Teaching of the Presidents of the Church Joseph Smith Chapter 22: Gaining Knowledge of Eternal Truths

Teaching of the Presidents of the Church Joseph Smith Chapter 22: Gaining Knowledge of Eternal Truths

Attention Activity:
Start class by having class members make a list of all the things that a newborn baby will learn to do from birth to 2 years old. (Answers include walking, talking, holding, crawling, sitting up, rolling over, throwing, running, eating, potty training—if you are lucky!) Now have class members think back over their last two years of life and list down things that they couldn’t physically do two years ago that they can do now. (The answers here would usually be zero. You may have learned how to fish or how to knit, but you always had the physical ability to do that, you may not have known how, but physically you could have.) In this life we gain most of our physical skills in the first could of years of life. “What are we supposed to do with the rest of the years?” (Answers will probably be to increase in knowledge.) You might share another interesting situation here. When a child enters Kindergarten they usually have very basic knowledge skills. Most major skills are learned in the first couple of years of school. Reading, writing, basic math and science. So why do we have 13 years of school plus any post-high school education? Joseph Smith is going to help us understand how important this principle is.

Class Discussion:
Lets start to understand how important this is by looking at page 265 1st paragraph under the section “Gaining knowledge of eternal truths is essential…”, and the 1st paragraph on page 266. Joseph is adamant that gaining knowledge is a key to salvation and a key attribute of Godliness. Have class members think about what knowledge they have gained recently that would help in gaining salvation.
The rest of the class can go a few different directions based on what you think is most important. You can go on with pages 266 and 267 to talk about how we get knowledge from God and from the words of the prophets. Or you can go back to pages 264 and 265 to talk about how we have to receive all knowledge and that the source of knowledge is God. Either way end on page 268 with the idea in the second paragraph that it is a lifelong process to gain this knowledge, but just like on a ladder we have to keep going. We can’t stop in our search and efforts at gaining knowledge. Also make sure to hit the last paragraph on page 268 that as we continue to be faithful, God has promised to tell us everything. The more we work the more the Lord will make known to us, and the better off we are in the world to come (D&C 130:18-19).