I’m one of those Sunday School teachers, apparently common in the Bloggernacle, who bases lessons on the assigned scriptural passage but who seldom presents the material as it appears in the lesson manual. For one thing, the members of my class are all life- or long- time members of the Church, thoroughly familiar with the gospel and the way we have taught the scriptures for generations. Asking the manual questions, which often amounts to little more than reading comprehension questions, just isn’t what is needed. We need to stretch beyond “and then what happened? and then what did he say?”
I have always felt obligated as a teacher to use the purpose statement identified in the manual, along with the specific chapters of scripture. I might approach that stated point through a different path and by asking a different set of questions, but if we’re supposed to talk about charity, or missionary work, or repentance, then that’s what we’ll talk about even when the assigned passage could easily be taken in other directions.
Lesson 13, though … I couldn’t do it. That bothers me, and what is blogging if not an opportunity to work through that?
The assigned chapters were Matthew 15-17, and the assigned stories for discussion were
1. Jesus heals the daughter of a Gentile and feeds more than 4,000 people.
2. Peter is promised the keys of the kingdom.
3. Jesus is transfigured before Peter, James, and John.
Fine. Those stories don’t have obvious thematic connections, but since there’s never time to go through them all it wouldn’t be any problem to pick one or two to focus on.
But the purpose statement was: “To strengthen class members’ testimonies that Jesus is the Christ and that the priesthood keys bestowed on the Mount of Transfiguration have been restored.”
There are two halves of that purpose statement, and neither one offers adequate guidance for the lesson.
1. “To strengthen class members’ testimonies that Jesus is the Christ …” Well and good – but that should be the purpose of any Gospel Doctrine lesson, especially any one from the New Testament, shouldn’t it? A generality like that doesn’t give any guidance to a teacher preparing a specific lesson.
2. “… and that the priesthood keys bestowed on the Mount of Transfiguration have been restored.” There. That’s problematical.
I believe in the priesthood, and that there are keys, and that they were bestowed on the Mount of Transfiguration, and that they have been restored in this dispensation. I can testify to that without hesitation, and could teach it in an appropriate setting. The priesthood is within the Church on the earth today, it has power, and it functions in an orderly way specifically because there are keys.
But. The lesson doesn’t teach that.
You can teach that priesthood keys have been restored in this dispensation, and you can go back to events on the Mount of Transfiguration to explain the whats and whys and whos and wherefores. But you can’t read an account of an event that took place circa 32 A.D. as evidence that something happened in 1836 A.D.
The only content in the manual’s Lesson 13 that specifically addresses this part of the purpose statement is:
In 1836 Moses and Elijah returned again to the earth. They laid their hands on Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery to restore the same keys given to Peter, James, and John. Which keys did Moses restore? (See D&C 110:11. The keys of the gathering of Israel.) Which keys did Elijah restore? (See D&C 110:13–16. The keys of the sealing power.) How are these keys used today? (In missionary work and temple work, which are conducted under the direction of the President of the Church.)
Excuse me?
That’s a brief but accurate statement of the events of 1836. No problem.
Readers can find enough information in the text of Doctrine and Covenants 110 to answer the questions of which keys the two ancient prophets restored. Well enough.
Class members as thoroughly familiar with the functioning of the Church as my class members are can certainly identify “missionary work” and “temple work” as the institutional use of those keys … but when they do so, they are not extracting anything from the text, which does not necessarily imply missionary work and certainly doesn’t specify temple work. Instead, they are bringing their own knowledge of how the Church functions today from well outside the text itself.
Is that a bad thing? Well, maybe not, when we arrive at the “right” answer, however we get there. But I do think any system that requires us to bring our practice into play to understand the scriptures, rather than using the scriptures to illuminate our practice, is problematical. It’s saying “This scripture means X because we do X,” not “We do X because the scripture teaches us to do so.”
