Introducing Christianity to Mormons

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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See website for details. One, two, three. Welcome to The Rap Report with your host,

01:06

Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of striving for eternity and the

01:12

Christian podcast community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

01:19

Welcome to another edition of The Rap Report. I am your host, Andrew Rappaport.

01:24

We are traveling right now, so I am in the home and the studios of one Dr. Anthony Silvestro.

01:31

So if I do not sound my normal way, it is because I'm at his place and maybe his setup is not as good as mine.

01:39

If it sounds better, it's because I must have better equipment and it's a better computer.

01:45

It's one or the other, either way, I'm sure. Although he does have some cool things here.

01:51

I found this on his desk. It says, speak like a snowflake. Now, my guest, who I'll introduce in a moment, this is kind of fun.

01:59

I've just been playing with this all day. Hey, hey, ho, ho, is that stay or is that to go?

02:05

Hey, hey, ho, ho, is that stay or is that to go? So it has all kinds of fun little things that snowflakes would say, like they can't go to work today because my fibromyalgia's acting up.

02:19

You never know what it's gonna say. There's a couple dozen things. But that aside, we're gonna have an interview today.

02:25

So my co -host Bud is not here, but I'm gonna be speaking with Eric Johnson.

02:32

Eric works at Mormon Research Ministries. I'm gonna have him introduce himself more. We're gonna talk about a new book that is out today.

02:40

So we're excited for this and we want to be able to talk to you guys about a new book.

02:45

Some of you say, well, you know, I don't really talk to that many Mormons. You may and not even realize it because you may be talking to someone you don't know is

02:54

Mormon, but I think that the book we're gonna talk about is really good for you if you are a believer in Christ because it's gonna help you understand what

03:04

Christianity actually is. But we'll get into that in a bit. Let me introduce Eric Johnson. Welcome to The Wrap Report.

03:10

Thanks for having me on, Andrew. You and I first met when you were organizing an apologetics cruise with Mormon Research Ministry and you had someone that suggested you invite me to speak and then you put me to work and I think you had me speak like nine times in one week.

03:31

You volunteered for it, so it's all on you. So let folks know who may not know you, let folks know about you, what you do, your ministry, and then later afterwards we're gonna get into this book and why you wrote it.

03:46

Yeah, my name is Eric Johnson working with Mormonism Research Ministry, a ministry that was founded by Bill McKeever in 1979.

03:54

I've known Bill since 1989 and have been involved with this ministry since that time.

03:59

I've been full -time with Mormonism Research Ministry since 2010 when I moved to Utah, where Bill had moved in 2004.

04:06

We both lived in Southern California before then. I taught for a couple of decades in Southern California at a

04:13

Christian school. I was the department head of the Bible department of a pretty large Christian school.

04:18

It was something to take my family out of that situation, which was a pretty good situation, and move them to Utah, which is a lot different here, but that was something we felt called to do.

04:29

So among other things, we have a website, mrm .org. We do have a podcast that airs five days a week.

04:37

We've had over 3 ,000 episodes that are archived on our website, mrm .org

04:43

slash podcast. Viewpoint on Mormonism airs also on six radio stations.

04:48

We just added last week a station in Honolulu, Hawaii, a very large

04:54

Mormon population there. And the website is a lot of what we do. We average about 1 ,500 hits a day, which is pretty good for a one -religion website.

05:05

I mean, if you have a multi -religions, it's easier possibly to get more of an audience. So we're very narrow, but among other things, we've written books.

05:14

This is the latest. You contributed a chapter to a book that Sean McDowell and I did back in 2018 called

05:21

Sharing the Good News with Mormons, and you and a number of others helped us to put that one together. But yeah, this is my actually sixth book that I've either authored or co -authored, and I'm really excited about this new book.

05:34

Well, let's start with the fact of the question I wanna ask you, just because you get asked this all the time, because this is something unusual.

05:43

Most people think that someone that is dealing with a ministry toward a group like Mormons, and as a caveat, just so folks know, if we use the term

05:54

Mormon or LDS, we are not meaning that in any insulting way.

06:01

Now, for folks who don't know why I'm saying that, the latest president has declared that the proper name is no longer

06:07

Mormon, but Latter -day Saints, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints, and therefore, we are just doing this for shortening of time.

06:18

Now, some might say, well, you just took a lot of time to say that. Yes, but we just wanna clarify, because throughout,

06:23

I'm gonna probably say LDS for shortness or Mormon, because that is how most people know this group.

06:31

So it is not meant in any way to be insulting or anything like that, but you did not grow up as a member of the

06:39

LDS Church, which many people think that you and Bill must have grown up in LDS and are doing all this in a response to your upbringing, but that's not true with either one of you, is it?

06:52

Not with Bill, not with myself, not with Aaron Shafovaloff, who works with us, Sharon Lindblom, none of us were former

06:59

LDS, and I think some would think that's a disadvantage. I don't think it is.

07:05

And I think the fact that we care about the LDS people as much as a missionary who goes to Papua New Guinea cares about the people there.

07:14

So we have never been under the tutelage, so to speak, of any

07:19

LDS leader. We owe them nothing, but we care very much about Latter -day Saints. We believe in Ephesians 4, speaking the truth in love, and we believe in 1

07:28

Peter 3 .16, that we're supposed to have an answer for everyone who asks us to give the reason for the hope we have, but to do it with gentleness and respect.

07:36

So our purpose of what we do at MRM is twofold. One, we do wanna reach out to Latter -day Saints. We wanna share the truth, as you do so much, so often in the streets, just sharing with whomever.

07:47

And you're right, you may not even know the Latter -day Saints at your work or in your neighborhood. They might not tell you.

07:52

They'll say they're just Christian. And that can cause a lot of innocence for people who may not know a lot about Mormonism, and having somebody tell them that they're

08:03

Christian, when really, when you look at the doctrines of Mormonism, they do differ quite a bit from top to bottom.

08:11

But yeah, I really feel, Andrew, that we have a sincere desire to wanna share the truth.

