February 21, 2008

I've been gone for the last week and a half. Thanks so much to all of the teachers who covered for me. It sounds like everything got covered.
Today we reviewed everything the students had gone over the past week or so, and then studied 1 Kings 17. What a beautiful scripture passage!
We started out looking at 1 Ne 3:7. We talked about the principles being taught in this verse - GO and DO and Faith and Obedience.
As we turned to Kings, as we read, the students marked all of the passages where they saw the GO and DO (commands, actions or attitudes) and the Went and Did etc.
We split the chapter into sections and also looked for Miracles in each section.
We looked at 1-7, then 8-16, then 16-23, and finally 24.
We discussed that Elijah had the sealing power to seal the heavens, and looked at 16:30 (previous chapter) to learn that King Ahab was worse than any of the kings before him. We discussed how President Benson told us that the Lord will allow us to humble ourselves, or else he'll humble us, but he requires a humble people. Elijah had to hide from Ahab to save himself - which is fairly indicative of Ahab's wickedness.
As we discussed these sections, we discussed how we might have felt or reacted in these character's situations. We were able to see the strong GO and DO - Faith and Obedience of these people. We discussed the trials of faith that each individual had, and finally as we looked at verse 24. v. 24 would not have been possible, except for the things which the widow had previously experienced. These experiences, based on the faith and obedience of the the widow - were the basis of her testimony. The faith precedes the miracle, and then we are given a sure knowledge. Each time we make a decision to do what is right, we become more sure and our testimony grows. This applies to all gospel principles, and especially to our own testimonies. If we want to gain a testimony of tithing - we need to start paying etc.
What a beautiful passage. There are so many things to learn and take from this chapter!
Tomorrow we will be covering 18-22 and Elijah and the priests sacrificial stand off. One of my favorite stories!
We are working on Jeremiah 16:16 this week for scripture mastery.