Aside from the proof-texting, the manual’s sole statement that “In 1836 Moses and Elijah returned again to the earth. They laid their hands on Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery to restore the same keys given to Peter, James, and John,” provides no help for the purpose of strengthening conviction “that the priesthood keys bestowed on the Mount of Transfiguration have been restored.” The teacher simply states as much, according to the manual, and, presto change-o, testimonies are strengthened. In order to really address that purpose, of course, a teacher would have to bring in something more, not just information but an effective teaching method, and that would steer the lesson away from Matthew 15-17 completely.
Okay. This probably seems hopelessly nit-picky and may be incomprehensible to some who might read this – unless you’re a teacher. Like a painter of Biblical subjects who has to decide whether his subjects’ hair is straight or curly, or whether he should be standing or sitting, and what expression should his face carry, a teacher has to make decisions on what details to present and discuss in order to achieve the lesson’s purpose. She can’t just stand there and say “Today you will develop faith in the restoration of priesthood keys” and then talk about something completely different.
At least, I can’t.
So, reluctantly, I ended up throwing away the lesson’s stated but unsupported purpose. And instead of trying to find a common theme to teach the jumble of apparently unrelated stories selected by the manual writers for coverage in Lesson 13, I opted for modeling a close reading of the scriptures in my Lesson 13.
With luck, we’ll get through the first nine verses.
The “purpose” of a lesson often presupposes a nascent faith or an investigator’s knowledge. That may work well in those situations, but not otherwise. IMO, a good teacher knows her class and adapts.
I deeply empathize, Ardis. I’ve been participating in the Interpreter video video round-tables — covering the Gospel Doctrine lessons — for about a year now, and this is an issue that comes up (particularly in our just-before-recording discussions) on a very regular basis. And our reaction is pretty much the same: we often ignore some of the points the lesson is trying to teach from the scriptures in question (like you, our reaction is often, “Wait, what?”) and just focus on the text itself. Of course, we’re not actually teaching the lesson — just trying to provide background for those who do — but the problem is the same.
Likewise, I faced this same issue myself when I taught OT/NT in Gospel Doctrine two cycles (8-9 years) ago. And, yeah, my approach was pretty much the same. I suspect you’re a wonderful teacher, and your ward is lucky to have you. 🙂
Thank you for this. I have to teach this lesson and I was similarly struggling with how to talk about the restoration of priesthood keys when the text clearly says nothing of the sort. I appreciated this perspective.
I greatly appreciated this approach. My first reaction when I saw that purpose statement was “Wait, what? How are you supposed to get anything about the restoration out of the Transfiguration, or keys promised to Peter? That’ll be a great topic to talk about in D&C year, but can’t we learn from the New Testament in a New Testament lesson?” Glad to have a teacher who teaches from the scriptures.
Amy, I think you’re the one I must have written that for — thanks for taking the time to comment, and good luck.
And thanks, Ben S. and bfwebster. There are a couple of reasons why I feel bound to stick with the stated purpose, and needed to work through why I couldn’t do that with this lesson. First, despite the cynicism over how the manuals are written and why and for whom, they still are written by people who have received calls to write them, and I want to respect that. If “The Church,” through whatever sub-agency, thinks it’s important for members to think about Principle X this year, then who am I to decide that we don’t need that principle? I adapt the presentation, sure, but I ought to be aiming toward the same goal, IMO.
Second, it’s to combat my natural arrogance. I like to teach, and usually I’m pretty good at it, and I have to fight a tendency to be more concerned about how I appear as a teacher than in meeting the legitimate needs of the Church and my class members. If I didn’t stick to both the assigned scripture passages AND the purpose statement, then in my case there would be a real danger of my going off the reservation, teaching whatever cool new thing I learned from personal study, something that is more historical or literary than gospel-oriented. I think Sunday School is, more than anything, a place to give people a chance to reflect on gospel issues in their own lives and/or testify to doctrines they have tested and proven — and it would be entirely too easy for me to make it a purely intellectual exercise if I struck out on my own.
So I really try to let the purpose statement guide me — and in the rare case where I don’t, I feel somehow bound to explain and justify, to be sure it isn’t my own pride taking over.