Incredible: How to Speak with Return Mormon Missionaries

Sure, we're for we're um, well, my name is Jacob. This is Craig. Yeah, and we're here.

I Literally got his name wrong. His name is not great. Ryan. He is

Craig So, yeah, we're from Apology a church up in South Jordan.

We love talking to her. What's what's the church? Oh, sorry. It's a apology at Utah apology Yeah, so we're a reformed

Baptist. We love talking to our Mormon brothers and our friends friends Exactly what reformed

Baptist are I share? I'm from France. So I know nothing. Oh, you're from France Yeah, so we love talking like two of our favorite conversations that we just like to have is sort of like What does it mean to be saved and sort of what is what is it?

What is grace, right? Yeah, and so how would you define that based on you maybe your understanding of that, dude? I love the conversation too because I love the idea of grace like love it so much

I feel like like Jesus Christ for me personally like Like I feel like when we think of the atonement of Jesus Christ what he did for all of us

He saved everyone but grace is also that personal tool that we can all connect with right?

It's the power of Jesus Christ overcoming sin for all of us that we can all receive it as a gift from God You know, yeah, amen.

I love the gift language there because it's something that's given to us It's not something that we work for like Ephesians 2 8 9 says for by grace you have been saved and this is not of your own doing

It is less to be by works less than anyone should boast, right? One thing I always I have sort of some questions

I guess about in regards to salvation, right? You believe that there's sort of the you know, terrestrial celestial.

There's three different levels Yeah, what is if you believe would you say you believe you believe you're saved by grace

What would someone have to do to be able to get from the second level to the third level of heaven? well, we believe like that's

Basically, the celestial kingdom is for everyone who's completed Ordinances of God Basically, there's things you have to do right?

There's things you have to do So I guess I believe that grace is a gift totally a gift from Jesus Christ When we accept us when we accept him as our

Savior But I believe that that gift as we accept it there's still things we need to do conditions that come with it

Okay, gotcha. So if someone were to give you a $20 bill and they said you can have it But you got to do

X Y & Z Is that something that is actually a gift or is that you're due because you worked for it? I?

Feel like I guess it depends on you know It depends on what the conditions are because I guess the works part for me.

It's not really works It's kind of blessings in disguise No, like I think about it as more grace in disguise because when we follow the commandments of God We receive more blessings and more grace.

Okay, guys like with the $20 bill It would be fully just like you're working for it if you have to do stuff

But Jesus Christ asks us to do things that will bless our life even more. Okay, I Get that so have you?

Maybe find it helpful to split up what salvation is right scripture speaks about salvation as do you understand or?

Okay, gotcha your English sounds pretty good So basically salvation is sort of split up into three different categories in scripture, right?

You have been saved you are being saved and you shall be saved and there's actually different Greek words that they translate as what's known

As justification have been saved Sanctification you are being saved and then glorification that moment of final exaltation that we have with the father, right?

We would define exaltation differently. So please understand It might be different than yours because I we would oh, yeah What is it like like for you guys when you think of grace being saved by grace?

Do you have like a moment that you felt like you were saved by Jesus Christ or is it more of a gradual process?

I would not describe grace as a feeling right? Yeah, and so I would say I would say grace is what

Romans 11 verse 6 when Paul is talking about grace He says for if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works

Otherwise grace would no longer be grace, right? And so I would say the starting point when you have to understand grace is it?

Definitionally cannot be by works right because Paul in his defining moment in Romans 11 6 says it's not by works

Otherwise, it's literally not definitionally grace. And so I would say that for me, right?

I look to places like Ephesians 2 8 through 9 where it talks about that. It's not something that we work for right?

Yeah and I like to press on justification right because I have Roman Catholic friends that I will disagree and this is really where the rubber

Bits the road and I think maybe for us too. There's gonna be a big difference, right? Justification is the Declaration of Righteousness, right?

Romans 5 1 says therefore having been justified by faith We have peace with God through our

Lord Jesus Christ and I would say if you have to do ordinances and there are conditions to that declaration of righteousness that you only receive after X Y &

Z are Accomplished the ordinances of your church to me. That doesn't sound like good news

That sounds like that sounds like a burden that I'm wearing right, you know And I don't know if you're familiar with the book called pilgrims progress

But there's a there's a it's basically an allegory of the Bible where there is a pilgrim that's traveling to the heavenly city, right?

And he has a burden on his back right and that burden is lifted off of him by Jesus Christ, right?

And it's not again. It's not something that he takes off himself And so I think that when we understand grace, it's something that is maybe definitely definitely not by works

And I would say that it's something that's fully by By Christ's work not by Christ's work plus some of the things that we do.

Does that maybe make sense a little bit? Do you guys believe basically like Like what do you have to be?

What do you have to do to be saved by grace? I guess yes, so the foot be everyone or is it just people who accept

Christ believe Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved, right? Yeah I'm assuming you're

Mormon, right? We actually you guys just came from the temple. So I we assume You guys are the most non -mormon looking people ever just I mean that is a compliment

I'm not like saying that anyone bad But well, I mean he's from France. No, it's different stuff here. I'm different stuff.

