Engaging Conversation at Mormon Temple

The Shema, the Greatest Commandment, and Jesus’ Authority

I don't think that that is the standard that we would have used if my wife's right here.

She's right behind you right now.

There you are.

If I was to say, hey, I'm going to sleep with this woman over here, and I prayed to Heavenly Father, and I had a personal revelation, and he said it's okay. I don't think you would go, oh, okay. I think you'd say, we have the scriptures.

We know what the scriptures say. Heavenly Father has been very clear about this is what is right. And so we don't have to pray about something that has been so clearly revealed to us. And so likewise, when he says that this is the greatest commandment, he gives us the Shema.

He says, Shema Yisrael, Yahweh Eloheinu, Yahweh Ehud. There's only one God. There's only one Lord, right? This is the important thing. And in the New Testament, when the lawyer was questioning him, or Jesus was questioning the lawyer, I can't remember.

What is the greatest commandment? The greatest commandment is the Shema. You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, all of your strength. If God saw that it was this important, that Jesus himself said it was this important, it's important, and it's been revealed clearly.

But then we look at something like Moroni 10, right? Moroni 10 says that first you must obey the greatest commandment, love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And then is his grace sufficient for you?

And we'd say, we don't want that for you. Because all of us, if we're honest, we'd say, I can't love God perfectly. I try, but I can't do it and I fail. And so if Jesus says this is the greatest commandment, and we must first love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and then his grace is sufficient, we're lost in our sins.

Because if his grace only comes after we do what it says in Moroni 10, we don't have a savior. We have to work to it. And I know you would say, we don't work to it. Jesus saves us all. But then you'd have to contend with your scriptures on what Moroni 10 says.

It does say what it says. And like I said, it's a beautiful thing about modern revelation is our prophets have told us beyond that. They've said, listen, if you misunderstood what it said in the scriptures, Christ's grace is sufficient.

Sufficient for exaltation.

It's sufficient to return to the heaven that Christianity believes in and teaches.

I don't know.

Grace, Exaltation, and the New Covenant

I have a genuine question. This is a real question. I'm not playing gotcha. When you say sufficient, my understanding, and I don't want to misrepresent you, is that your church teaches that you're saved by grace.

Yeah.

Right?

Christ.

And that gives an atonement to the atonement for people. And we all are raised bodily. And then at that point, this is where I'm not sure, but correct me if I'm wrong, then at that point, have we done our ordinances?

Have we obeyed our commandments? And if so, if we've obeyed the eternal laws and principles in the eternal gospel, then we can be exalted to the highest possible step. So we're saying we don't believe the same thing, because what we would say the Bible teaches is that salvation is so much more than just a bodily resurrection.

Salvation is true unity with Christ. Salvation is forgiveness of your sins. And Jeremiah 31 says very clearly that here is what the new covenant is. I will remember your sins no more. If every single sin we've ever committed is remembered no more, that is the essence of the new covenant, then there's no amount of works we can add to that.

What could you possibly add to the perfection of Christ to be exalted? He says your sins are gone. It's finished.

If your only goal is just to get to heaven, then no, nothing. What else do you need to add to it? But if maybe you had faith that I could be more than just a chair floating around in the forevers.

Which we don't believe either.

I know.

I gathered that. Which is fine. I think that's fine. I think you guys will be happy wherever you end up. And I hope I'll be happy wherever I end up.

Where will you end up? Hopefully heaven. Do you know that you'll be exalted?

I know that I'll achieve heaven. He's the grace of Christ. He's sufficient for all of us.

Do you know where you'll be? Like, do you know? And I'm not trying to be rude or push, but like, do you know?

I couldn't make any assumptions.

That you'd be as close to Heavenly Father as possible. Do you know that?

I'm hoping for it.

Based on what?

Well, based on the revelation that's been given beyond the scriptures. It says if you, you know, live your life according to the commandments, you follow Christ, follow his teachings. As we teach in our religion, make the key covenants, then you can achieve the highest degree of exaltation.

I believe it's 1. Nephi 3 says that Heavenly Father, God has not given unto the children of man any commandment that they're not able to fulfill. And that's a paraphrase, but I think it's pretty accurate.

Lehi and the breastplates, et cetera. So if Heavenly Father has not given unto the children of man any commandment that they can't bring about. And he has said the greatest commandment is love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

As an honest man, you seem like a man of complete integrity. Hopefully, maybe. Can you honestly say that you're loving God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength?

