Update…
After looking over my top 10 question, I came to find that some of them may be taken the wrong way. Because of this I wanted to update them so that members of the LDS church would not get upset with me or offended. I only ask these questions because over the year the LDS church has asked non-LDS to ask these kinds of questions to learn more about the Mormon faith. I will still keep the old questions up so that people can see the changes and answer them as well.
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NEW
1. Do you believe the Bible has been corrupted?
2. If the Bible is corrupted, then why does the LDS church still use the King James and not the Joseph Smith Translation?
3. Do you believe you can become a god?
4. As a paid clergy, do you believe I am paid by the Devil?
5. Looking at the chart below and if you agree with it, do we worship the same God?
| One God of the Bible | Plural Gods of Mormonism |
| God The Father | |
| Infinite | Finite |
| Always God | Became God |
| Absolutely Holy | Achieved Holiness |
| All Knowing | Achieved Knowledge |
| Eternal Perfect | Achieved Perfection |
| All Powerful | Attained Power |
| Only Creator | One of Many Designers |
| The Son (Jesus) | |
| Eternal | Procreated by God and Wife |
| Creator | Our Brother |
| The Holy Spirit | |
| Eternal | Procreated By God and Wife |
| Creator | A Spirit Brother |
| Human | |
| Created on Earth | Same Species as God |
| Spiritually Adopted Children | Born to God and Wife |
6. Moroni 8:18 says; for I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; he is unchangeable from eternity to all eternity.
My question is: If God is from eternity to all eternity, how can he have once been a man born by another God and wife on another planet?
7. Have you read the whole Bible or at least the New Testament? (Not the Joseph Smith Translation)
8. In the Bible when it talks about “He being pierced because of our transgression” and “we are healed by His wounds”, Evangelical Christians see this as refereeing to Jesus on the cross (Isaiah 53:5). Why Does the LDS church believe that Jesus paid for our sin in the Garden of Gethsemane?
9. If Jesus was the only begotten son of God, then how are we spirit sons and daughters of God and his wives as well?
10. If you came to find out that the Mormon faith was not true, would you leave it?
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OLD
1. How can the LDS church clam that the Bible has been corrupted when there is proof that shows it is not? Things like the Dead Sea Scrolls and the 24,000 partial and complete manuscript copies of the New Testament.
2. If the Bible is corrupted, then why does the LDS church still use the King James and not the Joseph Smith Translation?
3. Do you believe you can become a god?
4. As a paid clergy, do you believe I am paid by the Devil?
5. If now the LDS members and bishops and other high up officials claim that we are all Christians, then how can the LDS church be the one and only true church and the rest and their creeds be an abomination?
6. Moroni 8:18 says; for I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; he is unchangeable from eternity to all eternity.
My question is: If God is from eternity to all eternity, how can he have once been a man born by another God and wife on another planet?
7. Have you read the whole Bible or at least the New Testament? (Not the Joseph Smith Translation)
8. Why in the Bible when it talks about “He being pierced because of our transgression” and “we are healed by His wounds”, refereeing to Jesus on the cross (Isaiah 53:5). Why Does the LDS church claim that Jesus paid for our sin in the Garden of Gethsemane?
9. If Jesus was the only begotten son of God, then how are we spirit sons and daughters of God and his wives as well?
10. If you came to find out that the Mormon faith was not true, would you leave it?
If you plan on giving an answer to any of these question, please make then more then 1 to 2 word answer on all but number 7.
Pastor Wil, each of these questions deserves its own full article. I doubt that the comprehensive education you seek will be adequately facilitated by the format provided on blogger. (Unless your aim isn't so much genuine learning as it is sowing seeds of doubt about Mormonism, but how could I know the true intent of a man's heart?)
ReplyDeleteI'll just take number 5 for the sake of brevity:
5. If now the LDS members and bishops and other high up officials claim that we are all Christians, then how can the LDS church be the one and only true church and the rest and their creeds be an abomination?
This question assumes that "Christianity" is synonymous with "the one true church." This may be a valid assumption in the evangelical worldview, but the LDS perspective simply classifies as "Christian" anyone who puts faith in Jesus Christ for salvation. This definition is largely shared with the rest of the world (outside of Evangelicalism).
The descriptor "Christian" refers to a central tenet of many faiths (i.e. Jesus saves), but says nothing about their respective doctrinal variations and disagreements (e.g. requirements for salvation, the nature of God, importance of ritual or tradition, free will vs. predestination, canon, etc).
