Transcription
All right, everybody. Thank you so much for this gathering this evening. We're very much looking forward to a discussion, and our friend Shiloh and LJ, they're going to come and share with us about, uh, the faith of Latter-day Saints. And then we're going to have a time for, uh, some Q&A. Uh, but our brother Andrew, uh, thank you so much for hosting. Uh, and, uh, he's co-host of the podcast Cultish, which many of you have been watching and, and, and love a lot of the work that he does. Um, grateful to get to meet him and, uh, going to, going to chat some this week as we get to work together. Uh, but there's some water in the back, and he gave me some instructions on the bathroom. If anybody needs to go to the bathroom, feel free to, um, uh, exit. And then down this hallway. And there's some doors at the end of the hallway for the restroom. Uh, but I'm gonna open us up with a word of prayer to our Lord, and then Shiloh, you come on up and you share with us what you got, man. Perfect.
Our Father in heaven, you are so righteous and good and faithful to your people. We thank you, Lord, uh, for your steadfast love that, uh, Lord, from eternity, you have loved us and you've purposed us to be in your son and in your church serving you. And I pray, Lord, that this week we would, uh, be able to do just that. So we depend upon your grace and your mercy. Uh, Lord, enable us. Uh, give us wisdom and help us, Lord, to have ears that are attentive and, and hearts to understand, uh, your truth. To the glory of Christ, we pray. Amen. Amen. Come on up, Shiloh.
All right. Thanks, Pastor TJ. And I was gonna ask you guys how your visit's been so far, but so far it's just been a plane and, and traffic, right? So hopefully it gets just better from here. So, but, uh, no, thanks for having me. Thank you for engaging with our faith community and trying to learn about us and talk with us. I appreciate that. So, and, and welcome. So, let's just jump right in. Uh, just to introduce myself, my name is Shiloh. I've been a member of the church, uh, my whole life. Served a two-year mission where I preached the gospel in Texas. And so I love the South. Um, love the evangelical, you know, culture. Uh, I'm not like a philosophy major or theology major, but I have a small YouTube channel called Gray Area Faith where I talk about, uh, faith and, and theology and the church and some of the controversies around the church. And then I want to intro and then LJ, uh, he will be joining me later. He also runs a small YouTube channel and focuses more on like the philosophy of religion, I'd say. And so he'll be jumping up here doing the Q&A portion. Uh, what else? Uh, TJ just kind of gave me, uh, a list of things that might be interesting to talk about. So those, those will be the church history. How did the LDS church come to be? Maybe what are our unique truth claims? Um, church structure and priesthood, the Book of Mormon, uh, the purpose of life in our perspective, God's plan for us, our soteriology, and then I should also have our view of scripture up there. I hope that caught most of what we were talking about. Um, and then, uh, let's see. Whenever, uh, whenever I'm trying to pull from, from doctrine, authoritative sources, if during the Q&A we get into things that might be opinion or more speculative, I'll always try to distinguish when we're talking about something that might be more speculative or opinion in nature. So, and then one thing I want to practice with you guys, just to keep things light. Sometimes I'll say things that might be considered heresy. And so then I'll go, one, two, three, and then we all say, heresy. All right, you guys ready? Practice with me. One, two, three. Heresy. There we go. Okay, let's jump right in.
