Insights for study, a toolbox for the classroom.
Ben Wilcox greets his fellow teachers at the top of each episode and then works through the week's Come, Follow Me scripture block, from the plagues of Egypt to the furniture of the ancient tabernacle. Scripture blocks are handled in two kinds of episode: study-focused Insights and Teaching Activities companions built from icebreakers, discussion questions, and handouts.
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Teaching With Power is built for the week when someone has to stand up and teach. Ben Wilcox greets his fellow teachers at the top of each episode, names the Come, Follow Me scripture block, and gets to work. The show is recorded as video, and he says so, asking for likes, shares, and subscriptions at the close. It is produced in two kinds of episode. Insights episodes are the study half. In the one on Exodus 35 through 40 and Leviticus he works through the furniture of the tabernacle, arriving last at the altar of incense and sending listeners to Revelation 8 to check what the smoke drifting through the veil represents. In the Exodus 7 through 13 episode he opens with an icebreaker about which fictional characters would win an imaginary battle, then turns the plagues into a modern inventory: the god of money and the plague of financial ruin, the god of anger and the plague of violence. Teaching Activities episodes are the other half, and they are deliberately not commentary. They are a toolbox of icebreakers, scripture-search questions, pondering handouts, and takeaway slides, with the repeated instruction to pick what fits the students and the time frame rather than follow it as a script. One activity has students compare Egypt and Goshen across a string of verses to find the pattern in the plagues. Another rewards students with candy for the treasure they find, to make a point about seeking God's will. Lessons are framed around a stated truth, then a likening step that turns the text into a question about the listener's own life. The women of Exodus 1 and 2 get that treatment, with Zipporah, Puah, Miriam, Moses' mother, and Pharaoh's daughter each yielding a prompt about moral courage, faith, care, or compassion. He does not defer to the manual on everything. When the assigned chapters strike him as the wrong place to study the tabernacle, he says so and points to Exodus 25 through 30 instead. The catalog reaches beyond the Old Testament; a Doctrine and Covenants sections 111 to 114 activities episode builds a lesson from section 112 about keeping spiritual footing when faith is tested. The register is warm and earnest, teacher to teacher. He talks repeatedly about wanting teachers to feel a fire in the bones and about making preparation quicker. Materials are collected at teachingwithpower.com, and Spanish-language resources are mentioned. Every episode in the recent run ends on the same charge: get out there and teach with power.
Made for: Suits a listener preparing to teach a Come, Follow Me lesson at church or at home who wants both the scripture study and the ready-made activities in one place. It also fits someone working through the same weekly block alone who likes a teacher's habit of stopping to ask what a verse means for them.
What sets it apart: Rather than commentary alone, the show splits scripture blocks into an Insights episode for study and a separate Teaching Activities episode stocked with icebreakers, handouts, and slides meant to be trimmed to a class. The host is also willing to say when he thinks the manual assigned the wrong chapters, and to study the ones he prefers instead.
"Teaching with Power" will help you teach or study the scriptures with more impact, relevancy and power. Its primary audience is members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints using the Come, Follow Me manual to teach at home or at church. It supplements but should not replace the manual. My name is Ben Wilcox and I have taught the scriptures in many capacities for 20 years, primarily the youth. I have a BA and MA in English literature which lends to my more literary approach to studying the scriptures.
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Candy, climbing shoes, and scripture questions make this a practical, adaptable teaching session.
Teaching With Power treats Doctrine and Covenants 111-114 as a ready-to-shape teaching session, with Ben Wilcox moving from foolish mistakes that can still open into growth, to faith under pressure, to a slower and more searching way of reading scripture.
Two Bible translators unpack Scripture's hardest passages, from Revelation's 666 to the Witch of Endor.
Catholic arguments with pint-table warmth.
Daily headlines under Christian judgment.
Catholic homilies for the next faithful step.
Catholic teaching for ordinary discipleship.
Serious Bible questions, patiently reasoned.
Ben Wilcox introduces supplemental teaching activities for Doctrine and Covenants 111-114, focusing on turning mistakes into opportunities.
Teaching With Power host Ben Wilcox offers three roughly 25-minute lesson plans for Isaiah 58–66, covering fasting, the Sabbath, and Jesus Christ.
Ben Wilcox’s Teaching With Power episode offers three approximately 25-minute lesson plans for Isaiah 50–57.
Teaching With Power's Isaiah 40–49 episode offers three roughly 25-minute lesson plans centered on comfort and trust.
Ben Wilcox’s Teaching With Power episode reframes Exodus 35–40 and Leviticus 1, 4, 16, and 19 through the earlier tabernacle instructions in Exodus 25–30.
Ben Wilcox's Teaching With Power lesson on Exodus 7–13 frames Moses and Pharaoh as representatives of priesthood power and worldly power.
Ben Wilcox presents teaching activities for Exodus chapters 7–13, organized into three lessons on the plagues, covenant differences, and Passover symbolism.
Wilcox of Teaching with Power presents three classroom lessons on Exodus 1–6: courageous women saving Moses, Moses responding to God’s call, and resisting spiritual slavery through overwork.
Ben Wilcox’s “Exodus 1-6 Insights” reads Exodus as a journey from Egypt’s bondage through wilderness toward a promised land, using 1 Corinthians 10:1 and 10:11 as an interpretive frame.