No, I got you Yeah, I got you. So so one of the important things to know is that the Bible teaches like from cover to cover

Very unambiguously that there's only one God. Yeah, the God is one Talk for weeks about like how exactly that works and there's parts of it that like Are just way too mysterious like metaphysical but like the clear teaching of the

Bible is there's only one God and so the idea even that we could go to like a celestial kingdom or a

Terrestrial kingdom or a telestial kingdom and that fellowship with like the father if you go to one of these places

That's off the table what we're talking about is That's why in The believers there in the church in Ephesus what he's saying is you

Not like the super Apostles and prophets or anything just like the normal Christians there. He says like you have received past tense every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places so When we're talking about salvation, it's a package deal.

It's the whole thing Or it's not And so what we're talking about when we say

Somebody is saved by faith or by grace What we're saying is that the entire thing is a gift from God To us and it's not something that is given to Every single person because Jesus teaches repeatedly throughout his life.

He says hey Perhaps narrow not very many people walk on it.

That's why there's so many bumps and stuff paraphrase But it's

Everywhere is some people will Hear the message and we'll receive

So, right, of course, right like some people they get that message and they receive it they

God opens their eyes and they love it and they are Transformed we use the fancy fancy word regeneration

I'm sure you're familiar with the word regeneration No, I'm not trying to like make fun of the day, okay, but like it's a it basically means to be born again

And we go ahead the Bible teaches that we are initially in a state of deadness of rebellion against God like nobody nobody wants

God as he is because We don't want the Holy One to be in charge over us and tell us what to do

It comes in and gets ahold of your heart and he transforms you from the dead soul to the living soul

And suddenly everything that God is whatever he is. That's what you want in life.

That's what you're pursuing Yeah in that same moment all of the other stuff comes with it the forgiveness of sins the sanctification that's purifying

Everything comes with it. And so all the gifts of God Yeah, all the stuff that's in the heavenly places yeah, and all of that is a free gift and all that the the

Christian is doing is But And this is the reason for like why we kind of come out here

Yeah, you know, it's not because we're like all upset that you guys use water and your your services instead of wine

We have wine at our services. I Understand why you would prefer water I Kidding me.

It's the grossest thing. That's my favorite time of the week, dude. I don't drink alcohol except during Communion No, literally my wife doesn't finish it

I would love to hear about like what because you talked about that moment where God transforms our heart

I would love to hear like if you both if it's not too personal like what that moment was like for both of you

Yeah, so I feel like that's my favorite part of being able to come together It's just like feeling the spirit of yeah of conversion, you know the

Holy Spirit's with us all Yeah, so no, I totally I totally get that. So basically for me right? It's nothing special I grew up in a

Christian home, right and but you know, obviously when I got older I realized that God's scriptures were true, right and that it was something that You know,

I struggled with the accuracy of the scriptures is this scripture, you know Like how do we know that we have the right books all that kind of stuff?

So I really studied it. I asked God I was like, please, you know make this clear to me But honestly,

I realized that my only Guidance in life is going to come through his word, right? Once I looked in so all

God made it clear like this is this is his word, right? It's the Anu stars as 2nd Timothy says it's

God breathed, right? And so I realized that without Christ I'm dead in my sins, right?

And so, you know, it's nothing nothing more special than that. It's it's something that came through, you know again the grace of God alone

It's comes through the Holy Spirit Regenerating that heart just like Jeremiah 31 or Jeremiah 31 says, you know

You need to be replaced that heart of stone needs to be removed and put with a heart of flesh It's something that happened by God in my life

And so that's that's honestly where I come from and I'm thankful that God saved me and thank him every day obviously, so Yeah, so okay

Mine's kind of a weird one, which is probably not a surprise to you at this point in our friendship.

I'm weirder than you No, I wear a romper So Go ahead go ahead.

So like I grew up Pretty normal When I was a kid

I Don't know if you've heard people talk like this, but they'll say, you know, you pray the sinner's prayer

That Jesus died for you and you just say hey Jesus come into your heart I was four

Which translated means I was stupid and what I thought was I was like, okay, so Jesus is like come in come into me

Okay, what's the inside of me look like? I Distinction between like the heart and the stomach and everything else.

All right. Okay, so it was in just in here And I don't really know what that would look like. So I figure it's kind of like, you know the inside of my garage

So No joke my first concept of the gospel was

Jesus Swimming in grape juice and chopped up like hot dog pieces in my garage.

That's the face. I'm in no Keep it gets better. Don't worry. Don't worry.

It gets better So like, okay. Well, I get a little bit older And by that time, you know

You get a little bit more life experience You're going through stuff. I Start becoming aware

There's something wrong Kind of holding that inside, you know, not

Talking to my best friends Sadness and the horrific stuff in your head didn't happen a lot.

