Doctrinal Mastery: John 3:16

The Atonement of Jesus Christ

In the previous lesson, you learned about the deep love Heavenly Father showed us in sending His Son to be our Savior and Redeemer. This lesson will give you the opportunity to increase your mastery of this doctrine by memorizing the reference and key scripture phrase, explaining the doctrine, and applying principles of acquiring spiritual knowledge in a real-life situation.

Student preparation: Invite students to think about how they would teach someone about Jesus Christ and His Atonement if they were full-time missionaries.

Possible Learning Activities

This lesson is designed to be taught after the contextual lesson for this doctrinal mastery passage (“John 3:14–17”). If this doctrinal mastery lesson needs to be moved to a different week to accommodate school schedules, be sure to teach the “John 3:14–17” lesson for this scripture passage during that same week.

Memorize and explain

Before class, write the words for the key scripture phrase for John 3:16 in a scrambled order on the board, similar to the following scrambled version. Have students unscramble the verse in their study journals, or ask a volunteer to come to the board and write the words in the correct order along with the correct scripture reference. If needed, invite class members to help.

The following is a scrambled version of the scripture reference and key scripture phrase for John 3:16. Unscramble the words by writing the correct scripture reference and key scripture phrase in your study journal.

• God Son gave loved the only 16 For that his begotten John he world so 3

After you have finished unscrambling the phrase, take a moment to memorize the scripture reference and key scripture phrase.

Provide an opportunity for students to explain the doctrine taught in the doctrinal mastery passage. The following is an example of how to do this.

Assume for a moment that you are a full-time missionary. You have been invited into a home by a friendly couple who has never heard about the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Drawing on what you have learned from the previous lesson about God’s love in sending His Son, what would you share with this couple?

Consider inviting students to do a role play of this scenario in partnerships, or invite a few students to do the role play in front of the class.

Practice application

Take a moment to review the principles of acquiring spiritual knowledge with the following activity.

Consider writing these statements on the board and asking students to come and write in the missing words.

Fill in the blanks for each of the following phrases.

• Act in f____.

• Examine concepts and q________ with an e______ p__________.

• Seek further understanding through d_______ a________ sources.

For each of these principles, invite a volunteer to provide a 30-second explanation of what the principle means.

Consider the following scenario.

After getting home late for the second time in a row, Sarai has a difficult conversation with her parents. She knows it’s getting hard for her parents to trust her. She also knows she has been making some choices that, if her parents knew about them, would cause her parents to trust her even less. Sarai feels guilty, but it seems easier right now to ignore these problems. Additionally, she is finding it harder to do and feel spiritual things, which makes her think that either Heavenly Father is not real or He has turned away from her because of her choices. At this point, Sarai doesn’t know what to do or where to turn.”

• What is causing this to be a hard situation for Sarai?

• If you were in Sarai’s position, what would be some of your greatest questions or concerns?

Consider how the principles of acquiring spiritual knowledge could help Sarai respond to her situation. If needed, take a moment to review paragraphs 5–12 in the “Acquiring Spiritual Knowledge” section of the Doctrinal Mastery Core Document (2022) to learn more about these principles.

Act in faith

Decide whether it would be best to have students do the following activities with a partner, in small groups, or as a class.

• What could Sarai do to act in faith in this situation?

• What would you say to help her if she felt that acting in faith is too difficult?

Examine concepts and questions with an eternal perspective

Sarai already feels like her relationships with her parents and with God are suffering because of the choices she has made. Being open with her parents and God seems like it would make things worse.

• In what ways is Sarai’s perspective inaccurate or incomplete?

• What do you know about Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, or the plan of salvation that would be helpful for Sarai to remember?

• If you were Sarai’s mom or dad, how do you think you would feel toward her? What would you want your struggling daughter to understand about how you feel?

Seek further understanding through divinely appointed sources

Take a few minutes to find scripture passages or statements from Church leaders that could be helpful to Sarai. If needed, consider using resources such as the Guide to the Scriptures or Gospel Topics to help you (see ChurchofJesusChrist.org). It may also be beneficial to use some of the scriptures you studied in the previous lesson, such as John 3:14–17 or Doctrine and Covenants 18:10–11.

If needed, help students know where to find scriptures that relate to this scenario. It may be beneficial to display the list of scripture passages from the previous lesson’s handout.

When the students have finished, invite volunteers to share what they found. Consider using questions such as the following to enhance class discussion.

• What did you learn about Jesus Christ from your study that would help Sarai?

• What are at least two specific phrases from your study that would benefit Sarai? Why?

Consider inviting students to share what they have learned in this lesson that would help them in their personal lives. Testify of the truths that have been discussed.

Review

The following review activity should be used during an upcoming lesson.

The key scripture phrase for John 3:16 is “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son.”Help students review this scripture reference and key scripture phrase by inviting them to repeat both together as a class. After doing this a few times, students could also repeat the scripture reference and key scripture phrase for the other doctrinal mastery passages they have studied so far.