08:19

And we do a lot of speaking in churches, and our website is used by a lot of Christians as well to get that information, including this new book that I've written, to help people better be able to share with an understanding of what

08:33

Mormonism is, and to be able to share Christianity in a way that a Latter -day Saint could understand.

08:39

You know, it is important, because what we see, and this is why I think your book, as we get into this, is gonna be important, because so many of those who are in the

08:50

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints will say they're Christian, as you said. I remember Dr.

08:55

Silvestro and I were with our families in California speaking at an event, and we were just taking a walk through the neighborhood. Met a guy, he's just in his garage doing stuff, and we started a conversation.

09:05

He claimed to be a Christian. And as we're talking, he invited us into his home, into his office.

09:12

Soon as I was in his office, just from the picture he had of Jesus, and you'll know exactly what

09:19

I mean, Eric, but soon as I walked in his office, I knew he was a Latter -day Saint. And so the conversation started changing from where he was using

09:28

Christian language, I started to turn it and ask him to define meanings of things.

09:34

And that's where Anthony and his wife were able to start to, whoa, wait, wait, what? You know, he was careful when he found out we were

09:43

Christians, he was avoiding certain language like Heavenly Father, which most

09:48

Christians wouldn't see an issue with. But that's a clue to anyone that understands Mormonism that, oh, this is someone that's believing in Mormonism.

09:57

He was avoiding that until I basically was able to pull out of him and ask him point blank, you are you a member of the

10:05

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints? And then he said yes. Then he actually dropped some of that language and we had a very different type of conversation.

10:12

But he was trying to say he was just like us in the early part of that conversation.

10:19

And they didn't, you know, Anthony and Julie didn't pick up on that, which is like, okay, because they may not be as aware of it.

10:26

And that's why I think what you said is important because people, they will say they're

10:32

Christian. And unless you know the language, it's hard to pick up on that.

10:38

Because they have different meanings. I like what you just said, because you asked for their definitions.

10:45

You didn't assume, you just said, okay, well, can you help me to understand better what did you mean when you said

10:51

Jesus? Or what did you mean when you said salvation by grace? I think that's the only way you can do it. Because when you start telling a

10:58

Latter -day Saint what he or she believes, and you didn't quite know, so you had to kind of flesh that out after seeing that picture that was your giveaway, that this is probably a

11:06

Latter -day Saint. You wanna be kind, but you wanna explain to that there are differences. But yes,

11:11

Latter -day Saints are going to want to be called Christians. It's not the way it was 30 years ago.

11:17

30 years ago, they did not want to be called Christian. They wanted to be called Mormon, which is fascinating.

11:22

You mentioned Russell M. Nelson, who just turned 98 this past week. This prophet gets impressions from God at night, he believes, and so he came up with this the first year that he was president, 2018, to say that Jesus is offended whenever the word

11:40

Mormon is used, when LDS is used, Mormonism. Well, that's the name of our ministry, and we're not gonna change that because it's the identity of a religion.

11:50

But Mormon has been a traditional word used for so many years. Gordon B.

11:56

Hinckley, the 15th president, even wrote a book, What About the Mormons? I mean, you have the

12:01

Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They had to change that. What was their website? What was their website? Their website was mormon .org

12:07

or lds .org. Now, if you type that in, you'll get to the official website now, churchofjesuschrist .org.

12:13

But who's gonna type in churchofjesuschrist .org when you can just type in lds .org and get to the same place?

12:20

It was interesting because that all happened in the last few years here, and I had to name this book, and the name of the book is called

12:30

Introducing Christianity to Mormons. Somebody's gonna say, isn't that gonna be offensive to Latter -day

12:37

Saints because introducing Christianity, we are Christians. I understand that. And then the idea that I use the word

12:43

Mormon. People have asked me that. Why did you use the word Mormon if you're not supposed to? Well, privately,

12:49

I know many Latter -day Saints who continue to use the word Mormon. They think it's a silly idea that we can't use that anymore, that Jesus is somehow offended when he wasn't offended all those times before.

12:58

But I asked the question, what should I have called this book to identify myself as not being with the

13:05

LDS Church and to be able to talk to people who belong to this church? I would have had to call this

13:11

Introducing Biblical or Evangelical Christianity to Members of the

13:16

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints. That's a long name. Publisher would never have allowed that.

13:23

And a Christian, by the way, would see that title versus what I could do in four words. They understand this.

13:29

They would not understand that title. My main audience is for Christians, not for Latter -day Saints, although I do want

13:35

Latter -day Saints to read this as well, and I've written it as if they will read it. But I just want to point that out.

13:40

You're doing a great job, and you've had experience out on the streets of Utah. A few years ago, you came to Manti and did some great street preaching, and you were able to translate what you do in New York City over to Salt Lake City by talking to them as they were, and you were using some of their keywords, and you did a great job out here.

14:00

So it does take a little bit of experience, and I wouldn't expect somebody from Ohio, Dr. Silvestro, to be able to immediately know, although there are a lot of Mormons in Ohio, Kirtland, Ohio.

14:11

We were just there recently this past summer, Bill and I, and stopped at, Kirtland was a main place where Mormonism started.

14:19

But most people on the east of the Mississippi are not going to probably understand as much about Mormonism as we would here west of the

14:26

Mississippi. Yeah, they're not going to pick up on the small things that might be said to pick up on. Now, I do got to say, you mentioned the current president who had this supposed night vision.

14:40

However, did this new revelation surprise you? I mean,

14:45

I personally don't believe it was a vision he got soon as he became the president.

14:54

But did it surprise you at all that he got that revelation? That's a good question. And I would say, down deep, no, and I'll tell you why.

15:03

In April of 1990, at the General Conference, they have General Conference twice a year here in Salt Lake City for a weekend where the main leaders, the general authorities, these are the top leaders.

15:13

The president, his two counselors, 12 apostles, those men all are going to speak at General Conference along with others.

15:21

And in April of 1990, Russell M. Nelson gave a talk where he criticized using the word

15:29

Mormon. Now, he was not in complete charge. He was just an apostle in 1990. He was probably eighth, seventh or eighth in line.

