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Bednar came and did a special stake conference in our stake a few months back. Most of his talk was a repeat of his priesthood conference talk about being called to serve, rather than being called to a specific mission. He must have been using us as a practice round for his conference talk. But, there was one thing he said that I really didn’t like, “The greatest strength of today’s youth is their capacity for strict obedience to the words of the Lord’s prophets.” He then spent about five minutes talking about the importance of obeying the prophet and the apostles. Wasn’t my favorite talk. After listening to that, I would probably get up and say something like, “I’ve been asked to speak about obedience, so I’ve decided to talk about the Atonement instead.” 
Seriously, though, I like DoubtingTom’s approach. Talking about obedience to God comes first, and it’s our responsibility to figure out what comes from God. Instead of following the prophets with blind obedience, we’ve been told from multiple sources, that we should pray about these things ourselves, so we’re following God, not people.
Great comments and suggestions so far. These are great: Quote:Bednar came and did a special stake conference in our stake a few months back. Most of his talk was a repeat of his Opriesthood conference talk about being called to serve, rather than being called to a specific mission. He must have been using us as a practice round for his conference talk. But, there was one thing he said that I really didn’t like, “The greatest strength of today’s youth is their capacity for strict obedience to the words of the Lord’s prophets.” He then spent about five minutes talking about the importance of obeying the prophet and the apostles. Wasn’t my favorite talk. After listening to that, I would probably get up and say something like, “I’ve been asked to speak about obedience, so I’ve decided to talk about the Atonement instead.”
Seriously, though, I like DoubtingTom’s approach. Talking about obedience to God comes first, and it’s our responsibility to figure out what comes from God. Instead of following the prophets with blind obedience, we’ve been told from multiple sources, that we should pray about these things ourselves, so we’re following God, not people.
Well, I believe Bednar’s heart is in the right place, but his talks and personality normally comes across as too strict and not very emphatic. I agree with you and DoubtingTom that obedience to God comes first and we’re responsible for finding out what comes from God, instead of following the prophets with blind obedience.
Quote:As I’ve thought about your topic, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is a really interesting topic. Especially in light of
the issues you’ve gone through since being on this site. FWIW: we are asked to be obedient to alot of different authorities
in our lifetime. Ultimately the final authority is God & how we choose to obey (or not).
Let us know how it goes. I wish I were in your ward to hear it
Mnyan Man, I agree the final is God and how we choose to obey Him or not. I wish you were in my ward too.I’m going to begin preparing it this weekend and I’ll let everyone know how it goes.
:thumbup: There is a way to be perfectly obedient, but we over-complicate it. 1) Love God, and love neighbor as self. On these two commandments hang ALL the law and the prophets.
2) Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13 that everything else means nothing without charity.
3) The Beatitudes are about how to be loving, and they lead to becoming perfect (complete, whole, fully developed).
I would quote those three passages and talk about how obeying other rules and commandments but not being a truly loving, charitable person means we actually are not being obedient to God. (Christ also condemned the Pharisees for paying tithing but omitting the WEIGHTIER MATTERS of the law.)
If I make a mistake, I want to make it by loving too much and being too charitable and too forgiving and too humble and too meek and too merciful, rather than by obeying every rule no matter what that does to others. If my actions hurt someone else unnecessarily, I am not obeying God by keeping the only commandment that matters – even if my actions technically are obeying a rule we see as a commandment.
Thank you, everyone, for the fantastic comments. Sad news. 
The discussion wasn’t in vain; I crafted a talk I could give that has double meaning on obedience — a topic that I don’t like very much at all, and normally would refuse to talk about it. Now I can do it. SilentDawning wrote:
The discussion wasn’t in vain; I crafted a talk I could give that has double meaning on obedience — a topic that I don’t like very much at all, and normally would refuse to talk about it. Now I can do it.
Well done, SD. And the topic could certainly be useful to others who may get assigned the topic in the future.
As a side note, SD, (or anyone else) have you ever turned down the “opportunity” to speak based on the subject/topic? I did once but had another viable excuse. I have also worked around the topic before, perhaps briefly mentioning it but giving a talk about what I want to talk about.
DarkJedi wrote:
SilentDawning wrote:
The discussion wasn’t in vain; I crafted a talk I could give that has double meaning on obedience — a topic that I don’t like very much at all, and normally would refuse to talk about it. Now I can do it.
Well done, SD. And the topic could certainly be useful to others who may get assigned the topic in the future.
As a side note, SD, (or anyone else) have you ever turned down the “opportunity” to speak based on the subject/topic? I did once but had another viable excuse. I have also worked around the topic before, perhaps briefly mentioning it but giving a talk about what I want to talk about.
I have never turned down a talk based on topic. I may have asked to alter the topic, but don’t remember. I would actually like to speak in church about happiness. Been studying it a lot lately…and with the obedience thread here, it helped me see that when giving a talk, we are quite a bit in the same position of Christ who spoke in parables. He had to be careful about the Romans coming down on him for lack of political correctness, and also spoke in parables so people were ready could hear, and those who were not ready would have something to think about.
I love double speak….being able to speak to both groups at the same time — the orthodox, and the unorthodox, with both knowing what you mean, but in a way that is personal to them.
That is what true Art is like (music, visual art) — it contains such interwoven truth that five people can look at its ambiguity and come away with something harmonious and meaningful for their diverse lives and perspectives.
I like the artsy talks too but I’ve only been able to do it when I took it upon myself to change the subject of the talk I was assigned. I don’t think the BPric cares if people do that, I think they’re more concerned with finding a person to fill the talk assignment than they are with what topic someone covers… so long as the replacement topic is within reason. When I was WML I was assigned to give a talk about using the BoM as a conversion tool. I thought about it and thought about it and finally came up with something that I felt was authentic… but that week two new missionaries transferred to our ward so I suggested to leadership that they both give shorter talks in my stead so the ward could be introduced to the new missionaries. It worked, I dodged a talk I was feeling very meh about.
I was also giving talks once every 8 weeks or so, it was a small ward, I’m sure that factored into them taking my suggestion.
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