Thankfully and so I ended up going to this church But one of the good things

Yeah, we've all got those guys and I remember Couldn't even tell you who the speaker was

There's one of those things where you like you're there for all seven days and all that the same speakers There just came a point where he was just talking about Sin and not in like a fire and brimstone kind of thing

You know that sort of a deal. Yeah, it was just Every word he was saying

That's what that is. It was like a doctor Describing your symptoms for you and then like diagnosing you and then

Suddenly all of those like Sunday school lessons I heard it's a kid all those half Memorized Bible verses start kind of clicking together

It's that this is what that whole thing and it wasn't I didn't have some kind of like deep

Knowledge of all the stuff Jake was talking about there, but it was like I went to Bible school You didn't so that's not it's not like I did

But like I remember Like have like staying after after that service and talking to my camp counselor

Like that was the moment for me when everything just came together and broke through and I In times past when

I'm like, man, I see all the sin in my life Do I you know was

I ever really saved I can point back to that moment and point to you scripture and It goes together and everything

Yes, you are saved But worrying about this your sins are forgiven already

Don't have to go in You know, we commit yourself every week or whatever it is, you know, you don't

It's not like God sees my sin and he's like, I didn't know he was gonna do that You know,

God knows that Every single sin I will ever have committed and so when he forgave me he forgave

All of that and so that's that kind of goes into even the ones you hadn't done yet Yes, especially those because I'm much older now than I was then

Yeah, so that that's kind of Yeah, and so like yeah

Like to think so it's a praise God Yeah, I mean like I don't know if it was for you

But for me like I would say that like a verse that had an impact on me I wouldn't say it's my favorite verse right but Romans 5 1 right?

It says I think I already mentioned it Therefore, you know having been justified by faith. We have peace with our

God through Lord Lord Jesus Christ so the thing that I like at least I struggled with when I was working through a lot of those questions and maybe even you

Did too with some of your different issues, but I like I was like, what does it mean to have peace?

Right because like I was struggling like are the documents even reliable did God even write them? Like, how do

I know that they're the right books, right? But that piece came the Bible. Of course. Yeah, cuz that was what

I was I was at Bible school I was like, yeah, and so I was like How do I have peace right and that verse just stuck out to me so much that it is a single thing that happens

Justified is comes from the Greek word to kaiosune, which is righteousness, right? And it was a verb of declaration of righteousness, right something that we have by Christ at a moment in time, right?

It's we have been saved and so I don't know for me like my grandmother grew up Catholic, right?

And so she was had all these ordinances. She had to follow and yeah, she never had peace, right? And so I always point out to my you know,

Mormon friends, right? It's like there's a lot of works that you have to do right you yourself pointed out there's ordinances

There's stress about the second level or the third level. Where are you gonna be at? What's it gonna be like after this life?

Were you sealed in the temple? What's going on here, right? And so I would just entreat you to look at you know

What the scripture says that it peace comes at a moment in time when you're justified It doesn't come the more works you do right?

We obviously believe that works are you know part of that sanctifying process that it does come part of your salvation But that moment in time where you were declared righteous it comes by like by Jesus Christ alone through faith, right?

And so I would just you know, point that out and be like hey, you know the church

The you tend preaches, you know, there are works required for salvation. They're in fact different levels and so If you don't do enough

And that's that's that for us

Or secondary stuff

It's the gospel who is God What is what is the good news higher for us?

How are people? How is a simple person like me justified? and while it's true that like I can go back to those experiences that I've had and understand them in light of what

God has said It has to conform with what God has said. So I think of When Paul was

Converted like you guys know that story, right? We're of course. Yeah. Yeah, there was all road to Damascus thing

Well when Paul writes in Galatians, he's writing to people that he had preached to people who

Like a church that had received the gospel and he's saying okay First of all, there's such a thing as a false gospel and you guys are receiving this now

But it's like indignant the whole first chapter. He's like a mad like I cannot believe you guys

Left with the gospel that I preached for this fake one, right? And what he says though when he kind of recounts his own personal history in the letters.

He's like, okay Well after I was converted Like years after like 14 years after he went to Jerusalem and he talked with Peter James talked to the other apostles to make sure that what he experienced was legit so we have to base our

Experiences like I could have something that I call peace And maybe it's a counterfeit piece because that happens, too

I could have something that I think is joy or that I think is happiness You know you think of somebody who's like in an abusive relationship

Or heroin, you know heroin makes me feel very peaceful but for you it's all this kind of stuff and it's like First of all, you know, if it's not the real deal then what you've got is a counterfeit kind of thing, but also

We have to go to what God the God of the universe is always right every single time

What does he say about this and if your experience? Doesn't drive what

God has said You got to chuck that thing out So was that question you were about to bring up do you do you have any questions

No, you're good Because in France not a bunch of people believe in God and knows about him it's like But how do you know but like so much about our doctrine or our church?

How do you know it? Oh, there's just a ton of materials available. Just just reading it reading the Bible. Yeah, that's the start at least

I've read the Book of Mormon and had more missionaries come to my place. I went to Bible school So I had to study all different kinds of religions, too

So, you know, I know I actually know a lot of it more about Islam than I do about Mormonism, which yeah Yeah, well,

I mean we are when we were in France together. We had a lot more Muslims than we did

Muslims there. Yeah, when were you when were you in France or you guys probably were just there then I'm guessing. Yeah We were both so he's from France and I just finished doing an internship there

I was gonna say, okay, that was the weirdest like southern accent.

I've ever heard. No, it's not it's not So so then would you say were you there during the Syrian refugee crisis when all of them?

Were there a lot more Muslims that came through during that? It was that 2017, right? They still coming

It's like I've seen the streets.