Listen, I'm not perfect.

Right.

Nobody's perfect.

That's the point. We would agree with you.

Human Inability, Good Works, and Peace with God

You know, I wake up every morning, I say my prayers and say, let me be a little bit better today than I was yesterday.

Yeah.

Help me work on these little details. But I also acknowledge that I am a human being. I'm going to get angry. I'm going to get caught up.

Right.

And at the end of the day, I say my prayers, I ask for forgiveness. I say, hopefully, I don't get caught on the same stumbles that I did yesterday, tomorrow that I did today.

And I respect that. I think that's something we all do. And we want to be more like God. But the question that I'm trying to push at, and I'm sure you hear it, is that, OK, we want to be better.

Great.

But according to the Bible, I can make sense of that and go, Jesus's grace covers that perfectly. But if I'm going to read the Book of Mormon and believe the Book of Mormon, I don't know how. If I must first obey the greatest commandment, and then His grace is sufficient.

It's like in Nephi, which I'm sure you guys have talked about. And then His grace is sufficient after what we do, after obeying the greatest commandment. If only then is His grace sufficient. I could say from the Bible, we're not perfect.

We want to be better. We want to be like God. We are so thankful that Christ has died and we can't add anything to His perfection. I could say amen to that. And I could say that's what we want for you, is to have that peace.

I genuinely don't understand how you have peace if there is...

It's the grace of Christ, my man.

But as you've admitted yourself...

The grace of Christ has swooped me up in it.

But as you've admitted yourself, you're not perfect. As Moroni 10 says, you have to be. For His grace to be sufficient for you, you have to be perfect, is what Moroni 10 says.

I'm not a scriptorian.

Sure.

And...

I don't even know that word, so you're smarter than me.

If I wanted to, I'm sure we could go online and find whatever the atheists say to dunk on any Christian, and we could pull it up, and we could all get stumped.

If I'm misrepresenting you, then please tell me, because I don't ever want to do that.

What I'm saying is, the Book of Mormon, to me, teaches me about my Heavenly Father, teaches me about these different people, just similar to the Bible, how the Egyptians, the Israelites, all these different people were given commandments.

And while sometimes we can apply those scriptures directly in our lives, say, oh, to me, that I can translate that to mean this to me now. I don't think any of it's meant to be necessarily translated.

There's many ways to do it. I don't know if there's many that are meant to be translated, like, literally, like, oh, it says we have to be perfect, be perfect.

Crap.

Isn't that a standard, though? We would agree that's a standard.

We have to be perfect.

Well, I think if you're not shooting at a target, you're not going to hit a target.

What is the target?

You could say, you tell me, what's your target? I told you what my target is.

Yeah, I didn't hear yours, but mine is to be like, be like God.

To achieve the highest degree of exaltation I can.

Mine is to glorify God, yeah.

Yeah.

And yours is to achieve the highest level of exaltation.

Well, through my relationship with Heavenly Father.

Yeah, I don't deny that you believe. We need grace. I'm not accusing you of that. I'm just saying that, and you've heard me, and we can go round and round, and I want to respect your time, man, but...

Yeah, and thank you, Josh, for talking with us, because we appreciate it. A lot of guys have just, again, shrugged us off. And so the fact that you've been here spending time with us, we appreciate it.

Our true hope for you, Josh, and you've heard this a million times from us, is that when you lay down at night, and you're there before Heavenly Father, you're there before God, that you can know that you know that everything that is needed to be with Heavenly Father, as close as you can ever be, has been finished on behalf of those that trust in Christ.

That there's nothing we could possibly add to the perfect work of Jesus. Yes, we must work. We're not the Christians out here saying, don't do good works. Ephesians 2 is very...

No, don't misrepresent me now.

Ephesians 2 says you're saved by grace through faith.

Yeah, no, I agree with that.

But then it says after that, prepare to work. Walk in the good works that have been laid before.

I've known Daniel for a long time.

Dale tried this early. Dunk on me. He was like, well, do you think by what really works? I'm like, I think it's grace.

What, what, no, wait, no, finish that sentence. Wait, finish that sentence. I said, how can someone be justified in front of God? We would not say good works are involved in justification. But of course, any true Christian is going to have good works.

You know what you're trying to do, Daniel?

No, no, no. I'm telling you, you're misrepresenting me right now.

