Engaging Gospel Doctrine (Episode 188)

Lesson 15

“Eternally Indebted to Your Heavenly Father”

Hook / We don’t really like the idea of debt or owing, but King Benjamin makes a masterful argument that what we owe is a life of goodness and service. And we don’t pay back God… we pay it forward to our fellow brothers and sisters.
Manual Goal / To increase class members’ understanding of their indebtedness to God and to encourage them to “[put] off the natural man … through the atonement of Christ the Lord” (Mosiah 3:19).
EGD Goal / To help class members appreciate the limitations of human nature and resolve to serve God through serving others.
  1. Sunday School
  2. Framing
  3. Two minute take home
  4. Our debt and how we pay it back… or forward
  5. Human nature
  6. Scripture Commentary (Recommend in class they work through King Benjamin’s argument)
  7. Lesson
  8. Heart: Our debt to God and each other
  9. 17: serving fellow humans = serving God
  10. 18: Benjamin is an example of a servant leader
  11. 19: if servant leader deserves thanks, God deserves more
  12. 20: if we give all the thanks we have to give
  13. 21: and serve God with our whole souls
  14. 21: (and God is the one “lending us breath” paying our life price)
  15. 21: We would still be unprofitable servants
  16. 22: If we keep the commandments, we are “paid” in blessings
  17. 23: We owe God our lives (debt level #1)
  18. 24: God pays us immediately if we do what is right (debt level #2 which perpetuates)
  19. Human nature (What is the “natural human”? Is it an enemy to God?) We are both angels and demons. We are capable of amazing good or evil, largely dependent on conditioning and context.
  20. Lessons in leadership
  21. King Benjamin’s testimony of Christ (Condescension and empathy)
  22. Study Notes
  23. Human nature (touch on a few resources)
  24. Empathy (we are evolved to rush to one person’s help, unless there are other people who could help, “bystander effect”)
  25. Fundamental attribution error
  26. Psychology of teams
  27. Confirmation bias
  28. We fear the wrong things (Freakonomics)

Predictably irrational insights:

  • We only understand using comparisons
  • We value scarcity even when the scarce is not valuable
  • We go crazy over free things
  • We assume familiar is right
  • Our motivation is out of whack
  • We are terrible at self-control
  • We overvalue what is ours
  • Too many options (over three!) overwhelm us
  • Expectations make us miserable
  • Self-fulfilling prophecy
  • We are influenced by context more than principles

Resources: Paradox of choice

Buggy Moral Code

Predictably Irrational

Empathy fatigue

Brene Brown Vulnerability

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