It's just like completely different from what it was like eight years ago Yeah, it's reminds me of Portland where I used to live. But yeah, yeah

But um, and the other question is like what is you like if you can resume your message? What you're sharing in two sentences, but it is because like for example the

Catholic it's like oh, yeah We have the truth at the beginning and we still have it Like the museum is like oh

Jesus show up on earth and Muhammad show up after and he teaches the truth And for it's like the truth was lost and you just meet like you establish it

So if you can resume it like what you what you believe is true in two sentences Two sentences is hard, but I would obviously say you got to define terms, right?

And so like when I say Jesus, I mean a different Jesus than your Jesus when I say Jesus to Muslim They think of a different Jesus when

I say Jesus to you know, Jehovah's Witnesses But I would say obviously it's belief in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins that you're saved by faith alone and that the only

Authority and guide over the life of the believer is scripture Which is God's Word right all of those other groups that I just mentioned

Jehovah's Witness even the Mormon Church They have other authorities outside of what the Bible is and we believe that the

Bible is the only authority And so that's I guess maybe me pushing in sort of like right. It's belief in Christ believe in what he says

But again, the definitions of what I say about these things is contained in here, right? I would personally argue that you know, if you know, you would argue for Jesus the

Jesus you believe in I don't think you could do it exclusively from this book I would say that you might need the pearl of great price the Doctrine and Covenants the

Book of Mormon has a different teaching about Jesus that's not exclusively contained in here. And so you obviously said that there's a better Testament, right?

That's why you believe in the Book of Mormon better and not better. But what's the what's the word? Another testament. Yeah, this is not

I don't know I said better but um, but yeah, so that's Yeah, it's a belief in Jesus Christ that you are saved by grace through faith and that God's Word is the only authority over over life obviously, there's so much more and anytime

I'm talking to a different group of you're gonna have to speak differently because Job is witness is gonna talk about Jesus and believe.

Oh, he's actually not a god He was the Archangel Michael, right? And so it's hopefully that like it makes sense and that's that's really like at the end of the day

The reason we're gonna differ on ordinances that we're gonna differ on the gospel We're gonna differ on Jesus is because I believe that this is the only authority of life, right?

Yeah all scripture is breathed out by God and it's powerful for Teaching for proof and for training and righteousness so that the man of God might be equipped that second

Timothy 3 16 And I would say that that was spoken in the first century.

You didn't have the Book of Mormon You didn't have the Pearl of Great Price. You didn't have the Quran. You didn't have all of the teachings of Jehovah's Witness What's their magazine called again?

Anyways, but nonetheless I would say that scripture should be our guiding authority Right when when we were given that right

Hebrews 1 says that you know first, you know You were given many prophets in many ways revealed, right?

But in these last days you just have Jesus Christ And so I believe that when Muhammad came along and gave a different gospel when

I believe that Joseph Smith came along He gave a different gospel because Hebrews which was written way before Joseph Smith Finalized it in Jesus Christ being the final person, right?

And so that's sort of where I would land I think we've talked a bit about grace, but does that make sense sort of where?

What do you what do you guys believe about like like scriptures because like for us we believe that there are things that were lost

In the Bible because it's been translated many many different different times. Yeah What's kind of your that's actually

I think that goes to your earlier question because we're asking about like how do we know that our Way is the right way as opposed to like Mormons, you know

Most of us who know that there's Sharing because he's just trying to get a summary

I guess. Okay, so So like what you've asked is basically like the core

Like one of the foundational. Yeah questions It's the question of authority

Because and that you know, he's mentioned that sort of Catholic Church Yeah, like back in the days of the

Reformation like we people talked about justification a lot But the fundamental issue was is the

Bible Sufficient in and of itself. Is that the Word of God or do we also need?

Hopes and the church to give us more doctrine Were you arguing about I guess when you said translated, do you mean translated transmitted or do you mean like how do we know?

It's sufficient. I think that's the only book Okay Gotcha in meanings and senses and then over time comes changes

Okay So I guess if I'm understanding maybe where you're coming So you is your opinion that you believe that the

Bible is translated from its original language Into a different language and then we translated that language into a different language and so on all the way until we have

English today Yeah, so that that's that's actually a misnomer. It's actually not how it worked I have the translation into the full gate right a

Latin, but we still have the Greek manuscripts So we have over five thousand three hundred Greek manuscripts, which is the original language and so that's actually

I guess a better question would be that's a transmission question not a Translation because because we have the the the documents that have been copied right because that's transmission go back and re -verify

Yeah, so as far as textual criticism, right you can look at old documents and even if there are hundreds of years afterwards

We can verify with textual criticism like the Quran. We don't have the original of it we obviously don't claim to have the original writings, but we have the copies of copies in Greek of these writings and so we have

Many people that are not even Christian verify that these are actually Accurate documents that we can look to and we can say as Christians.

These are actually this is the Word of God And so yeah I would say that I think maybe a lot of LDS people don't really understand sort of that transmission question because it is a big

Question and I know that it's maybe I mean like that's like literally what I struggled with when I got saved Right was do we have the books?

But there's two questions. There's the translation and then there's the transmission, right? How do we know that everything was copied correctly?

That's a different one, right? It's and that's why we have 5300 manuscripts, right? So we yeah, it's a 5800 just in Greek, right?

There's like 14 ,000 if you include other Aramaic and other stuff like that But right like it's kind of like if I sent you like 12 text messages, right?

