How to Help Someone Escape False Teaching  🔗 **Source:** [How to Help Someone Escape False Teaching](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaVJvB9KaWA) > [!note]+ Document Notes > --- > tags: [false-teaching, discernment, biblical-counseling, apologetics, high-control-groups, pastoral-care] > author: [MISSING] > source: YouTube > reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaVJvB9KaWA > date created: 2026-08-15 > --- > > [!info] Generated analysis — not the author's words. Sections below are machine-written > > from the captured source. Only text inside `> [!quote]` blocks is verbatim from the author. > > Do not quote or attribute any other line to the named author. > # 🏷️ Title: How to Help Someone Escape False Teaching > ## 🧭 Table of Contents > - [📝 Summary](#-summary) > - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) > - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) > - [📚 References](#-references) > - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) > - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) > - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) > - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) > - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) > - [❓ Questions](#-questions) > - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) > - [💡 Implications](#-implications) > - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) > - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) > - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) > - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) > - [🛡️ DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) > - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) > ### 🔗 References > - [Proverbs 18:13](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs+18%3A13) — "He who answers before listening, that is his folly and shame." > - New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) — the false-teaching movement named as the primary case study. > - John Quincy Adams — attributed six-word quote on duty vs. results, used as the closing frame. > ## 📝 Summary > - What happened: an interviewer asks a biblical counselor for practical advice on helping someone who has been harmed by NAR (New Apostolic Reformation) teaching or other false teaching. The counselor answers with a relationship-first, question-based method illustrated by a 30-year-old personal story about two Mormon missionaries. > - Why it matters: this is a practical, replicable framework for a common pastoral problem — a friend or family member is entangled in a doctrinally unsound movement, and blunt confrontation typically backfires. > - Key stakeholders: the person still inside (or exiting) the false-teaching movement; the friend/family member/counselor trying to help; the counselor's own credibility and long-term relationship with the person; secondarily, the movement's own leadership, who may isolate the person from outside influence once they sense doubt forming. > - Risks and tradeoffs: confrontational, "holier-than-thou" approaches provoke defensiveness and shut down dialogue; over-indexing on warmth without ever raising hard questions ("emphasize the caring part and lack the truth") is named explicitly as an opposite failure mode; the process can take years with no guaranteed outcome, risking discouragement for the helper. > - Bottom line: listen first, build trust, ask specific diagnostic questions rather than issuing corrections, hold truth and love together, and release the outcome — the helper controls their own faithfulness and love, not whether the other person changes their mind. > ## 📖 Main Content > - The core argument is sequential: (1) ask questions to understand where the person actually is (still in, coming out, or out) before offering any correction; (2) once you understand their specific beliefs, ask them to reconcile those beliefs with contrary evidence or scripture ("how do you square the circle?"); (3) do all of this inside a trust relationship, sustained over a long timeframe, not a single conversation; (4) separate your responsibility (loving faithfully, speaking truth) from the outcome (whether they change), which belongs to the other person and God. > - Terms defined in context: NAR (New Apostolic Reformation) is named as the specific false-teaching movement prompting the question, though the counselor generalizes the method to "other false teaching" broadly. "Biblical counselor" is the speaker's stated role/credential but is not otherwise defined. > - Contested/uncertain elements: the counselor is explicit that this is not a guaranteed formula ("I'm not saying this formula works, just do this formula") — the illustrative anecdote (missionaries eventually leaving Mormonism) is offered as one example of the approach working, not as proof it reliably works. The transcript gives no data beyond this single case. > ## 🗒️ Notes > #### ⏱️ [00:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaVJvB9KaWA?t=0) Listen before you answer > - Ask questions first to establish where the person is (still in / exiting / out) and how much they already know. > - Grounds the approach in Proverbs 18:13 — answering before listening is "folly and