The phrase "one true church" refers to Doctrine and Covenants 1:30 which indicates that there exists one institution with which the Lord is "well-pleased." That is, only one Church with its attendant authority and true doctrines is owned and operated by God.
Working with these definitions, it is possible to have a Christian church (i.e. one that appeals to Jesus for salvation), which does not have all the rest of its doctrines correct. These false doctrines (for example, the doctrine of transubstantiation) are abominations because they are mixed in with the true teachings of the Savior. This admixture is a problem of corruption, similar in nature to the problems predicted by Jesus in his parable of the wheat and the tares (see Matthew 13).
This says nothing about whether a person's faith in Christ is effectual or not if they are part of a Christian church with corrupt doctrines. Mormons believe that salvation of at least Terrestrial glory (i.e. "the glory of the moon", see 1 Corinthians 15:40-41 and D&C 76) is available to Christians who are not baptized by proper authority. In addition, we hold that all people will have a fair chance to accept such a baptism in this life or afterwards.
In summary, I hope that now you can see:
} that a Christian church which holds false beliefs may exist (perhaps you can think of an example)
} that "the one true church" must have unity of doctrine and explicit divine authorization
} that faith in Jesus Christ may lead a person to salvation regardless of their religion
} that your other 9 questions have reasonable answers like this one.
The intent of my heart is this, for the past year the LDS church has said time and time again if we have questions ask. I thought of my top ten questions I would ask and I asked. thats all.
ReplyDeleteAbout my question i have, I have been in Utah for a year and have been talking to mormon and all they want me to say is that we are one big happy family. but the LDS history has shown something very different.
“Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity” (Brigham Young, July 8, 1863, Journal of Discourses, 10:230).
“…for I contend that the Latter-day Saints are the only good and true Christians, that I know anything about in the world. There are a good many people who profess to be Christians, but they are not founded on the foundation that Jesus Christ himself has laid” (Joseph F. Smith, November 2, 1891, [Stake conference message], Collected Discourses, 2:305. Ellipses mine).
Brigham Young and Joseph F. Smith claim that the only true christians are in the LDS church but again I have had a lot of Members, bishops and others just say we are one happy family.
How can this be because from what I have seen, the evangelical christians have not changed in the 180years that the LDS have been around. I mean we could go into every type of church but as I ask this, I ask from the church I preach at. I still look to the bible and I preach out of the bible. I have LDS history telling me that I am not a christian but members and others trying to get me to say and telling me we are just one happy family.
In these quotes, these men are explicitly applying an alternative hypothetical definition of "Christianity" for rhetorical effect. They're essentially saying, "If the term 'Christian' included the requirement for doctrinal purity and divine authority, then Mormonism would be the only church with that label."
ReplyDeleteTheir point here is that there is but "one true church" and it is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I don't believe either of them would claim that a Baptist's faith in Christ is hollow or that Episcopalians worship a different Jesus. It's simply the claim of the one true church wrapped up in other language. (Since you are an avid reader of the Journal of Discourses, you'll have noted the myriad instances where Brigham also uses "Christian" to describe non-Mormon believers in Christ).
We believe that the Holy Spirit will confirm the truth of Jesus' suffering and death to anyone in any church. We believe that this first act of faith in Him will lead people down the path to life and salvation. We are glad for the family of Christian churches that lead people to accept Him. In this sense, we consider it a blessing to be part of the greater family of Christianity with you.
Only 9 more to go
ReplyDelete7. Have you read the whole Bible or at least the New Testament? (Not the Joseph Smith Translation)
ReplyDeleteI have read both the Old Testament and the New Testament, yes.
1."We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly." I have never been taught that the Bible has been corrupted. But a question for you...will you back up your statement please and show us that the Dead Sea Scrolls or the 24,000 partial and complete manuscripts match word-for-word or even completely in context with the version of the Bible you are holding in your hand in your profile picture? If you can, I will believe your statement. If you can't, then you must have the integrity of a man of God to admit on your blog that the Bible in translation has been incorrectly translated. I know it will be difficult to agree with the Mormons, but apparently from your statement you have read all of the translated Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as the 24,000 different partial and complete manuscripts of the Bible. I applaud you.
ReplyDelete2. The Church does use the Joseph Smith Translation for clarification on many passages of scripture, especially in The Gospels, but as far as a translation of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, despite urging from others such as Brigham Young, this was never done. The reason? He was murdered.
