FHE: Appreciating the Scriptures

Aug 2010 Issue

By Alison Palmer
Scripture: 2 Nephi 4:15

Song: “Search, Ponder, and Pray” Children’s Songbook, 109

Preparation: Print a picture of William Tyndale from the internet and gather pictures of Nephi and Joseph Smith. Collect pencils and a stack of index cards to write phrases from the scriptures.
Prayerfully read “The Blessing of Scripture” Elder D. Todd Christofferson, Ensign, May 2010, 32-35.

Lesson:

Show the pictures you collected. Do not identify who the people are at first. Tell your family that each of the people in the pictures made great sacrifices to make sure we could have the blessings of the scriptures in our lives today.
Ask them to study the pictures and see if they can identify each person and tell you how they helped make sure we would have the scriptures. Discuss Nephi and the mission to get the brass plates and Joseph Smith’s charge to translate the Book of Mormon. Then, introduce William Tyndale and tell his story as it is portrayed in Elder Christofferson’s talk.

Discuss why Heavenly Father helps such men accomplish these difficult things so that we can have the scriptures. Why is it so important for us to read and understand what is written in them?
Remind the children that if they had not read from the scriptures at other times, they would not have known who Nephi was, or even Joseph Smith. Reading the scriptures opens Heavenly Father’s world to us. He asks the prophets to record those things that can build our testimonies and help us be closer to Him. If we aren’t reading we lose an opportunity to really get to know Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Use any material from the sections “The Scriptures Enlarge Our Memory” and “The Scriptures Bring Us to Christ, Our Redeemer” that are appropriate for your family to help illustrate this point.

The scriptures help us understand Heavenly Father’s gospel. Everything we need to know about how to live and
what is right and wrong can be found in the scriptures. We can find the same messages many different places in the scriptures because Heavenly Father wants to be sure we understand what is true and what is false. Remind the children that the scriptures share stories of people who had been deceived or led away from the gospel because they weren’t reading their scriptures and they got confused. Discuss examples such as the beliefs of the Lamanites, Korihor, and King Noah’s court. Continue the discussion by talking about common beliefs in the world around us now and what we know to be true because of the scriptures according to your family’s level of understanding.

Ask your family to consider whether or not Heavenly Father expects as great sacrifices from us as he expected from Nephi, Joseph Smith, William Tyndale and others? Do we have to travel thousands of miles and beg a relative to give us a copy of the scriptures to read? Do we have to be physically punished for translating the scriptures into different languages? Next, ask the family to tell you kinds of sacrifices we do have to make. This may include going beyond minimal reading assignments, reading even when we are very tired or when we don’t think we understand the words. Other items might be time spent at seminary or institute, even carrying our scriptures to church every Sunday.

Emphasize that many people have given us a great gift by making sure we had access to Heavenly Father’s words. We show our gratitude by valuing the scriptures as much as they did and making them a part of our lives every day. Close by asking the family to decide on one way they can show greater appreciation for the scriptures and challenge them to do so for the next week.

Activity:

Younger children: Play scripture Pictionary or charades with favorite stories from the scriptures.

Older children: Have a scripture scramble. Divide into teams. Each team must find two commonly known scriptures. Then, write the references and the words in small phrases on the index cards. Shuffle all the cards together and switch with them with another team’s cards. The first team to put the messages together in order wins.

Treat:

Edible scriptures. Cover graham crackers with chocolate icing then use toothpicks or icing gel writers to put the titles of the scriptures in the chocolate icing.