And you might have a letter missing here and you might have a letter missing there, but they're all the same text message, right? It's kind of the same thing with textual criticism.

It's just the summed up version, right? I may have six copies of the Gospel of John and it might miss a page here miss a page there

But the other ones have those pages and so that's really how it works, right and when it comes to transmission we have an accurate

Understanding of what the scriptures say and so I I get that you know, the LDS Church kind of points that out

I think it has to write to be able to give authority to the the Book of Mormon and other things like that And so I would say that we do have authority to believe it's true

Because there's tons of information out there on the translation and the transmission It wasn't translated into other languages and then we translated it from the

Vulgate like when I this is the NASB 95, right? I know you use the KJV, but this was translated from the original

Greek and the original Hebrew Old Testament and New Testament So it's not like they took the Vulgate to translate it.

They took the earliest possible manuscripts We have and so I would say the translation question. We have an accurate testament of the truth and it's right here, right?

It's actually the most attested book in human history More attested than any other ancient book of that time more than the

Quran more than anything out there And so yeah, does that kind of make sense? Did you have like a question about that?

Well, it's a cool distinction you make between translation and transmission transmission is just a recopying

Yeah, it's an important distinction, but they're two different questions, right? And I think that they are there are good answers to both of them

It's not fair. It's like a lot of the stuff that James talked about. There's there's a ridiculous amount of this information, but like When are you ever gonna hear it like they're not gonna talk about that school or even from a sermon usually yeah

Yeah, like that's there's not common and also, you know, like you said because Because the

Book of Mormon specifically does claim Not just that there's been some corruption like misspellings and stuff

It says many plain and precious truths have been removed And if if I remember correctly

But it also says that like it went forth from the Jews in purity

I Have a difficult time understanding what that sentence mean But the closest I can get is like before like it was pure up until like the the time of the

Apostles Right. So here's the thing though The the transmission of the

Bible is not a straight line. It's not one line. It's like a spider web. It's like Think of it as being sort of like a radio

It sends it out in all different directions And so you can have

Some guy over there. That's got a competing signal. That's sort of like messing everything up, you know, maybe it's got

But you can go like you can go closer to where the signal is and pick up a stronger signal and go to other places

And figure it out, you know, it's a similar kind of deal Like there wasn't a controlling power that determined how the

Bible was going to be transmitted Yeah, we have that problem with the Quran. Yeah, the

Quran Uthman He was the third Caleb the thirdly third leader after Muhammad. There's the third guy in charge after Muhammad He decided all of a sudden that there's so many different, you know copies of copies and there's mistakes here and there and because we don't

Like that, we're gonna burn all of them and just I'm gonna pick one out I was called the Uthmanic recension

And so when Muslims will claim I believe in the Uthmanic recension They believe that they can trace their Quran back to Uthman when he burned all the other ones

And my question is why would you burn all the other ones? Right, don't you want a wider Testament of truth so that we can more accurately understand?

Right just goes back to that text message question if you're missing maybe a word here or there, right? How do we know that that's the right word if we don't have the other 19 text messages, you know what

I'm saying? Why would you burn those right? thankfully with the Bible we have those 19 other text messages and we can be like Actually, we have the most accurate

Testament in that time period than any other piece of literature, you know And so that's something that I would say gives me peace.

I think you'd have to study it for yourself Honestly, maybe that's not something that you've done a lot of but it's like it could be really technical and it's only really for super nerds

Yeah, but there there are Like places you can go to kind of look more deeply into this

But for me like when it comes to just how the Bible is translated, it's important to understand that the final analysis we get

All those like fifty eight thousand or fifty eight hundred Greek New Testament manuscripts. We've got tons of Hebrew Old Testament stuff.

We've got all these things put together When people try and figure out okay.

Well, there's there's two different readings in this verse. I Thought that was a person for a second and it freaked me out.

Okay, so I thought it was yeah Yeah, so when you have like any two verses we're like if they don't this manuscript doesn't mean exactly that's what they call it textual

And the idea is you can use just common sense stuff to figure out what the original

Again, go back to that analogy. You have the 19 other text messages, right? You have a way or copy by aliens

Here's we're copied by people like have you ever had to do that thing in school? Where they like make you copy the sentences over and over and over again

So you make one mistake and then you're like dang it yeah, but like the same kind of mistakes

But when you get when you put it all together the end result is that we can categorize all of those differences in two basic categories

Is it viable meaning that this reading has a chance of actually being original? To is it meaningful that is safe doesn't have any impacts

The vast majority we're talking about Of all of the differences

Are neither meaningful nor vile Yeah, so like any of the differences you might find

Or on you know, and none of them have any bearing on theological weight, right?

That's why you don't find like, you know, the Mormon claiming actually know this passage where it talks about baptism

It was actually speaking about baptism on behalf of dead people, right? You know, like there's there's no discrepancies theologically, right?

We have the same text and that's why we can all come around this thing that we agree on right? And so there's one other question about scripture that maybe we didn't talk about you have

Transmission translation, but he spoke about it right is authority How do we know that this is the book that we should and that's and that's what's gonna separate us

The Bible is like Wasn't written to be the Bible, you know, those prophets in the

Old Testament are completely like they didn't necessarily know I mean, maybe you believe they knew that no, no, so I I don't

I don't I don't what what I would say though And I think this is the the the kicker right here is is what is

God breathed, right? Second Timothy 3 16 says all scripture is God breathed

So Jesus spoke about scriptures when he rebuked the Pharisees Remember when they were they were they remember they sad you sees one where he's like you married this woman and then

This woman got married and then he died and then got married Seven later who's gonna be married in heaven?

