Video Transcript

Toggle Timestamps

So, I've received a collection of emails in the last while that I'm going to try to summarize here into one response. And the topic is who to teach the gospel to and how to teach them. Now, that's an enormous topic. In fact, I've got over a thousand pages worth of notes written up about this. well, in some form. And it's going to take me quite a while to get those completely processed and ready for publication. But the issue here is that there are books that come before that in order. And also that I'm not 100% sure what form in which I'm going to publish those teaching notes. whether I'll distribute it over other books or whether it ends up in one or multiple in a series, who knows? So, but I'd like to to give some information to those who have taken up the invitation to begin to teach others. Before we get started on that though and before I answer these questions of who to teach and how to teach, the issue is that this does pertain to very few people because it turns out that you actually you have to repent of your sins before you can be an effective gospel teacher. In Mosiah 23:14 we read, "Trust no one to be your teacher nor your minister except he be a man of God walking in his ways and keeping his commandments." Now the thing is is anyone could say anything and people who are still living in sin can in fact tell the truth about one thing or another. So what's the limitation? Well the limitation is you can't preach with power. In DNC 100 7 and 8 we read but a commandment I give unto you that you shall declare whatsoever thing you declare in my name in somnity of heart in the spirit of meekness in all things. And I give unto you this promise that in as much as you do this, the Holy Ghost shall be shed forth in bearing record unto all the things whatsoever you shall say. And in a nutshell, trying not to get deep into this because it is quite a deep topic. It addresses certain things that people don't understand yet or don't understand correctly. There are limitations to what you can do if you have not yet repented and they are significant. What you can accomplish before that is extraordinarily limited. Essentially, you load the person you're teaching with extra challenges that are significant if you have not yet repented of your sins. and you also curtail the good that you could do even if they are in the right place and doing all the right things. The other thing that I've heard is people say, "Well, you know, I'm trying to repent. It takes time and this is something good that I can do in the meantime." No. One, it doesn't take time. It's a decision. And you can learn more about that by listening to or reading the many things I've published on the topic of repentance. In fact, there's even a playlist on this YouTube channel, the Upward Thought YouTube channel. But also, teaching doesn't help a person repent. It's a distraction, as is everything else in your life until you repent. So, you could you could make an argument that, hey, uh, I have to survive to be alive to repent. Sure. So, you need to eat and drink. You might have a job that you need to hold down. Okay, fine. If you have kids that you need to take care of or spouse, okay, fine. But beyond that, you start to run out of reasons to do anything else in your life until you repent. It's really that big of a deal. You know, if you die in the next moment and you haven't crossed this bridge yet, you're in big trouble. And that's abundantly obvious from the scriptures. Okay? So, that's not what this video is about, but I say that as a preamble, as a um as a warning to anyone who might get caught up in that distraction. Okay, let's talk about who to teach. Find someone who already knows that they need something. This is someone looking for answers, someone who's looking for solutions, someone who's looking for greater things than what they have. There was a time where you could just sort of beat the bushes and see who's out there and and kind of count on them doing something to come and find you. And that time is over. You see, we live in a stream of information and it's mostly low value information. It drowns out anything that that would need to be searched for. You see this all the time. The second you dip your foot into the internet, you'll see this where people just the other day I was I I I made a video questioning the utility of churches, the churches that exist today in terms of their inability, seeming inability to help people actually improve. And this guy wrote this snotty comment about, "Well, you're saying the obvious. Do you have a solution or are you just pointing out the problem? Bro, you have 3 minutes in a YouTube short. You know, I could I could fit the solution into the seconds I have left in this short. I'm capable of that. But are you capable of recognizing the value or even understanding what I'm saying? No. That's why all of this is needed. It's amazing how little people are willing to do to find the great value they say they want. And that's the obstacle you have to fight against in preaching the gospel. You see the on the internet all the wrong signals are boosted by the algorithms on one hand because what they want to boost is usually salacious material or contentious material and then the lowquality people that make up the majority on the other hand because what they're interested in seeing is garbage. You know, a girl in a bikini will rack up thousands of views, but a two-s sentence quote that'll change your life. Maybe it'll get 25 views. Usually by 25 people who already know about you, right? So, how do you reach the people that you're trying to reach? You have to go looking for them. You have to make content that has handles that they search for. whether these are literally hashtags, which can be effective on something like YouTube shorts, or that they contain keywords that they're searching for. And the content itself has to present valuable information in a snappy way, concisely, and also in a way that the people that you're making it for