shame." > #### ⏱️ [00:00:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaVJvB9KaWA?t=20) Ask them to reconcile the beliefs > - After establishing context, ask specifically what they believe and how they square it with contrary claims — not "you're wrong," but "how do you square the circle?" > - Warns against condemning or mocking tone ("that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard") as counterproductive. > #### ⏱️ [00:01:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaVJvB9KaWA?t=90) The Mormon missionary story > - Personal anecdote: 30+ years ago, the counselor and a pastor friend built rapport with two Mormon missionaries (driving range outing, genuine friendship) before asking hard doctrinal questions. > - The missionaries' own leadership ("bishop") pulled them out of the friendship once questions surfaced — an isolation dynamic common to high-control groups. > - Years later, one missionary sent a postcard: the unanswerable questions "got us thinking," and he eventually left the group and became a Christian. > #### ⏱️ [00:03:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaVJvB9KaWA?t=210) Duty is ours, the results are God's > - Closing frame, attributed to John Quincy Adams on abolition: do the duty (love faithfully, speak truth) and release the outcome. > - Explicit caution against both extremes: don't emphasize truth without love (confrontational), and don't emphasize love without truth (conflict-avoidant). > ## 📚 References > - [Proverbs 18:13, Bible Gateway](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs+18%3A13) — primary source for the "listen first" principle. > - New Apostolic Reformation — no official/primary source cited in the transcript itself; external readers should consult independent theological critiques rather than NAR's own materials for a balanced view. > - John Quincy Adams abolition quote — attributed in the transcript but no primary citation given; commonly cited in Christian apologetics contexts, worth independent verification. > ## 🗣️ Paraphrase > - Opening exchange: the host asks for practical tips on helping someone harmed by NAR or other false teaching; the counselor frames his answer around first understanding where the person currently stands. > - Middle section: the counselor lays out the listen-then-ask method, cites Proverbs 18:13, and warns against a condemning tone, emphasizing that trust has to be earned before hard questions land. > - Anecdote section: the extended personal story about the two Mormon missionaries illustrates the method in practice — friendship first, questions second, a years-later payoff that wasn't visible in the moment. > - Closing section: the counselor reframes success as fidelity (loving well, speaking truth) rather than outcome (changing someone's mind), closing on the John Quincy Adams line about duty versus results. > ## 📰 Newsletter > - Not applicable to this source — the content is pastoral/apologetics guidance about leaving a high-control religious movement (NAR), with no WordPress, plugin, hosting, or developer-community angle to frame as a WordPress-focused newsletter blurb. > ## ✅ Action Items > #### DevRel > Not applicable to this source — no developer relations, SDK, or community-management content. > #### OSPO > Not applicable to this source — no open-source program office, licensing, or software-supply-chain content. > #### Community > Not applicable to this source — no open-source project/maintainer/contributor content. > #### WordPress > Not applicable to this source — the video contains no WordPress Core, plugin, hosting, or ecosystem content across any of I'm wondering if if you could please share some advice with me and my listeners as a biblical counselor, some tips for talking with people, trying to help people who have been harmed by NAR or other false teaching. >> That's a good question and you know, part of it depends on where they are. If they've they're coming out of it, if they've come out of it, if they're still in it, and all of that, but it's really important to ask questions just to hear the whole story, the context, as much as you can, and you want to just hear where they are. And sometimes they're maybe more mature than we understand or they're less mature or they know more of the Bible that or they don't know the Bible or they have been taught in some good areas or whatever it is, but we we want to know as much as we can before jumping in and Proverbs 18:13 says, "He who answers before listening, that is his folly and shame." So, we want to ask good questions, get the best understanding. Often we want to jump through we just want to heat you know, get to the quick fix and same way we want to help them out and that's understandable, but come alongside them first and if we already have that relationship, flesh that out, where they are, and then ask specific questions. After you kind of get the general understanding, ask what exactly is it that you believe? And I love what you said as far as getting telling them exactly what NAR believes and whatever other false teaching it is and just say, "How how do you square the circle? Or what do you think of that? And what do you think of that how does apply?" And with that, we want