He's good, but he's one of the most honest men I know.

My brother in Christ.

No, no, we're not brothers.

We're not brothers. What?

We want to be, though.

I believe we're all brothers. I believe Christ created all of us. We're not.

And we're all brothers and sisters.

Well, see, I think we could get caught a little bit in the details there.

What would you say when Jesus...

If you read the Bible, that Satan existed in the war in heaven, and Satan led an army in rebellion against God?

You're talking about the book of Revelation. That's a whole another topic we get into. That is not correct.

You said the Bible is infallible.

No, no, no, no. I'm saying what you're saying about it.

What we all say is that there's interpretations.

The question is, what's the standard by which we judge those interpretations?

You're saying the Bible teaches that Satan existed eternally in heaven. We would deny that. The Bible does not teach that.

I don't know if I'd say that he existed eternally in heaven.

Where did he come from?

Genuine question. Where did Satan come from? Was he an offspring of Elohim and a heavenly mother?

That's my understanding. I could be wrong, though. That's a less important detail, really. Again, we get to the pearly gates, and it's like, question, Satan came from where? And you're like, uh...

Sorry, wrong answer.

But also, did you believe in the wrong Christ?

Yes, listen.

You believed in a different man who died on the cross for all your sins? Well, now listen. I believed in this Christ that is taught about the Bible. I'm like, wait a sec, wait a sec.

Would that matter?

Did you also believe in the Book of Mormon? He's like, yeah, I believe that, too. Well, then...

Joshua, I hope you hear yourself right now.

I do hear myself. So, it's burrowing through my ear bones.

Real question.

My ear.

Does that matter, too? I can see what you're saying. We can laugh a little bit about Satan. I do think the question under that is the important question. And it's actually the one you went to right after.

That is, who is Jesus? Does it matter who we think Jesus is? Why couldn't I...

Where's that line?

Why couldn't I say, as I did earlier, Jesus is the light post, Jesus is the motorcycle, and I bow down and I worship him?

Well, we know it. I mean, it's a ludicrous proposal. Christ is only thought about in scripture. So, we know there's no... I've never seen a scripture where it says, Christ, the lamppost.

Do you see one that says he's not?

Uh...

Well, Josh, I hope you recognize... Josh, where in the Bible did you see that God wasn't a mouse?

Josh, but Josh... That's my point. That's my point.

I hope you recognize what you're doing. You're saying we go to scripture, and that's how we know who Jesus is. And we're saying that if we go to scripture, Jesus had to have created Satan, and you're saying no.

That's what you're saying. You're saying he didn't create Satan.

Yeah.

Listen, I could be wrong. And you think... But here's the...

We don't want that for you, though, man.

Here's the gotcha for you. Again, we're back in heaven. Back in heaven, okay? Okay, we get there. And we're asked these same questions. And whoever's judging us, we're going to say God. He's going to say, Hey, question, Daniel.

Satan was created by whom? And you say...

I say Jesus.

And he says, wrong answer. And he says, you're to hell with you. Do you think that... Does that fit what your belief of God is?

No, but...

Okay, so then what would... What would the difference between...

Let me explain. Let me explain.

Maybe we understand Jesus Christ differently. And you think God has so little tolerance for us that he says...

No, no.

Have you read 2 John? I'm sure you have,.

But I haven't read it in a while.

I believe it's 2 John. I'll be quiet in a sec. Is that this was one of the two points that the apostles really keyed in on. There was so much that they were open-handed about. They would give teachings and they'd say, Hey, this is a better way.

But when it came to who is Jesus and who is the gospel,.

They didn't move.

They said, You are anathema if you have a different Christ. You are anathema if you have a different gospel. And when I believe it's 2 John, I just want to... So forgive me if I'm wrong. We're talking about this issue of did Jesus actually come bodily or was he just a spirit?

Okay.

And John, the apostle John, the one who I believe your church says is still around and didn't die,.

Right?

This apostle John...

Yeah, that's a fuzzy doctrine.

That's a side point.

I was jabbing at you a little.

Gotcha.

But this John said...

A lot of gotchas.

I know them all.

Said anathema. If you think Jesus did not come in the body, you're anathema. You're accursed.

You're out of it. You've lost it.

You don't have a savior. And so this was one of those issues that the apostles said it matters. This is an issue of salvation. And so no, it doesn't matter who Jesus is. Now, could we talk about saints?