He says, you know, not the scriptures nor the truth about which they teach The word is graph a in Greek right and in Timothy you see all all that is scripture is

God breathed And so the question we have is what is scripture, right? And how do we determine it, right?

And so The the clearest thing is right. It's got to be 100 % true, right? And so we obviously think that you know, the scripture is without error

There's no contradictions in it, but I would point towards maybe some of the teaching like for instance I believe that you know,

Isaiah 41 10 it says before me No God was formed nor shall there be any after me and Joseph Smith taught that You know in the

King Follett discourse that you can become a god one day, right? Yeah, and so I would say that that's I know I know and yeah,

I know that's what to believe I would say that's contradictory right? And so when I say we're testing scripture, you can't say that Joseph Smith is

Speaking scripture because Jesus said that this is scripture, right? Speaking about specifically the Old Testament documents when he spoke about, you know, the

Old Testament So what about the New Testament? Like how how do you believe Jesus validated that? Well, it's all we do that all the time for one thing.

He would validate the Old Testament by saying things like Like he would hold people accountable to what the

Old Testament said He says you have to do this Because it is written in the law of Moses Yeah, that's something that like piques my interest like there's a lot of people to say like all

Moses didn't write You know Genesis or whatever. Well, Jesus seemed to think that he did and I'm inclined to agree like there's but there's also

There are other things like when when Peter writes in his letters He talks about Paul and he affirms something that I think we can all agree on.

It is hard to understand Paul That's literally what he said in 2nd 2nd Peter, I believe it is Some things he writes are hard to stand hard to understand but then he appeals to them as scripture, right?

As they do the other scriptures, yeah, he says people will twist the words of Paul as they do the other scriptures uses again that word

We say He is equating Paul the

Old Testament scriptures similarly there's a part where Paul himself is

He's writing about What you how you should treat people work for you and he says well, there's there's one part of the scripture which says the scriptures say and he may quote something from And also and then he quotes

So you've got this claim here that we quotes from Luke yeah, I'd love exactly. Yeah.

Yeah I don't have to top my head. Yeah. Yeah, it's a it's one of Paul's writings.

So that's about one quarter of the Yeah, so this so the idea is like, okay. Well Isaiah probably didn't sit down and think oh, you know in 700 years

There's gonna be this guy named Saul who's gonna have this convert experience And I think

Peter that also says He refers to the things that we have now as the things that like angels

We want to look into and that people of old search the scriptures and so like there was this concept that like there was going to be more revelation happening, but Either way the issue comes down to once God has spoken everyone else henceforth

Who claims to be speaking? For God has to be in line with what God is already

Right. So in in Deuteronomy 13 Moses says something to the effect of if somebody comes to you and they've got signs and wonders galore and They teach you to go out and follow false gods.

You reject you kick them out of the camp which in those days was basically Probably a death sentence and then in Deuteronomy 18

He says, you know some of the claims to you to be a prophet and comes to you and delivers this message

They don't have any signs of wonders back up the idea that it is God who has given them this message again

Hard take them out of the camp So what we have to do Is not to determine any of this based off of it doesn't give me a feeling that I would identify as being peaceful or rather Is this in line with what

God has already revealed by himself? so we don't really have a problem acknowledging say that Moses the earliest prophet is just as much of a prophet as John, you know, we don't have any issues there.

Like there's no contradiction. We don't have to worry about Well, you know if I look into what Isaiah says, is he gonna say something weird?

And I'm gonna be like, oh no, I have to justify why he says this but you know Luke says this other thing

Yeah, we don't have this kind of an issue When we have somebody else outside of the

Old and New Testaments Claiming to be a prophet Paul says hey test the prophets By their fruits you shall know them exactly and sound doctrine is good fruit

Yeah, yeah, so, you know somebody can be do all the nice stuff. Yeah Muhammad has one of the biggest religions in the world

I wouldn't call what he did good fruits though, right? I just because something grows right or just because someone does good things.

I wouldn't say that that's fruit It has to be you know the fruit in line with sound doctrine as we see in other places of Scripture is how we should judge those who speak and that's

Kind of where we're coming at That don't just add on to what was already revealed or fill in some kind of gaps

But they just flat -out contradict this like I said before the Bible teaches throughout

But there's only one God So when we find the the King Fuller discourse, not only are there multiple gods, but you can become one

That's not gonna work either. That's true or the Bible's not true We run into this issue that's like, okay, well either either the

Bible is the preserved Word of God Or we might as well just check the whole thing out, right?

