Lesson 37: Bonus Features

Whenever I prepare a lesson, I always end up with way more material than time to discuss it. (This is, of course, much better than the opposite problem!) I appreciate learning all those other things for my own sake, but I thought it would be nice to share them with others, too. I've been thinking of this blog as a place to publish the "bonus features" of the Gospel Doctrine lesson, like all of the extra material you get on a DVD. Similar to deleted scenes and out-takes, the ideas here won't necessarily be as polished as the ones that actually make it into Sunday's discussion. Hopefully, we can flesh them out by exploring them together.

One topic that was addressed in the lesson manual was the different roles of a prophet. This is a list that most of us could come up with without much thought, I believe:

• acts as a mouthpiece of the Lord (see D&C 1:38)
• calls the world to repentance (D&C 6:9)
• acts as a seer (Mosiah 8:17)
• presides over the Church (D&C 107:91)
• reveals the word of the Lord (D&C 43:2)
• acts as a special witness of Christ (D&C 20:26)

I was thinking a lot about the prophet's role as a revelator, in particular. Here's another instance where a word's roots can teach us something important. The "re-" in "reveal" means "back", and "veal" comes from the same root as "veil". So part of what a prophet does is to move back the veil! I love this idea, and it resonated with many things from the General Conference addresses. Did you notice the theme of revelation running through many of the talks? (See this one, this one, and parts of this one for three examples in just the first session!)

I especially loved the reference Elder Neil L. Anderson made to "pull[ing] the shades down over our open window into heaven". I think that, in terms of personal revelation, we often have more power than we realize to "pull the shades" up or down--to move back the veil and "see into" heaven. What kinds of things cause the veil to move back in your life?