recognize the value. Now, that sounds like a lot. It's actually not that hard to do. It just takes some reprogramming because those of us who came out of a religious background were never trained to think that way. And so we do what we're comfortable with mixed with a heavy helping of human nature. Human nature wants to feel important. Human nature wants to feel smart. Human nature wants to be the guy or the gal with the new shiny thing. Human nature wants to be popular. But none of that matters in preaching the gospel. It's almost always the case that you're closer to the opposite of that. For example, we tend to make these long scriptural commentaries. You know, people aren't looking for endless scripture com commentaries. It's not what they're searching for. And people quote scriptures as if that that's going to convince people. A person who has not submitted to God will not submit to his word. They might pretend that they would, but they don't actually do it. And even if you pin them down with irrefutable quotes from the scriptures, they'll squirm out of it and say that's not what it means. or or find some other way to to get out of it by by uh marginalizing you somehow. This is definitely true of people who aren't religious, but you'd be surprised how often it's true of religious people that they don't have the patience or ability to translate your religious jargon. See, the words you use, even if they're straight out of the scriptures, they probably mean something very different to the people you're trying to reach. That's certainly true if they're not religious. But even with people who say they're Christian, even with people who say that they're from the same background that you are, they might think of a word very differently than you do. So you you have to show them the value of the change that you're inviting them to make in terms they can immediately recognize. That's the challenge. That's that's what makes this work. It's what makes it functional and it's also what what requires effort. So in both senses of the word work, you have to make it short. You have to cut out the fluff and you have to make it crystal clear. Now, some things you cannot teach in a short way. That's why this form, this video is not a short, but I'm going to chop out pieces of it and put those into shorts, right? Not not segments of the video. That can be done. But what I mean is I'll make new shorts that that focus on subsets of this information. Shorts are great. YouTube shorts are great because the app on your phone has a uh a tool to record those shorts in where you can make segments of video and then cut them. So you can make a segment of video, hit pause, if you don't like it, there's a back button and it just deletes the last segment without deleting the rest of the video. And in 10 minutes you can make a 3 minute or less video where there's no fluff, there's no flubbing. If you don't do it right, do it again. Do that segment again and make it as short and snappy as you can. Now, you can use a script for that. You don't have to. You can you can speak off the cuff with a with We'll get to this, but you you still have to have an intent in mind, but you can speak off the cuff and make it better as you go. Sometimes you'll say something, you'll say, "Oh, that was actually pretty good. If I combine it with this or I take this out, it'll be even better." Hit the back button. Record it again. It takes 10 minutes to make a 3minut or less video, but cut out the fluff. Make your point crystal clear. If it's garbage, delete it and start over. Okay? People will not tolerate that stuff today. The fluff, the the rambling, the mistakes, the flubs, the lack of excitement. If you're like, "Let me tell you about this thing that will make your life so awesome, you won't even believe it." Yeah, right. I don't believe it. Right. And so on. This idea that we have to go find the people who already know that they lack something instead of just throwing it out there and who knows. I'm just going to talk about the things that I like and and the reasons why I like them. No one cares. No one cares. Go find people who are saying what they want and give it them what they want. Here's I'm not saying tell people what they want to hear. I'm saying take every everything that God has given you and everything that he has shown you and compare that to the things people are looking for. This is what good teachers do. Jeremiah 16:16 talks about this idea. Well, prophesies this idea. The Lord a long time ago said, "Behold, I will send for many fishers, sayaeth the Lord, and they shall fish them, and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and out of the holes of the rocks." We're past the fishing stage. The fishing stage is done. There's not a huge net that throws out and we bring in all kinds of men and filter them out. We're looking for specific people, specific kinds of people, and you're the ones that are supposed to go out and hunt these people. And how do you do it? You look for people who have specific needs. And that's who you teach. Now, what do you teach? Well, that one you actually have to translate it into another question, which is who is your audience? Who are you trying to teach? And that determines what to teach because what you believe and your re reasons for believing it are irrelevant to them. It's only relevant in as much as it matches up with what they are looking for, what they need and what they know they need. So you have to say who is my audience and what is the change I would like them to make? What are the reasons they will find sufficient to make it? This isn't let me stand up on a soapbox and tell you what I think and why I think it's important. Who cares? No one cares. What do they find important? Now, you can shift what a person finds important. That can be the increment of improvement that you're trying to achieve. But for the most part, you're going to focus and you can't get away from even then. You can't get away from what is the change that you'd like them to make. Who's