So, let's start out on some common ground. Uh, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, uh, we love Jesus. And it is because of Jesus that I'm forgiven of my sins and that I have the weight of sin lifted off of me. And here are some verses from the Book of Mormon that just talk about the important role of Jesus to us. Mosaiah 3:17. And moreover, I say unto you, that there shall be no other name given, nor any other way, nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men, only in and through the name of Christ. Um, beautiful. 2 Nephi 10:24. Remember after ye are reconciled to God, that it is only in and through the grace of God that ye are saved. So these are from our unique book of scripture, the Book of Mormon. Um, so although we, uh, you know, there's that question, are Mormons Christian? Uh, if, if you define Christian by belief in the Trinity, no, we're not. That's okay. We're not offended. It's all right. But we certainly believe in Christ and try to follow the teachings of Christ as taught in the New Testament and the Gospels and whatnot. So, uh, why is the, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, why are we kind of broken off from the mainstream? What makes us different? Well, we're going to rewind, you know, 2,000 years to when Jesus Christ set up the original church, and we're going to look at what that church looked like. So, here's two verses, uh, from the New Testament. And by the way, if, unless I specify other words, I'm using the King James version. Uh, so Ephesians 2:20, uh, this is describing the church, the body of Christ. Uh, and are built upon the foundation of apostles and prophets, Jesus himself, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. So we had a structure of the church where, of course, Jesus is the foundation of our faith. And then we had apostles and prophets to lead and guide the church. Correct false doctrine, etc., etc. Philippians 2:2. Then make my joy complete by being likeminded. This is Paul speaking to the saints. Uh, you by being likeminded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. So, they were united in one doctrine, one baptism. They were of one mind, uh, in love. So, some descriptors of the early church.
So, here's where we're going to start getting controversial. And you'll notice my wolf in sheep's clothing picture up there. I thought it was funny. So, um, so we're going to talk about the apostasy, which in summary is, we believe the church was set up, and then there was a falling away, and the fullness of the gospel was lost and did not continue. Ready? One, two, three. So, here's off the church website and also out of the Gospel Doctrine Student Manual, what we used to teach in the church. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints affirms to the world that after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the subsequent death of his apostles, there was a falling away, an altering or rejecting of his revealed word. And, uh, there's some hints in the Bible that this may be happening, this falling away we're talking about. Acts 20:29. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them. So, there's signs in the New Testament that there were people trying to deceive and pull away and corrupt the doctrines that Jesus and the apostles taught. So, we would believe that after the apostasy occurred, the authority of God to lead the church was lost. That doesn't mean there weren't good people. That doesn't mean there weren't people trying to do what's right, trying to teach the correct doctrines, but there was a loss. Uh, this is maybe some things we would point to as evidence of that loss. Maybe some things we would agree on, uh, is the, some of the things that happened in the Middle Ages or the medieval, um, the medieval period, rather. So things like execution of apostates. Uh, this is William Tyndale, who was executed for translating the Bible into English. Uh, or, and then you would see things like false doctrines that had snuck into the church, such as image veneration or the selling of indulgences. And you guys will look at that and say, "Okay, the church needed reform." Right? That's where Martin Luther and Calvin came in. They say, "There's some things that have been messed up here. There's some things that need to be changed here." And, um, so we appreciate a lot of the work that the reformers did. Uh, we, but we would say that not only did it indicate that some things needed to be reformed, we would take it a step further and say maybe these are indications that the authorized servants of God were no longer leading the church, and that's what allowed some of these things to happen. Some additional things we might point to is continued disunity of the church, even to this day. Uh, what most people would say, but the main mainstream Christianity is united on core doctrine, even if there's, you know, non, uh, even if there's some differences. But I would say there's, I would say there's even differences on core doctrine, such as, does baptism save? That's a very controversial, uh, uh, argument that is happening in the Christian church right now, and it has to do with salvation, right? This, this depends on, or this, uh, has bearing on if you go to heaven or hell. So these are important doctrines that are not always agreed upon. We would point to things like adoption of Greek philosophical ideas about God's nature being pulled into the church. We would say, uh, the fact that there is no scripture is a sign that God's authorized servants were no longer on the earth. If God's authorized servants are on the earth, why are they still not writing scripture? Why do we not have a continuation of scripture to this day? So these are things we would point to. Might be interesting to talk about in the Q&A further. I know you guys might have some thoughts on that. Um, and then we would point to a repeating cycle where there are times when there's an apostasy, a falling away of God's authority, like let's say before Jesus, right? The Jews had fallen into an apostasy, and Jesus came and restored the truth, reestablished his church, and corrected false doctrine, and new scripture began to be written. Before Jesus, there were hundreds of years where scripture was not written. Uh, why is that? It's because they were in an apostasy. There was not authorized servants. So, moving right along. Feel free to write down questions, by the way. Happy to come back to any of this.