Scripture, Interpretation, and the Bible’s Clarity

So if we talk about... This is important to remember. The contextuality of the Bible. These people, without being Bible historians or Jewish philosophers or historians that knew what was going on in the days.

To me, this is what my religion teaching me is this. Understand the Bible for what it is, right? It's the disciples, the prophets of Christ teaching these people.

Okay? Yeah.

So perhaps there was a movement among the people at that time where they said,.

You know what?

Our prophet needs to tell these people that maybe there's a movement that says, you know what? Maybe it's been 30 years and I've heard of the story of Christ, but I don't think it was actually real. And that's not important because it was only 30 years ago, right?

But 30 years and I were like, you know, were you alive for the Twin Towers? Did you see it?

I was in preschool. I remember hearing... I know, I remember hearing through like the megaphone, they talked and said, hey, like everybody, we're going to take a like 10 minutes of silence. Something just happened in New York.

I remember that.

So I watched it. I watched it live on TV. It was insane.

Yeah, right.

But there are people in our day now that deny the Holocaust happened for lack of evidence. But it's important that we teach people the Holocaust was real. Same with the Armenian genocide, right? Similarly, that never happened.

But they have documents. So the point is that perhaps, and I don't know. I don't know John personally. I wasn't there. But, and I'm also not a historian. Maybe someone who is a historian at that time could tell us a scriptural story and could say,.

You know what?

At that time, it was really important that John told those people those things. So to me, what my religion teaches me is to take that story, take the story of John, teach those people and say, how does that relate to me in my life?

What is the prophet teaching me that maybe I'm not listening to, that I need to listen to? Maybe it's something that's important. Maybe it's something that I might not necessarily have faith in immediately, but like, maybe I should pray about it.

So maybe for the time, when you're talking about the story of John teaching those people that Christ was really their person, maybe that's the story that we're supposed to take like they took, like at them, there's a huge movement of Christians that said, yeah, Christ isn't real.

We're just Christians in the sense that that's what we do, right?

Would you have said?

But do you understand my point though? Is that there's different ways to translate the Bible, that being one, whereas we'd say the story.

We mean interpreting it.

Interpreting it, yeah. We take that interpretation, the literal interpretation, and that's certainly one way to do it. But that's not necessarily useful for me. I live in 2002, right?

Yeah, I guess our question to you would be, is it important for you to agree with Jesus in the Bible? Or is there areas where you can say, ah, Jesus said this, but I can disagree with him?

Generally, I don't know if I've seen anything in the Bible that Jesus said that I disagree with.

No, no, no, I'm saying in general, like, could you say as a man that it's important for you that you agree with Jesus?

Yeah.

OK, so if you disagree with him, it'd be a problem.

You're trying to set me up for another gotcha.

Well, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's because the way, the way you're approaching, the way you're approaching the scriptures is this idea that the scriptures, maybe in John's time, they were important for his people, for his audience, and maybe for us, they're not.

And I would say,.

I think they're equally important. But again, some of the stories,.

Like, right?

So if we're to take the Bible literally, we say, man, the story of Noah, if I don't follow the Christ's commandments, I'm going to get flooded to death. Because that's again,.

I couldn't know that.

If we took the story of Noah, because God promises with the covenant.

But my point is, though, that if we take just single verses and take them literally, that's one way to interpret them. Is that the way?

I don't know.

So no, we agree. It's important that we don't.

The question I have is,.

Are all interpretations equal?

Does the interpretation bring you closer to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ? Does it make you feel his light and love?

When Jesus says, love your neighbor as yourself, right?

Yeah.

That means, obviously,.

That means that I can rape my neighbor, right? That's a valid interpretation, right?

Sure.

That is.

I don't know.

Would you say that's a valid interpretation when he says, love your neighbor?

I'd say that's the interpretation you're proposing.

Is that an OK one? Equally true as the one you would propose?

Does, that's another weird gotcha.

Because the point is that I think that there are so many things that are so clear.

This isn't a matter of interpretation.

This is, the Bible says what it says. Now, are there parts that are more difficult? Sure there are. But who is God and what is the gospel?

Those two are unclear. But big picture though, my man. If friggin' Richard Dawkins showed up, he'd dunk on all of us. We'd all feel like idiots.

No, he wouldn't.

No, he would not. He would not.