15:36

So he spoke from his heart and he said, you shouldn't use the word Mormon. Six months later at the

15:42

October General Conference, the member of the first presidency, the first counselor who later became the 15th president of the church,

15:51

Gordon B. Hinckley, he gave a talk and he referred to the talk in April and he kind of laughed about it.

15:58

He said, oh, everybody should read that. It was a good talk. However, let me just tell you a couple of things. And then he went on and basically minimized what

16:07

Nelson had said. And in fact said that the word Mormon, there's worse they could call us, he did say in his talk.

16:15

And he said, Mormon means more good. Okay, so if it meant more good in 1990, then along comes in 2018 when the 16th president of the church died,

16:28

Thomas S. Monson. So he was a senior member of the church, of the apostles. So he got to become the new leader.

16:35

Right away, he had been, I think, Andrew, he had been stewing for at least 18 years thinking, wait till I get in charge.

16:44

That will be the first thing I do. It's like a president. Somebody who just becomes president, what's he gonna do? Executive orders that first day.

16:50

And I think that's kind of what happened with Russell M. Nelson. Yeah, I don't think he had any vision at night.

16:57

He might've been up late at night with heartburn and just said, okay, this is the first thing I'm gonna do. But let's talk about your new book that just is out.

17:05

As of today, this is your latest book. As you mentioned, you've done several, you've co -authored several.

17:13

And folks, if you wanna get, I've always recommend that we are running a sale on the book, Sharing the

17:18

Good News with Mormons, a book that Eric, you were the general editor, you and Sean McDowell, there were 24 different authors.

17:25

It's available at strivingforeternity .org. And if you use the coupon code

17:31

LDS for Latter -day Saints, you get 35 % off.

17:36

So if you wanna pick that up, just go to strivingforeternity .org and go to Sharing the Good News with Mormons. That book,

17:42

Eric, and you and I have talked about this, I find that as a great book just for evangelism because there's 24 different techniques.

17:49

This was an idea you came up with that you were like, hey, let's come up with a couple, I think originally you only had like a dozen of ideas of how different people witnessed to Latter -day

18:00

Saints. And let's get one book with these different tactics. And it kind of grew from there. Let's first talk about that one since we worked on that project together and then your latest book.

18:12

Yeah, I came up with that idea because we get the question all the time. What's the one question

18:18

I can ask a Latter -day Saint? What's the one tactic I can use? And I always like to say, or I used to say, well, you come up with the one tactic that works every time.

18:29

Please write a book about that so I could read it because I would love to be able to use that tactic as well.

18:35

No, I always say there are as many tactics as there are people because what you do out on the street,

18:40

I can't do that. I'm not good at street evangelism. You're good at it, Aaron's good at it, and it can be done badly.

18:48

You've seen that badly as well. And so, I thought, let me get that. And I couldn't do your technique of being able to have the knowledge of the gospel of, or the,

18:59

I forget the book now. The Miracle of Forgiveness by Spencer Kimball. Yeah, that works for me.

19:06

I've handed out 1 ,400 copies of that book since 2014. It just kind of came to me back then.

19:12

And that's my favorite tactic out on the street. But I mean, all these different ideas. And so I thought, well, let me put that together.

19:18

I was thinking I would just self -publish because I didn't think probably a publisher was gonna want an evangelism book.

19:25

Those are hard books to sell. What we've been, we published with Bethany House, Baker, Kriegel.

19:31

I just didn't think that they were gonna want it. But you and Jay Warner Wallace together convinced me

19:38

I needed to get that thing published for real. So I have a friend, Sean McDowell, who has published with probably four or five publishers.

19:45

He had been with Harvest House. And I talked to him about it. And he says, let me see what I can do over at Harvest House. He talked to them and they said, yeah, we like the idea.

19:55

They're a very good publisher. They're the ones who have published my new book, Introducing Christianity to Mormons.

20:00

I was just gonna mention that. Yeah, so they're the same publisher. And so then it worked out.

20:05

They bought the book. I was able then to invite, actually it was a total of 28 of us because several of the chapters had two people writing.

20:15

28 people writing 24 chapters. And each chapter is a unique way that you can share.

20:23

And none of them, nobody's writing, well, my way is the best way or my way is the only way.

20:28

Rather, my way works best for me. And let me share with you a little bit about that. And I just had somebody this past weekend.

20:36

I was in Nevada for a week with Bill and we were doing speaking. And I had somebody come up to me and they said,

20:41

I love that Sharing the Good News book. Let me tell you. I don't like all the chapters necessarily because I mean,

20:47

I'm not gonna use all of them, but there were two or three that really spoke to me and I've used some of those ideas.

20:53

I've done that. And so that's what we were trying to do is get people out of their situation of not sharing the good news.

21:02

I mean, I just read a statistic. Only 2 % of evangelical Christians have actively shared their faith in the past month.

21:10

2%, we've gotta do better than that. And sharing doesn't mean you have to go on a stool in New York City and be a street evangelist or giving away the book,

21:21

The Miracle of Forgiveness. But we need to be looking for opportunities at work with our relatives.

21:29

And then also I do believe in stranger evangelism as you do as well. You go out on the street sometimes and try different tactics, see what works.

21:37

It may not work right away, but then you learn how to use it or you find another tactic that works. That's what that book is for.

21:43

Yeah, that's the neat thing. I tell people, even if you're not looking to evangelize Mormons, which the book is geared toward that, but not only that.

21:54

Because there's a lot of things, for example, and I think it was Sharon, I forget who wrote the chapter on the newspapers at temples.

22:02

That was her, yeah. Okay, and so that was something where I was like, wow. Now, what she does is she has a newspaper that is geared toward temple openings and she goes to temple openings with the newspaper and people will take that.

22:18

And it's like, okay, we could take that and translate that to anything. You can go to a ball game, give a history of that ball, that team, and people will take that.

22:29

And within there, each article could share the gospel. So each of these things end up translating.

22:36

Now, some may be less than other. Your tactic or Bill's tactic, which are specific to Mormonism, but it gives the idea.

22:45

I mean, Bill, for example, goes out with plates, gold plates, and has people lift them.

