Jesus Teaching the People by the Seashore, by James Tissot

February 20–26

Matthew 6–7

“He Taught Them as One Having Authority”

As you prepare to teach, begin by preparing yourself. Study Matthew 6–7, and record your spiritual impressions. This will help you receive revelation on how to best meet the needs of your class. Then search this outline for teaching ideas.

Invite Sharing

Invite class members to share which of the passages in the Sermon on the Mount they feel are most needed today. Encourage class members to add to each other’s insights.

Teach the Doctrine

Matthew 6–7

If we hear and act on the Lord’s teachings, our lives will be built on a firm foundation.

• What specific teachings from Matthew 6–7 will be most beneficial to those you teach? Consider writing on the board several references from Matthew 6–7 that contain these teachings. Class members could select one of the references to study silently and then write on the board any spiritual truths they learn. How have these teachings influenced our lives?

• The Savior concluded His sermon with a parable that might help your class better understand the importance of living by the Savior’s teachings (see Matthew 7:24–27; see also Helaman 5:12). To visualize this parable, class members could work together to build a strong foundation using blocks, cups, or other materials and then test the strength of their foundations. Perhaps they could also label their building materials with things they can do to apply the Savior’s teachings. How could doing these things help us withstand the storms of life?

Matthew 6:5–13

The Savior taught us how to pray.

• Studying the Lord’s Prayer might help class members identify how they can improve their own prayers by following the Lord’s example. You could invite them to write on the board phrases from Matthew 6:9–13 (or Luke 11:1–4) that stand out to them. As we ponder the Savior’s words, what do we learn about prayer? It may be instructive for class members to paraphrase some of the Savior’s phrases as things they might say in their own prayers. For instance, “Give us this day our daily bread” could be paraphrased as “Please help me in my efforts to provide for my family.”

• After reading Matthew 6:5–13 as a class, you could discuss questions such as these: How has prayer strengthened your relationship with Heavenly Father? How has prayer helped you come to know God’s will?

Matthew 7:7–11

Heavenly Father answers prayers.

• To help class members strengthen their faith that God will hear and answer their prayers, you could write ask, seek, and knock on the board. Then class members could search the scriptures for examples of people who “asked,” “sought,” and “knocked” (for examples, see 1 Nephi 11:1; Ether 2:18–25; 3:1–6; Joseph Smith—History 1:11–17). What do we learn from these examples about receiving answers to our prayers?

• Some important context for Matthew 7:7–11 can be found in the Joseph Smith Translation of Matthew 7:12–17 (in the Bible appendix). In these verses, Jesus’s disciples anticipated some reasons people might give for not seeking truth from Heavenly Father. You might ask class members to imagine they have a friend who is reluctant to seek guidance or blessings from the Lord. What might class members say to encourage this friend? How might they use the Savior’s words in Matthew 7:7–11?

Matthew 7:15–20

We can identify true and false prophets by their fruits.

• Members of your class have likely come across false philosophies and other deceptions of the adversary, whether on the internet or from other sources. They may have also heard others criticize the Lord’s servants. How can you help them understand how to discern false prophets and teachings from true ones? You could display several pieces of fruit and ask what we can assume about the trees they came from. How does this exercise help us understand Matthew 7:15–20? You could also read together some recent messages from the living prophets. What “fruits” or outcomes does following their counsel produce?

  

  We can know true prophets by their fruits.

• Matthew 7:15–20 could help build class members’ faith in the divine mission of the Prophet Joseph Smith. What are the fruits of the work Joseph Smith accomplished? For some ideas, see Elder Neil L. Andersen’s message “Joseph Smith” (Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2014, 28–31). How could we use the Savior’s analogy in Matthew 7:15–20 to bear testimony to our friends and family about the Prophet Joseph?

Improving Our Teaching

Don’t be afraid of silence. “Good questions take time to answer. They require pondering, searching, and inspiration. The time you spend waiting for answers to a question can be a sacred time of pondering. Avoid the temptation to end this time too soon by answering your own question or moving on to something else” (Teaching in the Savior’s Way, 31).