Yeah, the grass withers the flower fades but the Word of our Lord will stand forever So I believe based on his own word

But Jesus spoke and Isaiah spoke that he has preserved his word perfectly that we can trust it as authoritative and that all the claims

Jesus made were authenticated when he died and rose from the dead right so I can trust everything that was recorded about him because they

Were you know spoken by him? Daniel's prophecy

Nebuchadnezzar sees like this The hand this no not the hand one. That's a that's the other one. It's a statue statue with like the gold head and and then at the end

It's smashed by this rock. That's carved out of the mountain. He says well, this is a kingdom that will last forever so the idea

Or even Jesus says in the Gospels. He's like the kingdom of God kingdom of heaven Is like a mustard seed you grow it in the ground and it doesn't just like come up a little bit and then cut get

Cut down and then come back up later and and grow he says you put it in the ground and it grows and it keeps on going so the idea that we can have

We can have the kind of situation that I think Mormonism is describing we're like The Word of God has been kind of cut down in a way

That like we can without the help of God Figure out what the originals said or what the the

Apostles taught Such a way that 1400 years the gospel was not being preached after it started being preached

Then we've got a big problem here. And that's again But you guys also believe in the

Reformation as well in your church, right? Yeah, the Reformation was necessary Yeah, we believe we believe is a historical event of Some where they went back, you know we wouldn't say that there was a great apostasy and the reason why is because we believe when

Jesus spoke to Peter and then to the disciples in Matthew chapter 16 He said

I've given you the keys of the kingdom and the gates of hell will not prevail against it speaking about the church And so I would not say that 1500 years.

The Holy Spirit was absent from the church I would I believe that there's there was always a remnant right just as we're spoken in Scripture And so I believe that the

Reformation was necessary because just like Paul spoke There are going to be people within your ranks that rise up and lead you astray, right?

And I believe that the Roman Catholic Church did that I believe in many ways Eastern Orthodoxy did that but I would say at the

End of the day, right? My test is not what happened in history My test is what God's Word is and that's what the Reformers are about, right?

They were about going back to Scripture. They literally, you know someone I Don't know if that's a good example but basically they pointed out they went through all of the traditions that the

Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodoxy was going through and They sorted through it and looked at every single one of them in accordance with Scripture, right?

And if there was a tradition that was actually a biblical one, they believed it they kept it, right? But if there wasn't they're not gonna they're gonna toss that out because they're like that's not biblical, right?

You know believe that you need to pay a certain amount of money to get your sins Yeah, have your sins forgiven or have your grandma get out of purgatory, right?

That's not taught in Scripture. That's unbiblical That's wrong or to believe, you know a bunch of other things and stuff

So yeah, but you were you were saying you're going on about the Reformation you said Yeah, you're like how and how is the the

Reformation and for you is like do you believe you need a line of authority? Basically session.

Yeah, sure line of succession from Jesus Christ like the laying on of hands of the Apostles Do you believe that you need that?

That's it. No that you believe the Bible is very good question because Priesthood obviously is important thing super important guys.

So in in Biblical Christianity in the in the

Bible, it's they're basically for three or four legit priesthoods And what it comes down to is that there is a separation between man and God that is caused by the reality of our own

Centralness and it's like, you know divorce mediation you want to you want to bring these two sides back together

So what God has done in all times is he gave us both Prophets and priests and sometimes some people would go with prophets and priests and we're not

And the idea was that the Prophet would represent God Before man and the priests represent man before God.

Okay, so you're not gonna like prophets anymore Yeah, like no

I know what you mean With Moses the Holy of Holies the priest on Yom Kippur represents the whole congregation

Leviticus 16 Three or four different One was the priesthood of Aaron and that was again all about Going into the presence of God into the

Holy of Holies and offering the sacrifices But that was sort of like part of the

Levitical priesthood. That's why I say to you three or four The one that you're probably most interested in is the

Melchizedek Christian Mm -hmm That was held by exactly two people

Okay, is it a That's why you'll notice even though it's a big big thing in Mormon theology.

It's only mentioned three times in the entire Bible 66 books 1100 chapters three times once In the life of Melchizedek once in Hebrew Psalms when it was promised that somebody would come forth who's in line in Melchizedek And then once in Hebrews So the idea is

Jesus has It the way that this works is that Jesus has to serve as a priest

He has to go before the presence of God and offer up himself as a sacrifice Problem is it wasn't

Levi. It wasn't a descendant of Aaron So the Jews in that like well

So, how does it do it and then the author of Hebrews Well, he does this in the same kind of way

You know, it's the priesthood isn't found Then there's a fourth or third

It's priesthood of all the people This is what's offered to like I have it Jacob has this

Andrew has this What's the passage right you're thinking of right it's second

Peter 231. Yeah, that's where it's kind of described but the idea is As somebody who has the

Holy Spirit living with me. I don't have to go to a temple In order to experience the presence of God. I don't have to offer up a sacrifice

I having the Holy Spirit living with Pray Because that wall of separation

Again one of those spiritual blessings The the verse that I think

I always like think of when he you know what he spoke about, right? It's a first Peter 2 verse 5 you also

Referring to all the elect as second as Peter was addressed as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house

For a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, right?