22:52

Why? Because it's a visible way of showing that the accounts of Mormonism, the accounts in the

22:58

Book of Mormon just aren't true. And so it's a way of being able to show someone physically.

23:06

Well, that may translate to other things that you could do. That's one of the things

23:12

I liked about the book. And each chapter, none of us knew what anyone else had written until we read it after it was done.

23:19

And so each chapter is maybe six pages. You can read whichever one in whatever order.

23:25

But let's get to your latest book. Give the background on why you chose to write this.

23:34

Well, I was recovering from COVID, just had recovered from COVID. This was early August of 2020.

23:40

And my daughter came into this office where I sit right now and asked me, my youngest daughter,

23:46

Hannah, said, Dad, I have a friend at work who's asking about what it means to be a

23:53

Christian. What do you believe? Do you have a book that you could give me that I could give to her? Because she wants to read about it.

23:59

I mean, I can tell her, but it's just, it's kind of complicated. And I thought that was a great idea.

24:04

So I looked at some of the books and I've got a whole shelf over here of books describing what Christianity is.

24:10

I mean, I really like to give away Lee Strobel's book, The Case for Christ, because the first seven chapters have to do with the authority and reliability of the

24:17

Bible. I love his book. And he does go talk about what it means to know Christ and all the rest, but he's not talking to a

24:25

Latter -day Saint. And I had other books as well, all good books for their own purposes. But I said to my daughter at the time,

24:32

I said, man, I wish there was something that was written about Christianity to somebody with a

24:38

Mormon worldview that their language could be used, that I could explain or that it could be explained.

24:44

And she says, Abby, great. I said, I really don't have anything. I mean, you can give her The Case for Christ. I just don't think that's gonna be enough.

24:51

As I was mowing the grass that afternoon, I realized I just made myself an assignment over COVID.

24:58

It was great because we weren't speaking. We weren't going out and doing evangelism. It just was too difficult. So I had time.

25:05

And so over the next four to six months, I wrote the book and aimed it at a

25:12

Christian using my evangelism accounts. Every chapter of the 10 chapters has a specific event that I actually did and explained how you can share the basic fundamentals of Christianity.

25:28

As Christians, we certainly have peripheral issues that we can debate about and that's fine. And we have a great time in -house.

25:35

But what are the essentials of who is God? Who is Jesus? What does salvation mean?

25:41

When I say the word scripture, what does that refer to? And you're right, earlier you had mentioned we have the same language.

25:48

And I emphasize in this book, in the glossary, I have a definition list of all the words that I use in this book that are unique.

25:59

So I'll italicize it the first time I use it. And then for those words that are the same word, like I'm looking at eternal life.

26:09

Eternal life for a Christian means spending eternity with God in heaven. I've tried to keep it very basic.

26:15

Whereas the LDS, exaltation of Godhood in the highest level of the celestial kingdom. And I'm using those terms.

26:21

Well, you can, as I italicize, you go to celestial kingdom and heaven and you can find out what that word means for both the

26:27

Christian or a Latter -day Saint view. But I think that's important.

26:32

And so my advice for anybody who's listening right now, when they're talking to a Latter -day Saint and you're not sure what they mean when they use a particular term, ask the question, what do you mean when you say eternal life?

26:45

What do you mean when you say heaven or celestial kingdom? What do you mean when you say scripture?

26:51

I think that will be a great way to start learning what that language is.

26:57

Again, very difficult. The same terms are used. You're gonna have to be able to know and understand different definitions of that.

27:04

But once you get that, once you learn that, I think that's gonna be helpful. And I think that's what this book is gonna help as well, for those who wanna share

27:12

Christianity with Mormons. Because let me tell you, Andrew, they are leaving the church in droves in the past decade.

27:19

There's been a number of reasons why they are leaving. And they're not running to our churches.

27:25

In fact, let me tell you this, based on this book here, I'm not trying to promote her book, but called The Next Mormons by Jana Reese, published by Oxford.

27:33

She's a Mormon blogger, very popular. She published this in 2019. And in this book, she said, she found out through her surveys, done professionally, that 45 % of people who do leave the

27:46

LDS church, whether it's for doctrine, many progressive issues like homosexuality or feminism, those are big reasons why people are leaving in the last few years.

27:54

But 45 % in 2019 were headed toward atheism, agnosticism, or nothing at all.

28:02

And another 21 % were saying they were just Christian. They didn't go to a Christian church or anything.

28:09

They were just Christian because of moralism, because they weren't killing people or committing adultery.

28:14

That means two out of three people leaving are leaving for nothing. And they're not going to any kind of religion.

28:22

Only one third of them are supposedly going to a religion. Christianity, evangelical Christianity was listed in there as 10 % of all people who leave end up becoming evangelical

28:32

Christians. And I just think that's a shame because we have, and I don't mean to minimize the gospel, but we have an awesome product.

28:41

God has given us salvation by grace through faith and not by works. And we're not sharing that with the

28:48

Latter -day Saints who are leaving. We're not showing them that they don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater because these people all once believed in God.

28:56

They all believed they had Jesus as their savior. And now all of a sudden they don't. I want them to at least acknowledge the possibility that if Mormonism is not true, something else is, because that's what they'll say to each other when they're having a hard time.

29:11

Well, if the church isn't true, then nothing else is. That's a lie. Something else has to be true.

29:17

It might be atheism. If so, then we all ought to become the best atheists we can be. But I think there's too much out there to show that no,

29:25

God does exist. Jesus is the savior. And it's about having relationship with him in a way that Mormonism never offered.

29:33

And I think for a lot of Christians who engage in evangelizing, their Mormon friends, coworkers, they may not know enough about the religion to know why when they may want to go after attacking the foundation of Mormonism and the problems with Joseph Smith or Brigham Young and the problems with the church.

29:57

That doesn't necessarily produce a Christian. That produces questions of Mormonism and they leave.

30:05

But your book, and it's Introducing Christianity to Mormons by Harvest House, available today.