to be careful to not come across as holier-than-thou or know-it-alls or condemning them or mocking them, "Oh, pah, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." Or whatever, people do that, but but to to to truly love them and that's sometimes um undersold as the importance uh uh to the importance of that that when people can they they see you generally care that they can trust you. That's a big part of it. And also it this too is a process that you're not going to flip that person out of this in one conversation. It's possible, but you want to have the long-term approaches that okay, I'm going to love this person. I'm going to ask them some tough questions and and you know, years ago, 30 some odd years ago, I was I was when I first moved here, I was living with a friend of mine and he's he's was a pastor and we lived at the church and some Mormon missionaries came by and we we just started to talk to them and we asked them questions. We just let them talk and share their points and okay, good and and at one point by the way, they stopped us and they said, "You guys are different." We're like, "What are you talking about?" They said, "We were used to people yelling at us." And we're like, "What do you mean?" They're like, "Yeah, we're riding our bikes and somebody stops and says, 'You're going to hell. You believe in a false prophet.'" And whether they you know, that might have been true, but it wasn't loving. And then people don't respond. They don't Oh, okay, I repent in dust and ashes now because you said that. We can emphasize just the caring part and lack the truth, too. So, we want to be careful. We want to speak the truth in love and we're I call it seeking the truth in love. We're we're asking the right question. We're seeking that. And with that you find out a lot about that person and you build that rapport. So, in talking to these guys, we were able to love them and we even I remember we took them to a driving range and they were just thought that was like cool and we had fun and just wanted to know them and love on them, but um and then we started asking the questions and we're like, "Oh, yeah, we don't know that." And oh, yeah, we don't know that. And unfortunately, which often happens, their bishop or whatever pulled them out because they went and asked their bishop and they just stopped coming by. And that is what it is, but like a couple years later, my friend got a postcard in the in the mail and it said from one of the guy it was one of the guys and he told us what happened that they got pulled out but he said, "Your questions we couldn't answer those questions it got us thinking and I eventually left our my trip and I became a my my mission and I became a Christian and all that kind of stuff. I'm not saying this formula works just do this formula but I'm just saying that's a good way to go about it where you you hear people, you hear their heart. Kind of the same thing in any kind of counseling you want to understand the person. You don't want to just jump in and say, "Okay, that's wrong and you do start doing this." Maybe if you only have 5 minutes or something like that but if you have a relationship you want to ask those questions and steer it into the specifics. Love them, give them grace. So yeah, I've been duped before too and but here's what helped me and here's some verses what what do you think about that? And go back and forth and again have that big picture in mind that this could be over months or years or you're planting seeds and you don't back to that thing you don't control the outcome. There's a a quote from John John Quincy Adams when he was fighting against slavery and it was decades away from being abolished and people said, "Why are you doing that? You know you know you're not going to see it abolished in your lifetime." and he he responded these six words "Duty is ours, the results are God's." Our job is the duty. We're How do I love this person? How am I faithful with the truth? I want to be equipped as much as possible, be able to share the truth and and say, "Okay, that's a good question. I want to go back and figure that out, work on that." I'll go but the outcome, how that person responds, the ultimate that's not up to me. Quite ironically and pertinently with our subject where if now I think no, it's all up to you. You just name it and that person gets saved or whatever. No, it doesn't work that way. Our job is to love. We control 100% how well we love if we're rely- on God. In other words, I can't say I didn't love you because you were mean to me, or because I was having a bad day, or what. No, I choose how I can love by depending on God and his truth, working on his truth. We can't blame something outside of us. But that outside of us part, how people respond and what they choose to do, and what God does, that's not up to us. So, keep that in mind. Don't be discouraged, but if you've loved somebody with the truth, that's a wonderful thing. Be blessed. Don't expect that you're going to change people's minds and solve all their problems, but you can love them day by day according to the truth. >> [music] [music] [music], How to Help Someone Escape False Teaching, YouTube, 01m02whz8kb60s1kfsx04xhds1.