot more substance than my thoughts. But, in the meantime, we have the story of Abraham and Isaac.

What does it mean to be an Old Testament patriarch? Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are set apart by their covenants with God: Abraham seeks out inspiration and is granted a posterity greater in number than the stars of the sky. His son Isaac receives the same blessing; and Jacob, after supplanting the birthright of his older twin, becomes Israel, the founder of a nation.

I truly believe that being divine means you have a transformative power to make all things be good. No matter what happens, it can lead to goodness. The story of Joseph being falsely imprisoned is one of these prime examples in the scriptures. Because he still chose to be a believer, the circumstances provided him a way to do good beyond what his previous scope of life had offered. The Doctrine and Covenant repeatedly promises that if we walk upright, then “all things shall w

This week we’re deep into Genesis, exploring the lives of Joseph, Pharaoh, and all the early Israelite forbears. I love this somewhat bewildering story of family dysfunction and divine intervention. Decades before his brothers bowed down to him to beg for grain, Joseph dreamed of symbolic stars paying respect to him. This revelation-in-a-dream and its interpretation incensed his brothers so much that they attempted to murder him.

Planted in the womb of Egypt, the Hebrew people grew and developed in darkness, without a prophet-father-leader (Pharoah “knew not Joseph”), without freedom. The birth pangs began with locusts and frogs and boils and harder taskmasters and blood—and ended when they finally descended into the Red Sea. A miraculous canal opened before them and they made their narrow passage through it, emerging as a free people united in a common covenant.

There were a lot of mind-blowing moments during the 2018 April General Conference. But one of the most mind-blowing for me was when Elder Larry Y. Wilson spoke in the Sunday morning session about personal revelation. He said that many people have misinterpreted the scripture in D&C 58: 26 which reads: “For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things;

After a long Genesis narrative of simple (or not-so-simple) family groups led by patriarchs and matriarchs, we read in the remaining books of Moses of a sprawling and contentious Israelite nation. Like the church of today, Moses’ people were affiliated by belief and covenant rather than immediate family ties. And although Moses admittedly shared bloodlines with his Israelite followers, his complaints to the Lord as he shouldered the heavy burden of leadership are expressed in

I was sitting across from a man, I had only met a few hours before, when I was told, “this will be your life.” The phrase printed across the inside of my forehead like a divine flashing marquee. It was so clearly inspiration (and unusual delivery) that it was unmistakable.

I have a friend, who is not LDS, with whom I enjoy having spiritual and doctrinal discussions. The other day, she was inquiring about some aspect or other of how I live my life as a Mormon when she stated, “Christianity has lost its way. It’s not Christianity when people go to church on Sunday and then cuss out people who disagree with them the rest of the week.” I couldn’t agree more!

You cannot tell the story of Jericho, critical to Joshua’s prophetic narrative, without a woman—Rahab[1]. I particularly like this story because it complicates our assumptions and judgments of others and remind us that though women may be a minority in scripture they always enter the narrative at critical junctures. Rahab was considered a “Woman of Valor” in Jewish Midrashim.

Years ago, I was part of a group of mothers who met together once a month to have an evening away from family, have fun, and talk about life. All of the women were Christian, not all were Mormon. Often we would come up with a discussion topic for the evening to help us get to know one another better and get through life better.

Hannah chose to be honest with herself and with the Lord. She was not afraid of her bitter soul, or that as she continued to pray, she “wept sore.” She knew, as Chieko Okazaki shared for our time, “The Lord doesn’t want just pretty prayers. He wants real prayers. Sometimes we think of those eloquent, gracious prayers in sacrament meeting and General Conference as the models for our personal prayers.