So, all right. So, let's fast forward, uh, 1,800 years to, uh, this man, Joseph Smith. This is in the, uh, 1800s. Uh, Joseph Smith was born in Vermont in the year 1805. Uh, let's set the, let's set the backdrop a little bit. This was in a new nation with religious freedom, thanks to the work of the reformers and others. We were in America where there was no state-mandated religion. You had freedom of religion, and we would see these as preparatory things that the Lord had put in place to make a, a stage where he could restore the fullness of the truth. So we were in this new nation with religious freedom, again, thank you Protestants. Uh, we were in, and then Joseph Smith, his, his family setting. He was in a hardworking farming family and, and happy family that loved each other, but a family wrought with religious confusion and, and some tragedy. Joseph Smith, at a fairly young age, lost a brother named Alvin. And, uh, it, it tore his family up, and a pastor, a local pastor told the family that because Alvin had not been baptized, he was, he would suffer in hell for eternity. And it, it caused a faith crisis amongst the whole family as they thought, is this true? If so, how do we prevent this for the rest of us? What is the truth? What should we be doing? And it weighed on Joseph Smith's soul and sent him on a journey of trying to find what the truth was. So that's the setting. Joseph Smith wanted to know which church to join because he was concerned about his salvation. So one day he was reading in the Bible and he read James 1:5. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it, it shall be given him. And he, uh, went out to the forest and knelt down to pray and asked Heavenly Father, uh, what church should I join? And he describes an experience where he saw, uh, God the Father and Jesus Christ, two separate beings. Ready? One, two, three. Heresy. But, uh, he was, he, he is, he describes an experience in which he is told not to join any of the churches at this time, but that he would be the instrument in restoring the fullness of the truth, and God would, uh, restore his authority to the earth and call servants again, prophets and apostles, and giving new scripture and all these things like what happened in the, in the days of old.
So, uh, uh, Pastor TJ, this slide's for you because you were interested in the restoration of, um, Old Testament priesthoods and whatnot. And honestly, I'm not an expert on that. So here's kind of the basic rundown from what I understand. So, uh, we talked about this authority being lost. Uh, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, a friend of Oliver Cowdery was a friend of Joseph Smith and someone who was very involved in all of this. They describe an experience where they were visited by the, the resurrected Peter, James, and John, the apostles of Jesus's day, and they laid their hands on Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery's head and conferred upon them the priesthood of God. So gave them authority to act with the same authority that Peter and James and John were given by Jesus. So this is what they describe. There were, there are two priesthoods in our church today. There's the Aaronic priesthood, obviously named after Aaron. This is would also be the Levitical priesthood, uh, that's described in the Old Testament, or at least that's what we would say it is. And, uh, it gives us certain authorities, we would say, such as, uh, passing the sacrament or communion, the Lord's supper. You do that with the Aaronic priesthood, or, or baptizing. And so this is, we would say, this is a preparatory priesthood for a later priesthood called the Melchizedek priesthood, named after the great high priest Melchizedek in Abraham's day. And this is a higher priesthood that, uh, you have authority to do certain things, such as, uh, bless babies or, uh, give blessings of healing to the sick, uh, things like that. So, and then we would say that the priesthood is how all governance in the church happens. So a bishop, which is basically like a pastor to us, a bishop oversees a congregation, is given priesthood authority to receive revelation for those people. So God chooses servants and gives them specific priesthood authority to have revelation and to guide a group. And, um, yeah, so, yeah, that's, that's how I would describe it. We'll move on.