Greg, For me to put as much proof as I could on this comment would take the time I just don't have right now. I have written about this in another one of my blogs. But I would like to point out for the Dead Sea Scrolls; the library that has them just posted them online for the world to see. (BYU helped with this)
ReplyDelete(http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/)
having these online also shows problems with the Joseph Smith version. like in chapter 29 of Isaiah that only has 24 verse find in all bible and in the great Isaiah scroll, but in the JST there is 15 verses only find in that book.
Here is a article that may answer some more of your questions:
http://home.earthlink.net/~ronrhodes/Manuscript.html
(sorry I could not post the full thing here but it was a little long)
Thank you for asking me to back up what I say about the Bible, I believe that’s only fair. So could you show me some proof for the book of Mormon? Any early manuscripts before 1820? any proof of wars, coins, or cities?
See the thing we find strange is that God has shown us clearly proof for the Bible. Through things like cities, coins, wars sites that have been found, and manuscripts that back up the bible.
It's all in the proof, right?
After read my questions again i have seen how some of them may come off wrong. I have updated them so that we can learn more about each others faith. Please if i offended anyone I am sorry. please look over the new question.
ReplyDeletehttp://bookofjeffrey.blogspot.com/2011/11/pastor-wills-top-ten-questions.html
ReplyDelete1. Do you believe the Bible has been corrupted?Answering these questions requires that we understand what the Bible is. It's not a book that arrived in complete form at one point in history. Instead, the Bible was written over a period of some 1,500 years by a number of authors. Although it is viewed as one book, it's actually a collection of many books.It is called God's Word even though God did not physically write it. Instead, God worked through everyday people, inspired by Him, to record what Christians accept as the Bible. The Old Testament is primarily a record of God's dealings with His chosen people – the Hebrews or Jews. The New Testament continues the record with first century accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus and the struggles faced by new Christians in a hostile culture.Truth be known, millions who believe that the King James, for example, is a perfect inerrant translation have not a clue as to what is involved in translating from one language to another. It may be possible to translate a few specific words almost perfectly from one language to another. But once we get into whole sentences, paragraphs, pages, and whole books (written by different people over a period of many centuries, in ancient languages), the task is almost daunting. The Eighth Article of Faith states, "We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it translated correctly."
ReplyDeleteThank you Jeff
ReplyDelete2. If the Bible is corrupted, then why does the LDS church still use the King James and not the Joseph Smith Translation? Perhaps the biggest reason is that it was never really finished, per se, prior to Joseph’s death. The normal path for it to be accepted as scripture by the LDS Church would have been for it to be finished, approved officially by the leadership and membership of the Church, and then and only then would it have become scripture for the LDS Church. But Joseph was killed while still working on it. After that, his wife Emma left the LDS Church and retained possession of the original manuscripts, so the LDS Church didn’t even have the JST. After Brigham Young took the members west to present-day Utah, there was a lot of mistrust between the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, founded with Joseph and Emma’s son as its leader, and the LDS Church. Brigham Young and others suspected the RLDS Church had tampered with the original manuscripts. It wasn’t until the early 1970s that the RLDS and LDS Churches began to cooperate on certain matters and the JST started being used as a reference in the LDS Church. At this point there was well over 100 years of the King James Version being the standard Bible for Mormons, and so in 1980 a revised version of the KJV Bible was printed with footnotes and references to the JST, with some parts of the JST having been canonized.
ReplyDelete3. Do you believe you can become a god? Christ said that he is preparing a place for us in his Father’s mansion (John 14:2-3), but what will we do when we get there? I highly doubt that we will sit on clouds strumming our harps. Certainly, when we exit this life we won’t know as much as God does, nor will we have all of his other perfection. If we are to become perfect like he is, we have a lot to learn. The continuation of this growth and progression once we graduate from earth leads to the complete, fully developed, and perfect state that Christ was talking about. Psalm 82:6 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. John 10:33-34 (33) The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. (34) Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? Revelation 3:21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.
ReplyDelete4. As a paid clergy, do you believe I am paid by the Devil? No, you are paid by you parishioners with their tithes and offerings. It is my belief that the money should go to the needy and the up keep of the Lord's House. However, I don't know your circumstances, maybe you are needy, hopefully not like some Pastor who take money for their financial gain, leaving the needy in your parish starving.
