Again, so that there is a timely thread open to share thoughts, questions, and suggestions for the up-coming lessons in June[*], I’m starting this post now while I’m thinking about it.

Here’s a link to some other resources at the wiki for these lessons (incl. links to Jim F.’s notes at T&S): http://feastupontheword.org/Site:SS_lessons#Lesson_20:_.E2.80.9CMy_Soul_Is_Pained_No_More.E2.80.9D

Also, if anyone want to volunteer to post notes on any of these lessons so that we coordinate our efforts a bit more, feel free to volunteer in the comments: Read the rest of this entry »

[Gregorio sent in the following review of some Isaiah commentaries—thanks Gregorio!]

Here are some of my favorite Isaiah commentaries. Many of these are available free through a number of services, such as those which provide free PDF downloads, e-Sword, and other. I also consult a number of books by LDS authors, but will post a list on these at another time. Also, there are several invaluable books on specific chapters of Isaiah, to be included in a future post.

Read the rest of this entry »

I know Robert put up a general post for lessons for the month, but I was asked to teach unexpectedly so I thought I’d go ahead and post my notes as they were a bit long. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve been slacking this month regarding notes for the Sunday school lessons. So here’s an open thread to discuss anything from lessons 16-19 covering Mosiah 4-24. Hopefully others here will write posts on these lessons later, but until then, here’s a thread for sharing thoughts, insights, or questions from this lesson. (Again, if you’d like to write a post for a lesson, please email us at FeastBlog999@gmail.com, without the 999’s.)

Also, here is a link to the wiki that provides relevant commentary pages and Sunday school notes for these lessons (incl. Jim F.’s notes at T&S).

The blog portion of Feast Upon the Word is going nicely. We seem to have plenty of materials posted for various Sunday School and Priesthood/Relief Society lessons, and they keep coming (even if there are sometimes slow downs). Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll leave the “From the Life of Joseph Smith” section out of my comments this week: marvelous experiences, but they don’t seem to me to shed any light on the teachings in the lesson. So far as the “Teachings of Joseph Smith” section goes, in this chapter, I find it interesting that so much of the material comes from the pre-Nauvoo era. That is, at least so far in this manual, rather unusual: because Joseph wrote and spoke publicly much more often in Nauvoo than in New York, Ohio, or Missouri, and because many more saints were keeping a careful record of what Joseph had to say in Nauvoo than previously, a great deal more of Joseph’s teachings have survived from the Nauvoo era, and the lessons in the manual reflect these facts generally. This lesson, however, is an exception. In fact, nearly half of the lesson’s teaching come from a single letter Joseph wrote to his uncle in 1833. The result: this lesson provides, the section on personal revelation excepted, a view primarily of Mormonism minus the “Nauvoo theology.” But I imagine that I should explain what I mean by that just a bit. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m in the middle of a cross-country move, which means that I have had plenty of “ponder time” driving through America’s heartland. I’ll share a little thought that came to me in Iowa as I thought about King Corn, food chains, ethanol fuel, housing costs, and the focus of many of my Gospel Doctrine lessons: grace. Read the rest of this entry »

The great majority of this lesson comes from a single editorial published in the Church’s Nauvoo periodical, the Times and Seasons. I’ll confess I was disappointed to see this, because many of the editorials published while Joseph was editor of the paper were not written by Joseph. This one, however, I was pleased to discover, seems actually to have been his work. The style of argumentation, the manner of using scripture, and the conclusions drawn are much more like Joseph’s recorded sermons and canonized writings than other editorials cited in the manual thus far. I’ll proceed, then, with the assumption that everything in this lesson came from Joseph himself. Read the rest of this entry »