30:15

Go out and get this. Here's what this does a little different. When I wrote my book,

30:21

What Do We Believe?, the struggle I came upon was the fact that guys like Bart Ehrman are writing to the atheists and the

30:29

Muslims about the fact of textual criticism. And there was no one writing at a lay level to explain the reliability of scripture.

30:39

And so when I wrote that book, it was one of the few books out there that wrote on textual criticism, answering how we could trust the scriptures, the accuracy of the manuscripts at a lay level.

30:51

And yet within the Latter -day Saints, it's even more important. And you have devoted quite a bit of time, and I wanted to hone in on this, because you devoted a lot of time to the reliability of scriptures.

31:05

And that's very, very important when speaking to a Latter -day Saint. So the first question

31:11

I have for you, I'm gonna give you the two parts so you could just answer one, roll into the other, because they're gonna work that way, is why is it that, why is it so important to address the reliability of scriptures?

31:22

Why is it that they leave the Mormon church and don't trust the

31:27

New Testament, don't trust the Bible? And then from that, roll into why was it so important for you to include this, and what can we, why can we trust that what the

31:42

Mormons say about the Bible is not accurate, and we can trust it? I did devote the first two chapters of the 10 to the

31:51

Bible. The chapters are, let me just read the names of them so you can get an idea.

31:58

Chapter one, the Bible, God's special revelation. Chapter two, the New Testament, trustworthy and reliable.

32:05

I did that, spent two chapters doing this because at the very beginning, I wanted people to understand that I'm gonna be using the

32:13

Bible throughout this. I quote, cite literally hundreds of verses, whether in the brackets at the end of a sentence, or I actually quote the verse itself, because if we can't use the

32:25

Bible, Andrew, then we have nothing but mere opinion, and it becomes my opinion versus Bart Ehrman's or whoever else.

32:31

I mean, we can all have opinions, but if the Bible is really God's word, which I believe it is, then it has something that we ought to be able to use to understand what

32:42

God's mind is, to understand what he wants us to know about doctrine, about our belief system.

32:49

And so what I did is I focused on article eight in Mormonism, because this is the problem.

32:57

In article eight, Joseph Smith, back in the 1840s, before he died in a gun battle in a jail, he was in a jail and he ends up dying in 1844.

33:07

But before that time, he came up with what are called the 13 articles of faith. It's found in one of their four scriptures.

33:12

They have four of them. The Bible, the King James Version, as far as it is translated correctly, the

33:18

Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price. And so with that article eight, as far as it's translated correctly, first it's not stated correctly, because if you ask a

33:28

Latter -day Saint, what does it mean it's not translated correctly? They'll tell you about corrupt priests who came in and changed things, and they took things out and they added things in based on the

33:37

Catholic Church. And they always like to point to the Council of Nicaea, which the Council of Nicaea had nothing to do with the, in 325

33:45

AD, with the compilation of the Bible. But that's another story. But I do talk about that in here.

33:52

But I think they need to understand that what they're saying is not the translation, but the transmission of the text.

34:00

Textual criticism is very important. So I do spend some time talking about those important issues and I talk about manuscript reliability.

34:09

I talk about the Dead Sea Scrolls. I mean, you're gonna come with me in February, March this year to go to, you're gonna stand inside Cave 1,

34:19

Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. You're gonna be one of the rare people who gets to do that.

34:25

I mean, that's really cool to go in there and realize there were seven documents found here, including two entire scrolls of Isaiah, the great scroll of Isaiah.

34:35

And when you take a look at that and compare it with the Masoretic text from the 10th century, you realize what a valuable find that was because we see that there was no real major changes in the thousand year gap.

34:48

And the New Testament, of course, in your book you talk about, I mean, 5 ,000 plus Greek manuscripts, 24 ,000 total.

34:55

We have entire New Testaments, three of them that are considered to be most reliable from the fourth century.

35:02

I mean, we have so much evidence. So I wanted to get into that. I wanted to talk about Bible contradictions because I tell you what,

35:09

I have Mormons citing Bart Ehrman and telling me, oh yeah, the telephone game.

35:14

Well, the telephone game is a bad illustration if you're trying to explain how we got our

35:20

Bible because, and in fact, I even have a chart in this book. Here it is, a chart to explain the differences.

35:28

I don't know if you can see that or not, but this chart - Well, it'd be hard to see on audio. Yeah, you can't see it on audio, but the telephone game versus the transmission as it really happened.

35:36

And this was actually Murray Bassler from Asbury Seminary who did that, put that together.

35:41

And he allowed me to use that in the book. I mean, we need to be able to answer the

35:47

Latter -day Saint when especially when he's left Mormonism, he's turned atheist agnostic.

35:53

And he says, well, the Bible's true as far as it's translated correctly. I like to ask, where did you get that from? Well, that was from Joseph Smith.

35:59

Do you believe anything else Joseph Smith said? Do you believe that men can become gods?

36:06

Do you believe that drinking coffee is wrong? I mean, those kinds of things. And they'll say, no, I don't accept anything.

36:11

Well then why are you still accepting that? At least take a look at what biblical scholars have come up with and maybe they're wrong, but at least go to some important people.

36:23

I cite at the end of every chapter, I have four or five different resources they can go visit because my book's not gonna be the end all.

36:31

I say, go look at some systematic theology books, go look at other books. I'm just trying to work specifically with the

36:38

Mormon people. How can we share Christianity without the Bible? I've gotta be able to set that up before I talk about who is

36:47

God, who is Jesus, and the other issues that I deal with in this book. Well, because so many of them, and this is the thing

36:53

I think you've discovered, that so many of them, because once they start questioning

36:58

Mormonism, Mormonism questions the Bible, therefore they don't turn from Mormonism to the

37:04

Bible because they already were questioning it within Mormonism because it's the

37:10

Book of Mormon, it's the Mormon church that they're trusting, and they're saying the Bible's accurate as long as you understand their view, but now if you don't accept them, you're not accepting the

37:20

Bible either, so your chapters on reliability are essential.

37:26

I found that to be, just knowing Mormonism, this was the foundational chapters to start with, and when

37:34

I saw the chapters, when I read your book, just my opinion was this was the place to start.