Go ahead and Google some of his weird atheist rants online.

Yeah, he would not.

I would argue atheism is absurd and has no foundation whatsoever. I think you'd agree with that, right? That there's no foundation to atheism?

Yeah, I'm pretty with you on that.

But anyways, so.

My point is though, getting caught in the semantics of the Bible.

Well, not the semantics.

Seems beside the point.

I think it was Matthew 22. Is that where you're going?

Jesus held people in his day accountable for the scriptures. And was Jesus wrong for doing that? How come the people that he held accountable didn't say, Jesus, you're playing semantics. Jesus, what about interpretation?

They asked Jesus a question about the resurrection. They said if a woman marries a man and then he dies, she marries his brother and he dies, she marries his brother. Who gets her in heaven? And Jesus says, have you not read what God spoke to you saying any quotes from Exodus written 1400 years before they even walked the earth?

So Jesus is holding men accountable as if God was speaking directly to them by the scriptures. And so whenever we bring the scriptures to somebody in the LDS church, the response we get is, well, interpretation and semantics.

And it seems to be, and maybe you don't believe this, but it seems to be the idea of we can't trust the Bible in terms of this is absolute truth. Let's go to it because it was tampered because men dealt with it.

It was passed on through generations and years and years. And what we would say is the Lord Jesus didn't hold that view of scripture. So when you tell us semantics and this and that, I would say Jesus didn't believe that.

And I don't think you actually live that way either. You seem like you live a pretty good life.

Like, I don't think that you say that.

I don't spend too much time worrying about like the like, well, the Bible says love my neighbor. So I got to...

I believe you. Why don't you spend a lot of time doing that?

I study most of the scriptures, maybe 20, 30 minutes a day. I focus on the practical application of it within my children, in my community.

And can you know that what you're believing is true? Does it mean something to you?

Yeah.

So is it clear to you that it's delivering a clear message to you? Like, here's what I'm saying.

The clear message of what though?

Yeah, give me one second. I promise I'll be quick.

No, you're good, you're good.

I don't think that you actually live in such a way where you're constantly walking around going, can I murder this guy? Can I eat this guy? Can I commit adultery?

I live my life pretty specifically. Right.

And I think that the Bible is so clear that we don't have to go, well, what's the interpretation of this? God's word is perspicuous.

It's clear.

God is able, whether you understand or not, God is able to get his message through. Now, that's not saying that we perfectly interpret the scriptures. Of course, there's different interpretations. That's not the question at hand.

The question is, what is the nature of those scriptures? Is this actually God-breathed revelation? Can God lie? When God says the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of God lasts forever, did he mean it?

And if so, then God can't lie. He's unchanging. He's true. He's given us his clear word. And it's our responsibility to believe that. Whether we believe it or not, okay. But that doesn't remove us from the responsibility.

If anything, that makes us more responsible. And that's why we're here. And that's why we're telling you about the fact that no amount of works that we do can actually exalt us. Christ has done it all.

And that is a clear message in the Bible. And really, everything we talk about with him, that's what we're going to come back to. Because that's why we're here. Here's who Christ is. And he really has delivered his message clearly.

And he really did die for the sins of all of his people.

Yeah.

And so we don't have to wonder if we can have peace with God.

You good?

We can know that we have peace with God.

What happened?

Yeah, what you got, Mende?

You want me to call it? What's your number?

Well, you're on camera.

No, that's the worst feeling. Let me ask you one of your questions that you've asked a couple of times. You said, when we're all in heaven, right? At the Pearl Gates. And God comes to us. And I don't believe he's going to ask who created Satan.

But I think he will judge you on the basis of who did you put your faith in? Who is the object of your faith? And our concern, and maybe you disagree with this, is that you're not putting your faith in the same Christ that we're putting our faith in.

Because of the differences.

I hear you.

I hear what you're saying. But to me, it's like you're saying it, and then it's like, different Christ.

If that's not true, then why did Joseph Smith have to restore the church? Why did God, through Joseph Smith, have to restore the gospel in the church? If that's not the case, then we have a different gospel and a different Christ.

I mean, do you want the long discussion?

I'm fine.

The apostasy?

Yeah.

Are you familiar with the concept of the apostasy?

I'm vaguely familiar with your concept of that, yeah.

Yeah, my man. You're familiar that the Bible predicted an apostasy?

I do believe that you believe that, yes.

You don't believe that?