Jesus Christ is standing on a hill over looking a river
One of the purposes of doctrinal mastery is to help you understand the Savior’s teachings contained in the doctrinal mastery passages and be able to explain them in your own words. This lesson will give you an opportunity to deepen your understanding of and explain truths about one or more of the doctrinal mastery passages from the New Testament.
Student preparation: Invite students to review the doctrinal mastery passages that will be studied in this lesson and to come ready to discuss them. Students could use the Doctrinal Mastery Core Document (2022) or the Doctrinal Mastery app to help them review.
Possible Learning Activities
A doctrinal mastery passage lesson may need to be taught in place of this review lesson. Refer to the pacing schedule provided by the area or region director or coordinator to ensure that each doctrinal mastery passage lesson will be taught while seminary is in session. If needed, replace any of the passages reviewed in this lesson with other passages that students may need to focus on.
Review
Provide an opportunity for students to review this lesson’s doctrinal mastery passages and their associated key scripture phrases. Consider using the following matching activity or another activity. (The correct answers for this activity are 1-b, 2-d, 3-a, 4-c.)
Some of your family members are feeling devastated because a loved one recently passed away and they feel they will never see them again.
Some people believe that their bodies are their own and that they can do what they want with them. They don’t realize that the Savior paid the price to redeem us, which literally means to “buy us back.” For this reason, we are not our own but are indebted to the Savior.
Many people believe in heaven and hell but misunderstand truths about life after death and resurrected bodies.
A friend asks you why you would prioritize a strong marriage and family relationships over professional success and money.
[The scriptures] teach us about Jesus Christ and His gospel, the magnitude of His Atonement, and our Father’s great plan of happiness and redemption. Daily immersion in the word of God is crucial for spiritual survival, especially in these days of increasing upheaval. As we feast on the words of Christ daily, the words of Christ will tell us how to respond to difficulties we never thought we would face.
(Russell M. Nelson, “Hear Him,” Ensign or Liahona, May 2020, 89)
Help students better understand the doctrine in doctrinal mastery passages. The following activity is one way this could be done. Students can focus on the passages reviewed above or any of the doctrinal mastery passages for the New Testament.
If the following activity is used, be available to help students find meaningful connections to Jesus Christ in their chosen passages. It might be helpful to put students into small groups and invite them to share their responses to the questions with their groups.
Imagine that, to begin a youth activity, you have been asked to share a scripture that has helped you learn or feel something about Jesus Christ. Choose one of the doctrinal mastery passages from this lesson or another from the New Testament. Invite the Holy Ghost to help you identify truths about the Savior that deepen your understanding of Him, His gospel, His Atonement, or Heavenly Father’s plan of salvation.
Which doctrinal mastery passage did you select?
What truth or doctrine did you identify from this passage?
How might someone’s life be different if they didn’t know the truth you identified?
How could understanding this truth help you come closer to the Savior?
Supplemental Learning Activities
Reviewing with the Doctrinal Mastery app
Consider ways to use the Doctrinal Mastery app to help students review or memorize doctrinal mastery passages.
Alternative ways to help students understand and explain
Understand—Students could look up the meaning of words in their chosen doctrinal mastery passages and report on additional insights they gained. Students could use a dictionary or the Guide to the Scriptures to look up the words.
Understand—Students could rewrite the doctrinal mastery passages they chose in their own words.
Explain—To help students explain the truths in the doctrinal mastery passages, consider bringing an assortment of small objects to class and inviting students to select an object that they feel illustrates the truth in their chosen doctrinal mastery passage. They can then use the object they selected to help explain the truth.