37:42

In a book that's going to give to a Mormon a view of what

37:47

Christianity actually is, that really is the first starting point because we have to have that basis of, no, you can trust the

37:56

Bible, it is something that's reliable because everything else that you do is based off of that.

38:02

Now, one of the things I saw throughout the book, and this is important, we already kind of touched on it, is the difference in language.

38:11

When we have words that we would have a meaning of, so if you and I are talking, and we're having a conversation, and I'm gonna say that I believe in Heavenly Father, as a

38:26

Mormon, when you hear that, would that have a different meaning to you than what a

38:32

Christian would think of when they hear Heavenly Father? And you've used a term that is typically used by Latter -day

38:39

Saints, they'll call him Heavenly Father, he's also known as Elohim. We would call him normally God the Father, or just God, depending on the context.

38:47

But Heavenly Father, it sounds like we have the same God, but not when you fully grasp what

38:53

Mormonism teaches about Heavenly Father. According to Doctrine and Covenants, section 130, verse 22,

38:59

God has a body that is flesh and bone.

39:05

It's body, parts, and passion, it said. The idea that God once was a human being on another realm, another world, so to speak.

39:13

In fact, if you talk to a Latter -day Saint and get them to acknowledge that God once lived in another realm, ask him, so he has a body of flesh and bone, correct?

39:24

Yes, he does. How did he die to be able to become the God of this world? Was he a sinner?

39:30

We have found over 70 % of all Latter -day Saints that we ask that question to say, yeah, I have no problem.

39:36

God was a sinner. That is completely different than what Christianity has said because the

39:42

Bible teaches very clearly that God is from everlasting to everlasting. Psalm 90, verse 2.

39:48

Malachi 3, 6, God does not change. That even coincides with the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants, D &C 2017,

39:56

Mosiah 3, 5, Moroni 10, or excuse me, 8.

40:03

I can't even get that right. Moroni, is it 8, chapter 8?

40:09

I can't, I'm forgetting the exact verse number. I don't have it memorized, so don't look. Yeah, but I mean, these verses all say the same thing.

40:16

God is from everlasting to everlasting. The idea that God once worshiped another

40:21

God, that is, that's beyond us. I mean, to say that that God worshiped his own

40:28

God and then that God worshiped his own God, it's called infinite regression. It's the difference between ex materia creation, which

40:37

Mormonism teaches that material has always existed eternally, or ex nihilo creation in the

40:42

Latin, which means out of nothing. We believe in a God who was the first cause. He was by himself

40:49

God, and we do believe in the Trinity, chapter on the Trinity. These are the things that a lot of people, when they talk to a

40:57

Latter -day Saint, don't understand. In fact, they have a little couplet, Andrew, and you know this couplet, as man is,

41:03

God once was. As God is, man may be. The idea that God was once like we are with a body of flesh and bone, the idea that we can become as God, as God is, man may be, that is what

41:14

Mormonism teaches. By keeping the commandments, by getting baptized into the LDS Church, by doing the things you do in the temple, secret ordinances that they do.

41:24

They learn special handshakes called tokens. They also get new names. And if they keep the commandments and keep their end of the bargain, their hope is that they'll be with their family forever and that the man will be able to become

41:39

God of his own realm. And the verse that is Moroni 8 .18. I don't know why I did a brain freeze on that.

41:45

Moroni 8 .18, which it says the same thing as Psalm 90, verse two. By the way, Joseph Smith, he didn't go very far from the

41:52

Bible in writing the Book of Mormon. A lot of people point to the Book of Mormon as being the book that you ought to read to understand

41:58

Mormonism. It doesn't really teach much of Mormonism. It teaches more Christianity than it does

42:04

Mormonism, including the idea that God has always been God and there's no chance he could have ever been a man.

42:11

And this points out some of the things that we're saying because when you speak to someone, as a

42:18

Christian, are you even thinking that the Latter -day Saint you're talking to has the idea that he can become a

42:26

God if he just keeps the law. And part of what you do is to point out that in the miracle of forgiveness, we have to, according to Mormonism, be absolutely perfect.

42:38

And none of us could keep that. Now, it's interesting because to get into, to have a temple recommend, that gets them into a temple where they can get married, that marriage gets them into a celestial kingdom, it gets them to be with their family, all of these things.

42:53

But what you end up seeing within that when they have that is part of it is things like, are you tithing 10 %?

43:03

Now, on your podcast, this was, and folks, if you don't listen to Eric's award -winning podcast, and it is award -winning, the

43:11

Christian Podcast Community, which we are a member of, has given them an award for being a top podcast,

43:17

Christian podcast. But Viewpoint on Mormonism, they went through recently where they go through this idea of this temple recommend, and it was, look,

43:29

I study Mormonism as well, but this is why I listen to your podcast,

43:35

Eric, because folks, if you're listening to it, you're picking up new ideas. One of the things that they mentioned was when they will argue you have to be perfect, well, none of us can be perfect.

43:49

So the question is, how are you doing it? And this is a thing that Eric taught me to do is to ask, how are you doing with that?

43:55

And people, oh, well, I'm trying. And on your podcast recently, I thought this was a brilliant argument, and I can't wait to the next

44:03

Latter -day Saint to talk to, because I want to ask them this is, when they say I'm trying,

44:09

I want to ask them, is that what you're doing with your temple recommend with your tithing? I mean, can you give 3 % and not 10 % and say

44:18

I'm trying? Will they accept that? And the answer is probably going to be no, but they accept it on the moral issues.

44:27

Yeah, and you're right, there are 15 questions that they will be asked every two years by the leader of their local congregation called the bishop or possibly the stake president who is in charge of several different what are called wards.

44:40

And those men are going to ask those 15 questions. They're going to ask you, are you keeping the word of wisdom?

44:46

That means no coffee, no tea. Do you wear your special undergarments? There are special undergarments they wear as they're called temple garments that they need to wear.

44:56

Let's address the first one because there is a slight change in that because they can drink coffee and caffeine now ever since they bought stocks in Coca -Cola.

45:09

So didn't that change as soon as they bought the stock? No, well, I don't even, I mean, they can't drink it, they could drink cold, right?

