The other day, my wife asked me, “Can you teach my Sunday School class this Sunday?” She was out of town and there wasn’t a substitute for the 14-15 year old class she teaches. I told her (reluctantly at first) that I would then asked “what’s the lesson on?” She said “Isaiah.” My desire to teach dropped like a rock in water. Isaiah? How am I supposed to teach something I have no concept about? I have been avoiding Isaiah for years. Sure, I know he has some great poetic verses about the Savior, but to teach? I started back-pedaling and asking her if there was someone else who could teach instead or if we could combine her class with someone elses. She has a good, soft heart for the kids she teaches and she told me she didn’t want them to have to be combined into a room with others. She felt they needed and deserved a personal teacher who would give them the best treatment. I told her I’d find someone for her.
After we finished chatting I looked at the names of people who could substitute for her. I was about ready to call a substitute but I realized the love she has for these kids and the effort she puts into her lessons. As I thought of this, I realized that no one else would be able to simulate in a sense what she does except for me, as I watch her and hear her stories of each of them. I at least wanted to show up to the class and let them know of the love she has for them. I decided to put the phone down and call on the Good Lord for help instead. I was going to give the lesson.
I shouldn’t have been suprised to get an answer to prayer so quickly, but not long after I prayed I received an email in my inbox from Meridian Magazine. There was an article by John Bytheway headlining the magazine called “Leafing through the Chapters of Isaiah” (I encourage anyone interested in familiarizing themselves with Isaiah to read this article in conjuction with Isaiah). I clicked on it and started reading and the first paragraph started describing how I felt as I thought of teaching Isaiah. However, after reading the article and studying the “Isaiah Chapters” of the Book of Mormon, I started getting excited to teach the class. The article discusses the four guides to look for in any of Isaiah’s writings as being those of Covenants, Christ, Current Events, and Coming Events. In addition, it discusses some keys (spirit of prophecy, geographical knowledge of Jews, living in latter-days, knowledge of God’s judgements) needed to interpret Isaiah. As I started reading the chapters with the guide and keys I started finding things in Isaiah I’ve never been able to comprehend or appreciate.
I only studied for a few hours, so I barely was able to scratch the surface of Isaiah. However, some things that stuck out to me were: prophesies of temples, the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (see also Isaiah 11), Isaiah’s call as a prophet from the voice of the Lord, descriptions of the Millenium, Jesus’ personal approval of Isaiah, and much more.
As I went to church, I pictured in my mind teaching the kids the best I could and taking care of them like my wife (and of course the Lord) wanted them to be taken care of. However, the opportunity to teach didn’t come because our normally scheduled one hour meeting lasted almost 2 hours and the bishop told us we would cancel Sunday School.
Although I didn’t get to teach “Isaiah 101”, I’m grateful for the chance I had to learn and study and even if there were not many students in our church today learning about Isaiah, there was at least one student who learned something and that student was me.
11 comments
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March 3, 2008 at 2:23 pm
brianj
It’s also helpful to consider that Nephi used Isaiah in a specific way when teaching his people, and that Nephi’s focus was not necessarily the same as Isaiah’s. In other words, Nephi’s reading of Isaiah is not the only viable reading, but it is interesting to see how Nephi employed Isaiah—and the particular chapters Nephi selected.
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March 3, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Candace Salima
Good for you . . . diving into Isaiah and being willing to help the your wife’s students understand your new found excitement. Although you didn’t get to teach this Sunday, you will get to teach that lesson sooner and later and you’ll be better prepared for it. Way to go.
Welcome to the LDSBlogs Webring. No, you don’t have to do anything else. We have a large number of people who go through the entire ring every single day, so people will just drop by your site. The sites they like they subscribe to, link to or bookmark and drop back often. I’m certain yours will be one of those.
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March 3, 2008 at 5:02 pm
ama49
Brian,
Thanks for making that clarification and distinction. As I mentioned, I’ve totally avoided tackling Isaiah up until this point, so any ideas or suggestions or inspiration you’ve come across will be beneficial for me and I’m sure others.
thanks for stopping by.
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March 3, 2008 at 5:03 pm
ama49
Candace,
Thanks for stopping by and for your encouragement. Thanks as well for including my blog on the LDSBlogs site.
take care
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March 3, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Mormon Heretic
David Ridges has some great books. One is “Understanding Isaiah”, and I found it very helpful. Many LDS booksellers have some great books as well.
I will say that reading a different version of the Bible is helpful. The KJV has some really archaic language, and some of the other bibles are much easier to understand. Of course, don’t go to church saying you read another bible–you might get called into the bishop’s office. (Speaking from personal experience.) I have found that many of the good LDS and non-LDS bible scholars consult different versions of bibles to get a better flavor of difficult passages. But if you’re LDS, don’t publicize the fact, or you’ll end up being a heretic like me! 🙂
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March 4, 2008 at 1:29 am
ama49
MH
You’re a funny dude. Thanks for your tips on Isaiah.
Let me guess…you live in Utah? 🙂
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March 4, 2008 at 2:14 am
brianj
I’ll second the heretic’s suggestion to read other translations. And the one I’ll suggest is the NET (http://net.bible.org/bible.php?book=Isa&chapter=1). It is in modern English, uses paragraph formatting (instead of verses; nobody speaks in verses!), identifies speakers by using quotation marks (a major plus), and includes numerous translator’s notes. There are also links for higher criticism, Hebrew lexicon, etc.
But the most important thing is that it is written in Modern English.
Aside from that, I’ll make a plug for an excellent post on my blog by Joe Spencer. He breaks up the structure of Isaiah in a very helpful (albeit complicated) and interesting way.
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March 4, 2008 at 6:29 am
Mormon Heretic
You guessed my location that easily? I bet you could even guess what county I live in…. Now you know why I go by the pseudonym–if my bishop reads this and recognized my name, I’d really be in trouble. Lucky for me he thinks the internet is completely evil, and only uses it at his job…. He’s not following Elder Ballard’s advice to faithfully blog… (Of course, some may interpret the word “faithfully” differently.) 🙂
I’ll put a plug in for a really cool website. Go to http://blueletterbible.org/ and you can compare about 14 different versions of the bible. It’s pretty cool.
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March 4, 2008 at 6:47 am
ama49
brianj,
I checked the link out. you’re right about that it is much easier reading that. thanks for the link….
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March 4, 2008 at 6:55 am
ama49
MH,
I am guessing Utah county. I lived there for two years and felt like a fish out of water. I think it’s sort of funny what you’re saying about going under cover. Here in Seattle people tend to be a bit more liberal than down there. It’s a much better fit for me.
I went to that website you suggested and found something interesting. I just clicked on a link and it had a bunch of references to temples in the bible. I think it would be an interesting study to study various bibles and compare/contrast, etc.
Check out the link on temples:
http://cf.blueletterbible.org/search/translationResults.cfm?Criteria=temple&t=KJV&page=7
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March 4, 2008 at 6:16 pm
brianj
D’oh, I forgot to include the link to Joe’s post: here
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