Doctrine and Covenants Seminary Teacher Manual

Contents
Title Page
Introduction to the Doctrine and Covenants Seminary Teacher Manual
Doctrine and Covenants Lessons
- The Restoration Proclamation
- Doctrine and Covenants 1
- Joseph Smith—History 1:1–26
- Doctrine and Covenants 2; Joseph Smith—History 1:27–65
- Doctrine and Covenants 3–5
- Doctrine and Covenants 6–9
- Doctrine and Covenants 10–11
- Doctrine and Covenants 12–17; Joseph Smith—History 1:66–75
- Doctrine and Covenants 18
- Doctrine and Covenants 19
- Doctrine and Covenants 20–22
- Doctrine and Covenants 23–26
- Doctrine and Covenants 27–28
- Doctrine and Covenants 29
- Doctrine and Covenants 30–36
- Doctrine and Covenants 37–40
- Doctrine and Covenants 41–44
- Doctrine and Covenants 45
- Doctrine and Covenants 46–48
- Doctrine and Covenants 49–50
- Doctrine and Covenants 51–57
- Doctrine and Covenants 58–59
- Doctrine and Covenants 60–63
- Doctrine and Covenants 64–66
- Doctrine and Covenants 67–70
- Doctrine and Covenants 71–75
- Doctrine and Covenants 76
- Doctrine and Covenants 77–80
- Doctrine and Covenants 81–83
- Doctrine and Covenants 84
- Doctrine and Covenants 85–87
- Doctrine and Covenants 88
- Doctrine and Covenants 89–92
- Doctrine and Covenants 93
- Doctrine and Covenants 94–97
- Doctrine and Covenants 98–101
- Doctrine and Covenants 102–105
- Doctrine and Covenants 106–108
- Doctrine and Covenants 109–110
- Doctrine and Covenants 111–114
- Doctrine and Covenants 115–120
- Doctrine and Covenants 121–123
- Doctrine and Covenants 124
- Doctrine and Covenants 125–128
- Doctrine and Covenants 129–132
- Doctrine and Covenants 133–134
- Doctrine and Covenants 135–136
- Doctrine and Covenants 137–138
- The Articles of Faith and Official Declarations 1 and 2
- The Family: A Proclamation to the World
- The Living Christ
Life Preparation Lessons
- Doctrinal Mastery: Finding Answers to My Questions
- Scripture Study Skills
- For the Strength of Youth: Making Choices
- Building Self-Reliance
- Physical and Emotional Health
- Preparing for Future Education and Employment
- Succeeding in School
- Missionary Preparation
- Temple Preparation
- Teachings of Church Leaders
Appendix

Lesson 97—Doctrinal Mastery Practice 6: Understanding Doctrine and Acquiring Spiritual Knowledge

“Lesson 97—Doctrinal Mastery Practice 6: Understanding Doctrine and Acquiring Spiritual Knowledge,” Doctrine and Covenants Seminary Teacher Manual (2025)

“Doctrinal Mastery Practice 6,” Doctrine and Covenants Seminary Teacher Manual

Lesson 97: Doctrine and Covenants 84

Doctrinal Mastery Practice 6

Understanding Doctrine and Acquiring Spiritual Knowledge

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a youth marking the scriptures

Doctrinal mastery can help students build the foundation for their lives upon Jesus Christ and His gospel. This lesson can help students understand truths taught in doctrinal mastery passages and help them learn and apply divine principles for acquiring spiritual knowledge.

Possible Learning Activities

Doctrinal mastery review: Understand

To help students become familiar with the doctrinal mastery passages in the remaining sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, consider giving them a few minutes to mark these passages in their scriptures in a distinctive way. Students can find the list of doctrinal mastery references and key scripture phrases in the Doctrinal Mastery Core Document (2023).

You could then invite students to do the following activity in small groups to increase their understanding of the doctrine taught in these passages. Ensure that marking scriptures and completing this activity lasts for only 10 to 15 minutes. This will allow enough time for students to practice applying principles of acquiring spiritual knowledge later in the lesson.

Make a list of common difficulties that teenagers deal with in their daily lives.

Look for Doctrine and Covenants doctrinal mastery passages that could help with those situations. Read the passages you chose, and prepare to share with the class your answers to the following questions:

How would you explain in your own words what these passages teach?
How could Jesus Christ’s teachings in these passages help teenagers with the common difficulties you listed?

Learn and apply principles of acquiring spiritual knowledge

Before introducing the following situation, it may be helpful for students to briefly review the principles of acquiring spiritual knowledge. (Suggested review activities are included in “Doctrinal Mastery Review Activities” in the appendix of this manual.)

One way to review is to write each principle on the board as a separate heading with room to write under each. Invite roughly equal numbers of students to review different principles of acquiring spiritual knowledge from paragraphs 5–12 in the Doctrinal Mastery Core Document (2023). Then invite three volunteers, one for each principle, to the board. Ask them to write under the corresponding heading an important phrase or concept from the paragraphs they reviewed. These phrases or concepts will be used later in the lesson.

Read the following scenario, and think about how principles of acquiring spiritual knowledge could help:

Chris is feeling confused. His older sister, who is married, recently told him that she has left the Church and no longer desires to be a member. Chris has other family members and friends who were once strong in the gospel but have stopped attending church regularly. They are great people and seem happy and successful in their lives. Chris has always planned on remaining active in the Church, but he starts to wonder if remaining active in the Church throughout his life will really matter.

Invite students to form groups of three, if possible, with students who reviewed different principles of acquiring spiritual knowledge. Ask groups to discuss how each of the phrases or concepts on the board could be helpful to Chris.

Based on time, you could repeat the previous activity multiple times by inviting other volunteers to write different phrases or concepts on the board under each principle. For added variety, during each round students could form different groups of three to discuss the new phrases or concepts on the board.

To conclude this activity, students could form new groups one more time to discuss the following:

Which Doctrine and Covenants doctrinal mastery passages could best help Chris understand what Jesus Christ offers to those who remain faithful to His Church?
Which doctrinal mastery passages from other books of scripture could also help him?

After students have had time to search and discuss in their groups, invite them to share with the class which passages they felt would be most helpful and why. Encourage multiple groups to share. (Some passages students might choose include Doctrine and Covenants 1:30; 84:20–22; Helaman 5:12; Joshua 24:15; Isaiah 58:13–14; Luke 22:19–20; Ephesians 2:19–20.)

You could conclude the lesson by asking students to respond to some or all of the following prompts in their study journals:

From an eternal perspective, Heavenly Father wants me to remain faithful to Jesus Christ and active in His Church because .

A scripture passage that helps me want to remain faithful to Jesus Christ and active in His Church is .

One thing I can do to remain faithful to Jesus Christ and active in His Church throughout my life is .