your audience? What reasons will they find sufficient to make the change that you're trying to get them to make. Don't fall into the trap of just randomly teaching stuff that you know and believe. Who cares? No one cares unless they have a reason to care. But those are not the people you're looking for, right? That's different. So, we talked a little before about religious jargon. Your use of this radically reduces your audience. Increasingly, your target audience is not going to be religious people. This is a shocker for those that don't understand the end times, which is basically everyone. Religious people are not the primary audience of the gospel in the end times because they are already satisfied with what they have. And what they have is in congruent with the truth in many ways and it takes a great deal of faith to overcome that which most of them don't have. But even when you end up teaching people who are religious, you have to understand you can throw scriptures at them all day long and they will not understand what they really mean and they'll fight you when you try to explain it. If you if you're quoting a scripture to support your point and then you have to spend 30 minutes proving to them that that scripture actually supports your point, you shouldn't use it. is hurting you rather than helping you. Just say it in plain English. Here's an interesting experiment. Go to the New Testament and compare how often Jesus quotes scripture to how often he explains things with logic. And by the way, when he uses parables and he cites examples of real life, like, well, who among you wouldn't go get your sheep out of the mire on a on the Sabbath? That's not a scripture. It's logic. It's an example from life. Why do you think he does that? Because he bypasses all the principles in scripture, but he doesn't quote the scripture because he's bypassing their false traditions. Scripture doesn't persuade wicked people. Now, it can. I'm not saying it never does, but it's not the most effective way to teach people. This is also a shocker, right? Because people have this tradition that the best thing you can do here, read this, read scripture, and your heart will magically change. It doesn't work that way. Your heart only changes through persuasion. Now, if you're really smart and you're really humble and you have a lot of faith, scripture will take you very far. But find people who fit that criteria. There aren't very many at all. And if they exist, they probably don't need you, right? Because anybody and their brother can just pick up a copy of scripture and read it. They don't need you for that. Not anymore. Maybe there was a time like right after the printing press was invented, but not today. So what happens is religious people get numb to what scriptures actually say and they won't believe you when you try to persuade them otherwise. And if you don't if you if you think this is a weird thing, here's how you can test it. Without quoting scripture, paraphrase the idea that you're pulling from scripture in plain English like Jesus did and make a logical argument for the point that it makes. and find a religious person who doesn't live that truth and hit them with your argument and watch how offended they get. I mentioned that I previously made a short on how churches fail miserably at improving people. That's a great example. I never mentioned the scripture that that lesson was was was expounding. I did that on purpose because it wouldn't have helped. You'd be shocked at how many scriptures I address in my content without ever citing them. If you printed the transcript of the things that I teach, there'd be a footnote on every other word. But here's the thing. The the scriptural phrasing of ideas is not the best phrasing and it's certainly not the optimized phrasing for specific people in specific times. The scripturality of an idea is not connected to its believability in people who are not submitted to God. If they were really submitted to God and you quoted them a scripture, they'd say, "Oh, yeah. Okay? And immediately make the change. But if they were submitted to God, they probably wouldn't need you to quote to them the scripture. Do you see? Now, I wanted to give you a a brief example of this of of what it looks like when you put things into plain English. I'm not saying don't quote scripture. Don't don't misquote me on that. I'm saying most uh an increasingly an increasing segment of the effective teaching that happens is going to happen in plain English, not scriptural language. And and the reason for this, again, I'm just trying to skip the SC stone across the surface of the water with this video, but the reason for this is that truth exists in a hierarchy. And that's true of concepts and it's also true of the resources from which we learn the truth whether that's books or people. I made a video about that about it being hierarchical both in books and people. I even had a picture where books and people were connected. Anyway, um and and this maybe that that's an appropriate time to say I don't know that anything in this video is new, but I'm putting it all together in one short thing because I guess it's too hard for people to watch the teaching the gospel playlist on the YouTube channel. But we're trying to help people do as much as they can, as much as they're willing to, and give them all the tools to do as much good as they they possibly uh are willing to. Anyway, so you have these hierarchies that you can't avoid. And wouldn't it be great if you could teach someone the language of the scriptures and help them have the faith to actually apply them in their lives and somehow get them the reading comprehension that they would need and somehow help them read through it about 200 times because that's kind of what you need to do to start to understand what what the scriptures say and so on and so forth. That would be great. But, you know, it's like it's like that Pawn Stars show, the meme from the Pawn Stars where where the guys like best I can do is we have