Tag: teaching

Purpose of Teaching

I must clarify something very important for readers:
Giving answers to people apart from teaching how to get answers is wrong.  Wrong because just giving an answer alone creates dependence upon the one answering.  That is not the way in which I have tried to proceed.  Instead, I have tried to teach how to obtain your own answers.  The whole purpose of teaching is NOT to create dependence.  It is to make you independent from me, establish your own capacity to relate to and get answers from God.

I’ve tried to give answers and illustrations inside the greater context of teaching “how.”  The answer is nothing.  It is the “how” that matters.

Some readers on this blog have not read The Second Comforter and presume incorrectly that it is a book about me.  It is not.  It is a book about the reader.  It is an explanation of how the reader can grow into the greater relationship which Christ promised to them.  All the illustrations from my personal experience, with the exception of nine words only, are taken from my mistakes, errors, or setbacks.  The personal accounts of mistakes then are followed by chapters which explain how you can do it right.  That is a teacher’s role: to make the listener understand how they can do something.

It has become apparent that there are questions coming in from people who want answers completely separated from learning “how” to get an understanding of the basic process by which they can do it themselves.  That was never my intention, never asked of me, and not something that I want to start.

Your development is your responsibility.  I am trying to teach from my own experience how to grow.  Some of you have demonstrated a remarkable capacity to grow, and have been directly benefited from my efforts.  I view those people as such a triumph that I will always hold them dear.  I look forward to eternal joy with these people.  There are clearly others who have never realized what it means to be taught or how a true teacher is to proceed.  I can help.  But I cannot properly go beyond helping.  I cannot be your guru, your answer-man, or your leader.  Nor have I been called to preside.  I teach.  You must decide if you want to learn “how” to engage the Gospel of Jesus Christ and its associated blessings.  You must avoid at all hazards becoming dependent upon me, or any man, as your guide.  I am only here to help you in your own growth and development, and I am not here to tell you secrets, or amaze you with recitations of my personal experiences.  That would be wrong for two reasons:  First, it would do you no good, nor equip you with what you need.  Second, it would be both prideful and arrogant, setting myself up as a light instead of pointing you to the True Light.

Questions that change the focus and which prevent me from teaching as a disciple of Jesus Christ cannot be answered.  Therefore, if I cannot change the “question” into something I can use to teach, I will not answer the question.