45:17

They can't drink hot. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of becomes your own interpretation of what that means.

45:24

They're not supposed to be drinking hot drinks. That's what it literally says. And yet they drink hot chocolate.

45:29

Well, okay, well, that's hot. What's the difference between coffee and tea? They'll say, well, that has caffeine.

45:35

Well, so does hot chocolate, but they'll drink Mountain Dew and they'll drink, some of them will actually drink cold caffeinated drinks.

45:44

They're not really supposed to be doing that, but they're probably not gonna get too heavy on that with the questioning from the bishop because they want them to pass.

45:53

They want them to be able to go to the temple, but they're supposed to not be drinking that. Sometimes they do. And depending on which bishop you have, sometimes they'll let it go, like a police officer who stops you and doesn't give you the ticket.

46:04

He'll say, okay, just kind of try to work on that a little better, get to the next question. Tithing, 10%, you're right.

46:10

That seems to be one, if you don't have that one down, then you probably won't get it, the recommend for most of the leaders.

46:19

If you're only giving 3 % and you say, well, that's the best I can do. And I'm trying hard to pay my tithing.

46:24

Well, trying hard means you're failing and you're not doing what you're supposed to. But they did change something in the past year.

46:29

You're right on this. They changed. They used to have what was called tithing settlement, where you had to basically pay back what you didn't pay back the previous year, what you were supposed to have paid.

46:41

And you can't go see your child get married in the temple unless you have your temple recommend.

46:47

This is really important. Now, they're not supposed to be doing that as much anymore. I've got to do some more research.

46:53

That's just in the past year. They have some kind of a new regulation and I'm not quite sure how that looks.

46:59

But still, tithing is gonna be an important one. All of the ones that they're asking, they're not supposed to associate with you or me.

47:07

If they associate with us, we're considered to be enemies of the church. If you're actively listening to my podcast or reading our books, they'll question you.

47:19

But to get in that temple, this is eternal life because a couple gets married not just for this life called time, but for eternity.

47:28

And the only place you can get married for eternity is in one of the 173 temples. With a hundred more on the way, there's a hundred more temples coming that they're being built right now.

47:39

And you have to be able to get in there and do that. And this is a side note that maybe you and I talk about at some point.

47:46

I never thought about till just now is why is the caffeine drinks the number one thing?

47:52

But that's the first one. I've never thought, you'd think you'd start with the most important. But there's something you just mentioned and if any of you in the audience, you're trying to talk to a

48:06

Latter -day Saint, especially a couple, one of the things I saw when I was out at Utah is it is the women that will be harder to, it'll be harder to talk to the husbands with their wives there.

48:20

I'll put it that way. It's true. Let me ask you, Eric, to explain why that is because I could speak to a husband alone and they'll talk to me.

48:32

I could speak to the wife alone. But whenever I had a husband and wife, the wife would drag the husband away.

48:41

Why is that the case? Well, I don't know if I have a correct answer for you.

48:48

I'll give you my speculation. I was just witnessing a last year at Provo and people were walking by and this woman walks by.

48:56

I was offering her a miracle of forgiveness and she, no, just walked on. The man was walking slower.

49:03

He was maybe 20 steps behind and he kind of stopped there and looked at me and he was probably in his forties.

49:09

And I said, would you like a free copy? He goes, no, it's okay. But he says, I don't believe any of it.

49:15

I said, really? Are you, you're married to the woman there? He goes, yeah. He says, I stay in because if I didn't, she would divorce me.

49:24

And I know that's, for many people, that would be the idea because the man is necessary. He's the one who's supposed to have the

49:31

Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthood that will be able to call her up on resurrection day. She needs him to be able to do that.

49:38

I think for a lot of women, it's just, especially as a man, I love having female evangelists out in Utah when they're doing that because they can communicate better, oftentimes with the couples, that I'm not able to do.

49:51

But I'm with you. I like to talk to the men separately if I can because I think we're more on the rational and they may very firmly believe in Mormonism, unlike this gentleman who walked by who admitted that he didn't believe any of it.

50:04

But at least we have something we can discuss. With women, it oftentimes becomes, and I'm not trying to stereotype, but it becomes very emotional as well.

50:12

I prayed about this and I know this is true and I know my prophet's true. This is especially accurate whenever we're at general conference outside there at Salt Lake City, outside where the conference center is.

50:23

20 ,000 people will come. And just to, they come from this high spiritual, two hours they just had with the leaders of the church who have given them personal direction.

50:35

And man, I'm with you on that. Sometimes I'm just talking to the men because the women do stop.

50:43

It's just not usually gonna go very well for me. Well, and I think you mentioned it, and folks, I mean, hear what he said. It's that the women cannot get into the celestial kingdom without the man.

50:54

They need the man. And I worked with a Mormon who, when she became a Mormon, she realized her husband was not gonna become a

51:02

Mormon. And she actually denied him the physical relationship until he went and had an affair so that she could feel justified in divorcing him and marrying someone that would get her into the kingdom.

51:15

And so if the husband, if you're talking with the husband and he walks away from the faith, she can't get into heaven.

51:24

That's her astral kingdom. She is lacking in that. She needs the man for that. And so these are some of the things.

51:32

And if we're bringing up stuff that you are listening to this and saying, I never knew this, well, that's the whole reason for this book,

51:40

Introducing Christianity to Mormons. Because as Christians, if you don't study what the

51:47

LDS church believes, this stuff is very different. Even though the words may be the same,

51:55

Eric does a very good job in this book in explaining through what Christianity is believing, but not just, so this is a,

52:03

I would say this is a systematic theology that every Christian can read and understand what

52:10

Christianity teaches. However, it's also geared specifically toward a group of people, the

52:17

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints, who have similar language but completely different meanings.

52:24

So what this is gonna do is help you be a lot more precise in understanding your theology, one, but two, in understanding your theology as it relates to other religions, specifically

52:39

Mormonism, because when you speak to someone and you say, well, I believe in the

52:45

Trinity, well, that's only good if they have the same definition of Trinity.

