Here's my lessons up to today. I will post pictures and handouts as soon as I can.
Hosea 1-3
Lesson objective: Students will learn that God loves his people and desires them to enter into his covenant. He is willing to "pay" to have them.
On the board I wrote, "What are you worth to Heavenly Father?" (1 Corinthians 7:23)
I explained to the class that today we are having a flashback. I had the kids read BD, Hosea, and then I drew on the board
Saul (Samuel/Hannah/Eli)
David
Solomon
Jeroboam/Idolatry/Israel
Ahab/Jezebel
Jeroboam II / Hosea
I read a quote from the manual on page 199.
I spent some time on being bought with a price and that the price paid in this scripture was the price of a slave. What are we enslaved to?
Then we talked about the first few verses of chapter one. Hosea marries the daughter of whoredoms, has some kids. We spent a good deal of time talking about how Israel was like a harlot, or one who was unfaithful to Jehovah. I didn't bother explaining the FIVE, yes FIVE explanations for this (shocking to some) act by the prophet found in the Institute Manual. I am not sure why some have found this so shocking. The rest of the Bible is pretty absurd, too..... So I just taught it as written. Probably can't go wrong with that, seeing as we have no revelation on it.
We covered
v2 - mother = harlots/Israel
v3 - wilderness = scattering, captivity, sin, spriritually lost
v5 - lovers = false Gods, anything you love more than God
vv 5-9, 13 - jewels, bread, corn= worldy treasures.
vv 9-10 - nakedness/lewdness = sin
vv 11-14 - allure = convince to repent
v 15 - Achor is a fertile valley= restored to blessings
v 16 - accepting God as husband in covenant
vv 19-20 - betroth = covenant/blessings
I was going to have the kids read all of Chapter 3 and describe the symbols, but we ran out of time.
This wasn't one of my best lessons. It started out good, but fizzled. I wasn't as organized as I thought :-/
Joel 2
This was another fun lesson.
We read the following verses aloud. While the verse was being discussed, the students would draw a picture of the sign on the dry erase board. They could draw until the next person reading their verse and stood up.
Here's what we read:
Joel 2: 2, 3, 7-9,10
and then we read
D&C 45: 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 48, 50, 51-22, 55
We stopped drawing, and I said something about there still being hope. We went back to
Joel 2:18-22
This turned out pretty good. Some of the kids took pictures of the board so they could put it in their scriptures 🙂
Amos 3
This turned out to be a good lesson to follow Joel 2 with. For an intro, we read the Bible Dictionary entry for Joel and the Institute Manual's opener for the chapter on Joel.
Then we read the scripture mastery Amos 3:7. The kids just about died when they realized how short it was. 🙂 I promised them we'd have plenty of time to pass it off.
I pointed to our drawing from the day before. I explained that yesterday we talked about some revelations that were given to whom ? Joel and the Prophet Joseph Smith about the Second coming. How does what we learned yesterday relate to our scripture for today?
How does what we learned yesterday strengthen your testimony of Amos 3:7?
How might this knowledge you have that God reveals his secrets to prophets comfort you?
Imagine you are explaining that Mormons believe in continuting revelation to a friend. How might you use this scripture reference?
This worked out very nicely. Afterward all the kids passed off the verse, I did a brief explanation of how the JST changes the verse. (See the footnote). One kid passed off the passage with until instead of but, which I thought was fine. We talked briefly about how that one word changes the passage and gives us great comfort, especially in light of what we read yesterday about the second coming.
Amos 4 / Obadiah 1
To introduct this lesson, I asked the kids "How can trials become blessings?" "How can trials result in doom?" They gave very excellent answers.
I had them mark in their scriptures the ways that the Lord tried to call the people to repent found in Amos 4:6-11.
Then I asked the kids "What's the difference between sticking it out like the Israelites did in Amos 4 and enduring to the end? cf Moroni 3:3 . Enduring to the end means triumphing through Jesus Christ. We learn something from our trials that makes us better when we endure. We do more than just "make it through".
For Obadiah, we read
vv 1-2 - I explained that Edom was Esau's land. We talked briefly about that tumultous history, see BD Edom
vv 3-5 - What's the Lord saying? I'm about to waste you.
v10 - Why? because you fought against Israel
People are valuable, our brothers, and deserve to be saved despite error. I made the manual comparison to the great and spacious building.
vv 16-21 - Who are the saviors? What is Mount Zion?
I did like the manual said and showed a picture of the DC temple and a set of missionaries. How are they saviors? How are we saviors?
Wrapped up with the Joseph Smith quote from the Student Study Guide on p 185. That really should have been in the manual, imo.