to lower our expectations of people based on their very obvious self-imposed and sometimes not self-imposed limitations. See, a person who can barely read, for example, you can't hand them the scriptures and say, "Hey, good luck. If a person doesn't read books normally, they're they're not going to get a whole ton out of the scriptures. Sorry. It's very challenging reading." Okay? Uh if if a person isn't wise in their lives and they're not able to take principles from one thing and apply it laterally to another thing in life, good luck with the scriptures because you're going to be one of these people who, you know, quotes John 3:16 every day and yet is a terrible person. it it's actually extremely challenging to use the scriptures in the way they're intended to be used. So you can be the means of bypassing that if you're one of the few who can use them properly. you can express the ideas that are found there in a much more receivable way, a way that's not encumbered by so many requirements. So, here's here's a great example. Now, this was actually done by chat GPT. And no, I didn't do this. A friend of mine did this and he was shocked and sent it to me because he thought it was good. Although it has limitations, he thought it was good notwithstanding the limitations. And so I want to quote to you Alma 32:es 13-16. The original reads, "And now, because you're compelled to be humble, blessed are ye, for a man sometimes, if he is compelled to be humble, seeketh repentance. And now surely whosoever repenteth shall find mercy. And he that findeth mercy and endureth to the end, the same shall be saved. And now, as I said unto you that because you were compelled to be humble, ye were blessed, do you not suppose that they are more blessed who truly humble themselves because of the word. Yay, he that truly humbleth himself and repenteth of his sins and endureth to the end, the same shall be blessed. Yay, much more blessed than they who are compelled to be humble because of their exceeding poverty. Therefore, blessed are they who humble themselves without being compelled to be humble. Or rather, in other words, blessed is he that believeth in the word of God and is baptized without stubbornness of heart. Yay, without being brought to know the word or even compelled to know before they will believe. Now, this is ironic that I'm using this passage because one of the many messages in this four verse passage is that there is a way to teach someone before they are brought to know the word or as Nephi and Lehi say to know the language of the fathers. There are many many idioms in scripture. It's it's not the limitations of this are not just um don't just pertain to the old English style of writing. That's not the only barrier of understanding the scriptures. There's also the sheer volume because it's all hyperl as Jordan Peterson has talked about but was very obvious to anyone before that who actually studied the scriptures that you can't take any verse of the scriptures on its own really the limits there are limits in that and you really have to be fluent in the entire body of scripture to have any hope of getting very far in it. But these idioms are a really big deal too. little short phrases that are compressed, massive pieces of information compressed down to just a few words. Okay? So if you really wanted to convey the information that's in these four verses to someone who had never read the scriptures before or someone who's read them a million times and is totally numb to what we just read and doesn't live any of it in their lives, but they it doesn't cross their mind that that's the case. And so as they're cruising through the Book of Mormon, they're just going to bang through this passage in Alma 32 and it won't even click that they're not living this in their lives because they've read it 5 million times or heard it at church 5 million times and no one has ever explained to it what them what it means in plain English and they don't have the faith andor intelligence and or effort andor obedience in their lives for God to unfold this to them. So chat chat freaking GPT a computer program does a better job at teaching this passage than pretty much any gospel teacher and that's a very sad thing for gospel teachers but it's because they don't do the things that I'm telling you in this presentation. First and foremost, they haven't repented. Because you see, in order to do this, you actually have to believe and live the word or be a supercomputer, apparently. But you won't make the mistakes that chat GPT makes if you do this the right way. So, I'm I'm just doing this to put you to shame. I'm just quoting chat GPT to put you to shame. I'm not saying this is the way to do it. Okay? Sometimes life knocks you down and forces you to be humble. It doesn't feel good, but it can be a blessing. Hold on, let me restart this. I wish I had the Bert Reynolds voice. Sometimes life knocks you down and forces you to be humble. I won't do that. Sometimes life knocks you down and forces you to be humble. It doesn't feel good, but it can be a blessing. Hard moments often push you to reflect, admit mistakes, and change your direction. And anyone who sincerely makes that change will find mercy, relief, and a new start. If you hold on and keep going, that change can save you from a lot of pain in the long run. But think about this. If being forced to be humble is a blessing, how much better is it to choose humility on your own? People who are willing to self-reflect and change just because they hear the truth are even more blessed. Those who willingly face their flaws, admit their mistake, and keep working to improve themselves will experience an even greater level of peace and happiness than people who only change because their life fell apart or forced them into it. So, the happiest people are those who choose humility without waiting for life to break them first. In other words, it's a blessing to have an open heart. Someone who believes, listens, and makes positive changes before they're cornered