52:50

If their definition of Trinity is that Heavenly Father has Heavenly Mother produced the

52:57

Son, Jesus Christ, and He's the physical offspring, that's not the same

53:03

Trinity. You see, so this book becomes something invaluable to get your hands on.

53:11

You can read this as a believer and understand theology better because anything that teaches us more about God is good.

53:19

Okay? But why would I say this is a good systematic theology for everybody to have?

53:26

So that when you do encounter someone who is a member of the Latter -day Saints and you're not planning on that, you remember the precision to have, you remember certain language that they'll use that is different, and at least understand how vast what's behind those meanings are so that even if you don't remember the exact precision of it, you know to ask the questions and kind of where it's gonna go because just knowing that, as Eric has just said, that Heavenly Father was a being and possibly a sinful being on another planet should cause you to go, wait a minute,

54:08

Colossians 1 says that Jesus Christ created all things. Everything that was created was created by Him and for Him.

54:17

And Isaiah 44 .24 says that Yahweh alone created, and He had, and I like the way that the

54:24

Jehovah Witnesses translation puts it, and He had no helper. I love that because Jehovah Witnesses believe that Jesus was the helper of Jehovah in creation, and yet Isaiah 44 .24

54:40

says the exact opposite. How could Heavenly Father have created His parents and His grandparents and the planet

54:47

He was on before He was born? You see, there's dilemmas in there.

54:53

Very simple, logical things, but if you don't know what they mean by their words, you may just say, oh, you're a

55:01

Christian like me because it's gonna sound that way. So this is why it's important to get this book.

55:07

Eric, where can we get a hold of introducing Christianity to Mormons? Well, anywhere online books are sold.

55:15

Amazon .com is a favorite for many. Christianbooks .com I think has probably the best price, but you don't get free shipping unless you buy so much.

55:24

Barnesandnoble .com as well. If you go to the website that's on ours for this book, it's called introducingchristianity .com,

55:34

introducingchristianity .com. I have links to those three websites, and I encourage you to get the book, as you said.

55:40

I appreciate your endorsement of it to say that, well, we should be ready for talking to a

55:46

Latter -day Saint, God's gonna put one in our path here in the next week, and we're gonna really enjoy having that kind of a resource so that we might be able to get better, because you're not gonna be an expert on the first time you share with a

56:00

Latter -day Saint, but as you do this over and over again, you get better at it. Look, I've been doing podcasts long enough to know that someone in the audience is going to email me this week, probably, or next week.

56:13

They'll listen to this and say, well, I don't think I need that book. I know my theology. Then they're gonna run it into a

56:19

Latter -day Saint, and they're gonna email me saying, I wish I had gotten that book beforehand, because you're right,

56:25

Eric, God will bring that person into your life so when you don't expect it, and so be prepared.

56:33

Get the book. Is it available on your ministry's website, mrm .org? It is.

56:39

We do have free shipping. I think we're charging $15 if I'm not mistaken. Would that be the best place to get it to get you guys the most?

56:47

You know what, we don't, wherever anybody wants to get it. Now, if they want to get it tomorrow, or they want to get a

56:53

Kindle version, it's also available on Amazon. They want to get the Kindle, they get it through Amazon. If they want to get it tomorrow, we're gonna get it to you in the next week, but I can't promise it's gonna be in the next day or two, because we only mail out maybe once or twice a week, so I won't push our website.

57:10

I'll certainly defer to the others that are out there. Well, I will push mrm .org, because, well, why should

57:17

Amazon make all the money, and all the others, okay? Look, you're worthy of your labor.

57:25

You put time into this, and the money that gets used and spent to MRM gets used for ministry.

57:34

The money that goes to Amazon does not. So I will say, if you have a choice, wait the extra week and get it at mrm .org.

57:42

And here's what I suggest. If they do that, I'll tell you what, I'll sign it for them. If they order it through us. All right, there you go.

57:48

So a signed copy, you'll have to let Eric know you heard it on the rap report, so he knows.

57:54

But while you're ordering your book at mrm .org, I'll also encourage you to go and check out the articles that are out there.

58:02

There are tons of articles. Now, I will say this. When I am interested in specific issues of Mormonism, this is where I go.

58:13

I go to mrm .org, and I call Bill and Eric and ask them. Because right now,

58:20

I would say the three people in the world that know the most about Mormonism that are not members of the

58:27

Mormon church, I would say are Sandra Tanner, Bill McKeever, and Eric Johnson.

58:32

And Bill and Eric work together at mrm .org, and they work with Sandra Tanner. So I would recommend you to go to mrm .org,

58:40

check out everything that's there. You can check out some of the other books that are there. You can get the book, Sharing the

58:45

Good News with Mormons. It's available at that website as well. I don't know that you'll get the 35 % discount from them.

58:53

No, I think you have a great deal there. I think they should be getting it from you. We also have Mormonism 101, Answering Mormons' Questions.

59:01

So there are other books besides that that are available that you can get on our bookstore for sure.

59:07

So Eric, I want to thank you for coming on. I thank you for this book because I do find this to be a helpful tool for Christians, not only to understand

59:14

Christianity, but because so many Christians run into Latter -day

59:19

Saints and don't pick up the precision needed, don't pick up on some of the things that they have behind the words they use, that it trips up many people.

59:31

And so I think that this is a very valuable book for Christians to have on their shelves. So I want to thank you for writing it.

59:39

Hey, thanks for having me on, Andrew. I sure appreciate it. And I'm going to see you in a few months in Israel.

59:46

We're going, yeah. 13 -day trip, and I look forward to showing you some of the favorite spots and having an archeologist on for a few days as well.

59:54

Yeah, so that's something that we're going to be enjoying. So folks, get the book, Introducing Christianity to Mormons.

01:00:02

It's available at Amazon, at mrm .org, at different places. I encourage you to get it.

01:00:09

Eric, the way he writes is very easy to read, very understandable.

01:00:14

So you're not going to get tripped up even though it's theology. You're going to be able to understand this book. So Eric, thanks for coming on.

01:00:22

All right, God bless. God bless. This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry.

01:00:27

For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

01:00:33

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