And so I think that that's like probably sums it up perfectly right that the the priesthood is, you know

Fulfilled fully in Jesus Christ Aspect in which now we become priests in the sense that we were able to access

God because only the high priest was able to Do that in the Holy of Holies Jesus did it for us as a mediator, but also we are now able to do it when we pray

We don't have to pray through something We don't have to have a priest like Roman Catholics believe that only true access can come through what they call a priest they obviously there's

Anyways, they believe in Remember of your congregation like bless the sacrament and break the bread and that's that's that's that's an interesting believer

Because that's that's one thing. I'm not Sure about myself. I did the thing is

When we when we do the sacrament, it's not Sorry the sacrament the communion, yeah sacrament ordinance, there's two different, you know different groups use different ones

But I would say that in a lot of ways they're used interchangeably. All right, you have like You have the you know

Obviously the the offices of elder and deacon right and there's there's authority that is clearly given to them and there are

Qualifications for them, right? A little interesting side note

Roman Catholics the word I believe it's presbytos is it's used for elder, right? Yes. Yes, so they will typically

Turn they've changed that from elder which is a bit probably the best chance of translation for it into priests

Which is completely different you have, you know, Peter talking about it So obviously it's not a priest but there's obviously authority there to be able to bless the sacraments and offer it, right?

We didn't believe that there was a trans substantiating moment Like Roman Catholics believe that the priest is the only person that's able to perform this and when he does something or praise over it

It actually turns into the literal body of blood of Christ. Some say that it's when you eat it it turns into it, but Obviously we believe that there is an aspect of priesthood of all believers

But there's also an aspect in which there is authority just like priests had authority within the camp of Israel We believe likewise elders have authority within our church and there's specific qualifications for them and there's also specific duties for them, right?

What are they to do right you see, you know acts I think six talks about the office of deacon What is what is it about right?

And so that might not answer it specifically There's a lot of study on this, but I think we would not say that There they don't have any authority to be able to bless sacraments

But I will say that there is authority within the church that's given by that But I would say that they don't there there's that they still don't have a they don't have a special access to God Like like, you know priests typically had in the

Old Testament that you know me as the lady had to go through too So yeah, that's that's at least kind of what I'm trying to separate from.

Did you have something to press in on that? Maybe that you maybe I'm not made an answer there. No, I'm Just curious, it's super cool to learn about Yeah Okay, can you like treat us things before we leave

Can you like maybe like better testimony together make a prayer and take a picture together?

You totally take a picture Although I bet Jacob is now regretting the fact that he didn't wear one of his onesies today

It's just funny Yeah Yeah, go for it, yeah you guys go ahead

Okay Good leaves and he loves us And that he sent

Jesus Christ for saving us And that through Jesus Christ and through his gospel and everything that he did for us.

We can be safe But we are safe And I know that as we like share it and Thank you

Yeah, I'd like to share as well for me like as I have come to know Jesus Christ I as actually the last time

I read the New Testament. I came to know of His love But also of how much he demands of us, you know, he says like leave your nets.

Follow me Yeah, the dead bury their dead and come follow me basically And so I had that experience where I realized he loves me so much and that's why he asks

So much of me in this life to follow him to follow the commandments of God to have so much faith

But I know that that that piece comes through Jesus Christ through following his teachings even when we're persecuted by the world sometimes even when the world gets more polarized and and A lot of people look down on on religion.

I still I still know it's true I know Jesus Christ is my personal Savior and I Loved getting to know both of you and your testimonies

You guys have such a great testimony of grace and that that gift that Jesus Christ gives us

That that we all believe is is the way that we can can get into heaven

I know we differ on a lot of things but But we all believe that it's through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and and I believe we're all brothers

So, thank you both so much for this discussion. Super super cool. Thanks for sharing that So The Bible is better than anything

That there is such a thing as both a false gospel and the true gospel and the true gospel is so much better My prayer

Is that you one day come to know Jesus as he is think about Everything we believe right now and everything that you know right now and look back on it and say things are better so much better than what

I thought back then not that God would take away your

Peace and your comfort that you get in your religion Replace this with true peace deep joy

I'm going through all sorts of suffering and pain, but God is so so so so good

Yeah, I mean I really appreciate you guys are like some of the nicest people I think in general

LDS, you know Or really some of the nicest people ever. Thanks for not slobbing us Thanks for not throwing a drink at us hitting us with your longboard.

But no, I really appreciate you sharing that You know, I obviously at the end of the day, we're gonna differ.

I know you'd consider us brothers We don't believe you know in universalism. And so we believe that some people will be saved but as Jesus Christ, you know

People are gonna be knocking on the door say Lord Lord. We prophesied in your name, but he will say I never knew you So, you know, I I hope and pray that you come to know because I believe we believe in a different Christ a different Jesus And a different gospel, so I hope you you know are able to you know

Look back in the Scriptures again read through the New Testament again read through your God's Word again You know and if you want these you can crumple them up in your pocket or something your maybe these are new ones

You got both of them. Okay Do You have any questions we our church is up in South Jordan on the back

We do have contact information if you ever wanted to get in touch with us There's some information there. But um, yeah, thanks for traveling.

What's your name again pray pray together at all? Like would you not do you guys pray ever? So the difficulty that I would have is like she said

So I would want to be on the safe side just say You guys wanna

I'm not gonna stop yet. But at the end of the day, you know, like we don't want to accident We don't want to push you in the wrong direction

Yeah Pray for you you can pray for I know I totally get that so I appreciate you guys hanging out

You guys are the coolest people ever. Yes, please do Normally, we wouldn't want any sort of photographic evidence

You want to take it? All right, let's do it. Oh, yeah. Thank you this dude remind me your name's