ReplyDelete5. Looking at the chart below and if you agree with it, do we worship the same God? Yes, I believe we worship the same God. I believe both sides of the chart. We can not know everything God knows but we can learn, just as your child does not know everything you know, but you can teach him. I believe God did not give us all the answers in the scriptures, we have lessons yet to learn that are not found just in the scriptures alone. Genesis 1:27 God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
ReplyDelete6. Moroni 8:18 says; for I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; he is unchangeable from eternity to all eternity. I believe God is all powerful and we are still in the "Dark Ages" as to how the miracles of the Bible occurred. It is like looking a magic trick and wondering how it was done. His knowledge is endless. I wonder how obtained such knowledge. Did it just happen like the big bang theory or did he learn it line upon line?
ReplyDeleteFirst, in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount he says: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). The Greek word used here means complete, finished, fully developed, rather than simply error-free or sin-free. Therefore, I want to pose a question to you: what does it mean to be perfect as Heavenly Father is perfect? You might respond that perfection means keeping all of the commandments, or in other words, to make no mistakes in life. While God does keep all of the commandments and is perfect in that sense, he is much more than that. God is completely perfect, he is omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly just, perfectly merciful, perfectly honest, perfectly wise, he doesn’t change, and he is perfect in his love for all of us. If we are going to become perfect as Christ commanded us to be, then not only do we need to keep the commandments, but we need to acquire all of the attributes above.
This another bag of worms that is not in the scriptures just my personal believe, I believe that we taught before we came to be in our bodies and we are sent down at a time when it would be most beneficial for society. He is the creator, the master with the plan that we do not know, we are just making a guess. We will have to wait until we meet God to have him answer this question.
7. Have you read the whole Bible or at least the New Testament? (Not the Joseph Smith Translation. I’ve read it. I read it all the time. The entire LDS Church is studying the New Testament right now, every Sunday. The LDS Church has a rotating curriculum that repeats every four years. It starts with the Old Testament, then goes to the New Testament, then Book of Mormon, then Doctrine and Covenants, and then starts over. Our Seminary (a 5 day a week study program all LDS teens are expected to participate in) and Institute (a similar program for college students) programs follow the same schedule. In other words there is twice as much time officially dedicated by the LDS Church to studying the Bible compared to the Book of Mormon. So Mormons do study the King James Version of the Bible quite a bit. We revere it as scripture and try to live its teachings, we just admit that it was tampered with a bit over the years.
ReplyDelete8. Why in the Bible when it talks about “He being pierced because of our transgression” and “we are healed by His wounds”, refereeing to Jesus on the cross (Isaiah 53:5). Why Does the LDS church claim that Jesus paid for our sin in the Garden of Gethsemane? The following scriptures refer to the agony Jesus endured in Gethsemane: Matthew 26:36–46; Mark 14:32–42; Luke 22:39–46 The Savior atoned for our sins by suffering in Gethsemane and by giving his life on the cross. It is impossible for us to fully understand how he suffered for all of our sins.In the Garden of Gethsemane, the weight of our sins caused him to feel such agony and heartbreak that he bled from every pore (see D&C 19:18–19). Later, as he hung upon the cross, Jesus suffered painful death by one of the most cruel methods known to man. How Jesus loves us, to suffer such spiritual and physical agony for our sake! How great the love of Heavenly Father that he would send his Only Begotten Son to suffer and die for the rest of his children. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). On the third day after his crucifixion, Christ took up his body again and became the first person to be resurrected. When his friends went to seek him, the angels who guarded his tomb told them, “He is not here: for he is risen, as he said” (Matthew 28:6). His spirit had reentered his body, never to be separated again.
ReplyDelete9. If Jesus was the only begotten son of God, then how are we spirit sons and daughters of God and his wives as well? Psalms 89:27 Also I will make him my fist born, higher than the kings of the earth.
ReplyDeleteJesus is the first and only son born in the flesh.
Ecclesiastes 12:7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
I believe God created my spirit and it will return to him when I die.
I do not believe I am God's wife and I have never been taught that. I have been taught that I am a wife to my current spouse and if I live a good life I will be his wife for all eternity. I hope this answers some of your question as to what I believe others will have their own believes or a better understanding than I do.
10. If you came to find out that the Mormon faith was not true, would you leave it? I really don't know it would be tough decision. Would you leave your religion if you found out that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was true?
ReplyDelete