Instructor Dennis A. Wright
Isaiah Experiences for Seminary Students

Comments: Bro. Wright's presentation used a series of powerpoint slides. He offered to send them to those requesting by email! [email protected] (I don't think he has any idea what he has started!)

He took an old OT and punched a hole thru the Isa. chapters and inserted a combination lock. The book is deep and challenging, but it is not sealed! We can unlock it.

Intro and prep: Acts 8:30-31

Is 1:1 Historical setting, meet characters of the times (before start activity, ask students to watch for? Hear any facts? Have any thoughts? Sense any feelings?

People to meet: this was a "play" pre-written by Bro. Wright. He asked others to come up and read the parts. I've scribbled as best as I could what they said.....)

1. Jerusalem Gossip: I'm a real watcher of that royal family, and things there are never dull. Isa is a cousin to the King, but he challenges the king and the royal tribe. He even ran around in sackcloth and ashes to embarrass the family. (shows Isa as relative to King, but rebellious and stubborn.)

2. King Hezekiah: Good morning. Why is Isa so negative and confrontational? We need friends like Egypt. We trust in God, but faith w/o works is dead. We need to do the work. Isa lacks the common sense to live in this real world." (The king wanted the best for his people, but he was sane and reasonable and logical.)

3. Joab -- a faithful merchant: I own a rug shop near the Golden Gate. I'm grateful for the prophet and I know he was called of GOd. But he talks down the alliances with other countries. I believe in God, but we need the foreign trade. I'll follow the prophet, but he makes me a little nervous. (He was a contemporary of Lehi, and this is probably the way most people in Jerusalem felt.)

4. High Priest of the Temple: Who does Isaiah think he is? What gives him the right to go around preaching? He's not a high priest in the temple! The temple is our strength. Those who put their faith in the temple and God's priests will be saved."

5. a local shepherd: Isa is right. We are all doomed. We have become too worldly, drunk on our rich lifestyle and blinded by greed and pride. We need to follow Isa. What he has foretold will happen."

[Bro Wrights lesson was so well organized! We wish Isa had been so..... I appreciated that he gave principals to teach and then he gave a real-class example of a way to teach that. These teaching techniques can be used with many lessons!]

Principles of teaching:

1. Teach from Large to Small: Like the jigsaw puzzles we do at Christmas where we are guided by the box cover. Look at the big picture, see the forest.
   
   1. Historical context by role play with prepared scripts (as above) or spontaneous script Usa 48, role play student warned by father to not drive too fast.
   2. Prophetic vision object lesson -- Isaiah basketball: a pyramid out of cardstock. 4 sides, each side about 12" tall. each flat side labelled: Latterdays, Isaiah's time, Nephites, Jews future. Get volunteer to catch it, but it won't bounce. Isaiah could talk about 4 subjects at once. All through the year you can use this BB to ask "What group is this about/to?" Examples: Isa 39:46 and 53:7-8.
   3. Form and style -- Isa as poet and artist. King James Version gets it best. Play music -- Primary song "I will follow God' plan for me." Kids all know it, learn simple, basic truths thru primary songs. "All I ever needed to know to get into the Celestial Kingdom I learned thru Primary songs....." Classical piece [He used Handel Watermusic, I think, but any complex "busy" piece will do.] This is Isa! Not simple, not straightforward. Must develop the ear to understand. But in hundreds of years primary songs will be gone..... read Isa 62 for poetry
   4. Basic themes word puzzle:

      singth rea dab		Things are bad Isa 24:5 Use Basket ball and show how to all 4 sides
      tinghs illw etg sorew		Things will get worse 13:6
      a doglen eag si mongic		A golden age is coming 25:6 [use the story of the woman who wanted to be buried with a fork. Ask Bro. Alford.]

   We are the most optomistic pessimists!!
2. Teach from known to unknown
   1. Isa 6 difficult imagery. Compare to JS first vision. coal on mouth like forgiveness, pillars shaking like forest trees, etc. but Isa call different---like flight attendant on plane helping until the plane crashes.
   2. difficult terms Isa 11 & D&C 113 draw a picture of tree stump with one small branch growing out w. 2 leaves. Stem of jesse = cut off trunk, apostate church rod = new branch growing out, nephites and restored church root = root of tree, still there and will produce tree again
   3. 3. Important ideas Isa 3. Have students read and do their own drawings. What they each draw is the known. What they can learn from other's drawings takes them to the unknown.
3. Teach from feelings to ideas Get the picture of the savior touching the hand of the young girl in bed to heal her. Ask a student or two to role play being that girl. What would she say? How would she feel?
   Applications student team work Isa 58. assign groups to read and answer Q's?
   1. The Lord is unhappy with our fast because.....
   2. We fast because ...........
   3. The promise of the fast is ..................
   1. Implications read Isa 52 and review basics of atonement together Students write an anonymous note to you "What does the atonement mean to me?" play quiet hymn while they write.
   2. Anticipation Great and Dreadful day Isa 24 mostly dreadful Isa 25 mostly great give 1/2 class 24 and 1/2 class 25 to read. Then write a story about a person (wicked for 24, righteous for 25) who would be in that time.

Helps: NIV Study bible. Bro. Wright wouldn't teach without it. It has great explanatory footnotes. It's the translation of choice for the BYU faculty. Complete Idiots Guide to the Bible -- gives big picture. He's not embarrassed to own it. (These 2 are available at any Christian bookstore.)

Seminary OT student manual. They are new and different and have good activities.

In conclusion: the promise of Isa 65:17-25