The Words of Isaiah

by Terri Wagner

I had the dubious honor of presenting the first set of Isaiah chapters in the BOM for our Gospel Doctrine class. I sure thought I had a handle on how to present the material in a way that gave you a place to start. Isaiah requires some getting used to. I reread John Bytheway's Isaiah for Airheads which is an excellent source of information. I had someone give some historical context and background on Isaiah. And then gave them the three keys Nephi mentions oddly enough in 2 Nephi 25 which is after the Isaiah chapters go figure. The last one always makes me laugh out loud. To understand Isaiah you need to live in the last days. So does the fact that we do not understand Isaiah mean we are not in the last days???

I then drew a series of circles circling a larger circle I placed in the middle. I explained that to understand Isaiah you had to read it as a Prezi presentation: no chronological order and no more to least important designations. You also need to know that Isaiah speaks a bit like we do. For example, when he warns Israel they will be destroyed because they are making unholy alliances (specially with the Assyrians and Egyptians). Isaiah is also warning us in the last days not to be lured in to making unholy alliances as a people, as a ward/branch, and as individuals. It is easy to see then the different layers. I have seen wards take sides in divorce situations, and as an person I once had a friendship that was poison for my spirituality. After going through Isaiah's chapters 2-14 not in that order, I finished with the grand finale. If these were Isaiah's words, then what was his main concept? What did all these chapters have in common?

Frankly, I lost my group back at Isaiah's background. It is so hard as a teacher to decide what in a lesson is important. I think I threw too much information at them without really explaining it. I should have stuck with the above instead of trying to do all the chapters. What do you think?