by life or forced to believe through hard experiences. Think about that. Now, if you're not new to this channel, this is a message you've heard many times. And yet, how many people in the in the Mormon tradition would look down on that message and say, "Oh, the gospel is not self-help." The hell it isn't. It is the epitome of self-help. Because God is the greatest, and you cannot orient yourself to him without or outside of a path of improvement. The gospel in a nutshell is to make all things as good as they can be. It's to do the work in your sphere of action to make things as good as they can be. And gospel teachers are horrifically bad at this because first and foremost, they don't live it. And second, they don't understand how to break things down to people in ways that convey value and are immediately apparent to those who aren't familiar and don't already believe the same things. See, in church, we preach to people who believe the same things. And essentially, the message is you're good how you are. We're all good. We're all good. No, you're not. No, you're not. And if a pastor or a priest or a bishop or whoever the heck actually stands up and tells you that, you'll run them out on a rail. The church board will kick them out. Whatever the leadership is will kick them out. They certainly won't be teaching because these messages apply directly to anyone that hears them. They immediately think of all the things they need to change in their lives. It is immediately practicable and it's immediately obvious that it's true. Do you want to fight with this message? Sometimes life knocks you down and forces you to be humble. And when it's hard, it'll cause you to reflect and admit mistakes and change your direction. But how much better would it be if you just of your own accord went out and did that and looked at your life and said, "hm, how can this be better? What can I change to make my life better? What what if I went out looking preemptively for problems and solved them before they blew up in my face?" That's something that every single person can apply. No one's going to look at that and say, "I don't need to do that. That's not a good idea. That's not worth the trouble." And so the only way they can disbelieve this is by lying. And that should sound familiar if you know the scriptures. The ancients could do this. But we quote their words that were translated from a different time and place and a different language into English and vomit it out to each other and think that somehow it's going to work. Uh, by the way, without ever living it ourselves, it doesn't work. You're not a bee. You can't just vomit into each other's mouths and get honey, right? Now, other people have tried to make plain English versions of the Book of Mormon. It's not that simple. What's needed is not a translation of the scriptures that magically overcomes all the barriers I've talked about. First and foremost, because no one's given these people, sincere, honest people, a good reason to crack open the book, at least not at certain faith thresholds. They'd have to have a lot of faith to overlook all the terrible examples of professed Christians and actually crack open the scriptures. And basically, anyone who has that faith has already done it. There's no limitation in access. So why haven't they done it already? And there's not a line of people that are magically going to jump on if someone publishes a plain English version that's as good as what I just read to you. the chat GPT made. Somebody could just put all of the scriptures into chat GPT and say, "Put this into readable English and print what comes out." I don't know what the licensing requirements are for that, but whatever. That won't solve the problem. You have to take it to them. You have to take it to them. So, there are two ways that you do this to sum up. One is you invite those around you to make the next increment of improvement. You already have a model of what the Lord would think, feel, and do in your place. It's probably got a lot of holes in it and the part there are parts of it that are probably very inaccurate. However, it is your sincere belief of how the Lord is. Take that model and apply it to everything around you and everyone and the things that you can change, prioritize in order of impact and start working on it. So when you see someone who's out of alignment with your understanding of Christ, think about the minimum shift they could make to come into greater alignment. and think about the sufficient reasons you could share with them to make that change. Not in terms of what you think is sufficient, in terms of what they will find sufficient. They're going to be in a different place than you. They might not understand your reasons or they might not agree with your reasons, but what are the reasons they would find sufficient? And get to work. Now, that one's non-negotiable. that one that's required in order to stand as a witness of Christ. And if you're not doing that, you're not standing as a witness to Christ. But there's a set of opportunities for those who are willing and able to share these things online, to make YouTube shorts, to create Instagram, whatever those are called, reals, I think, or Tik Tok ticks. whatever those are called, right? Short videos on the why short videos because people under 30 basically are not on YouTube basically. Okay, not not watching full length videos. I mean, they have the attention span of a net. Like I said, they've been trained in this sea of noise. And so, you have to get their attention in a punchy way. and you've got like three seconds to make a point to hook them and then you go from there and ex expand out on. It's like a triangle. You just start with the tip and you go down. There's an art to making those sorts of videos and if you're not willing to learn the art, you're wasting your time. So, I'll make a separate video on that on how to make viral shorts. So, I hope that this has been helpful. I hope this has helped you understand who to teach and how to teach.