So, Joseph Smith has these miraculous experiences. Well, it gets even crazier, guys. You think I'm crazy so far. Uh, he, he describes an experience where an angel visits him and says there's a record of ancient people who lived in ancient America who knew of Christ and who had prophets that prophesied of a coming Messiah. So this is a record of people that lived before Jesus came, but that knew of Jesus as a coming Messiah. So, this is called, this is what we now know as the Book of Mormon. It was supposedly, the angel said it was written on gold plates and buried. The angel told Joseph Smith where to find it and directed him to go get it and translate it. And that is now what is the Book of Mormon. It tells a story of people who originally they were Jews in, in ancient Israel, and they traveled across the ocean to somewhere in the, uh, Americas. And these people had prophets, like I was saying, that testified of Christ. They testified of a coming Messiah that would perform an atonement to forgive us of our sins so that we could have salvation. Uh, and then the book, the Book of Mormon climaxes with Jesus coming to these people and visiting them after his resurrection. So we would say that Jesus, you know, was in Israel, uh, was crucified, taught, did everything there. And then after he ascended, he visited, uh, at least this group of people as well. Uh, because they were believers in this coming Messiah. And, um, yeah, pretty interesting stuff. Uh, pretty crazy stuff. But if you believe Jesus loves all of his children and maybe wanted to teach people all over the world and teach them about him, then it's not that crazy to think that maybe he was calling prophets to them too and, and visiting them.
So what does the Book of Mormon add to the conversation? Scripture should guide us. It should give us insight on how we should live our lives. It should give us insight in doctrine. What is the Book of Mormon putting forward? Well, here's a couple examples. There's an interesting argument amongst mainstream Christians on, do you baptize, uh, infants? Most Protestants would probably say no. Uh, Catholics and Eastern Orthodox would say yes. Well, the Book of Mormon weighs in on this question. Moroni 8:10 is a prophet of God speaking. He says, "Behold, I say unto you that this thing shall ye teach, repentance and baptism unto those who are accountable and capable of committing sin. Yea. Teach parents that they must repent and be baptized and humble themselves as their little children, and they shall all be saved with their little children." So, the Book of Mormon teaches that children are innocent and incapable of committing sin and already in the graces of God. And baptism should be for those who, uh, are capable of committing sin and understanding these sorts of things. So, like disabled people? Yeah. Yeah. We would put disabled people in the same group of children as children. Yeah. Um, good question. Uh, where were we? So, here's another thing that the Book of Mormon weighs in on. Uh, Adam and Eve. The, the common Christian understanding, to my knowledge, is that generally that was, that was a very bad thing. I'm not sure if you would say not meant to be, but certainly a tragedy. Uh, 2 Nephi 2:22 weighs in on this. And now, behold, if Adam and Eve had not transgressed, he would not, or if Adam had not transgressed, he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the Garden of Eden. And if they, Adam and Eve, would have ha, and they, Adam and Eve, would have had no children. Wherefore, they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery, doing no good, for they knew no sin. So, it's interest. It's pulling in this concept that if we had remained in the Garden of Eden, we would not have been maybe able to experience the fullness of creation, we, uh, and maybe would have not been able to, uh, experience true happiness without experiencing suffering. We would not have been able to experience, you know, true joy, uh, for we knew no misery. So, it's this idea of contrast. We learn by contrast. I would also say it, it, it teaches that it helps us use our agency in the garden. There was only good, no evil, right? Sin had not entered. But, uh, part of God's plan is that we can choose good and evil for ourselves. But how do you choose between good and evil if there is no evil? You have to have the choice. So although the fall of Adam and Eve was a sin, it did introduce, uh, sin into the world and death and all these horrible things, we would say that it was part of God's plan and, uh, for his, for the ultimate best purposes. So, interesting doctrines by, uh, from the Book of Mormon.
Um, I have a snip here. I don't have internet, so I can't play it, but it's of, of South Park. Has anyone seen the South Park Mormon episode? Let's hear a. Okay. It's kind of funny, right? Dum dum dum dum dum. So, uh, it's the, the, the claim in the South Park episode is, okay, Joseph Smith had these plates, and then no one ever saw them, and then they were taken up to heaven, and now no one can see them, and we just have to believe they were there. Awful convenient. And, uh, I understand where people are coming from there. It would be awesome if we had the gold plates. Uh, but did no one ever see the gold plates? Are, is this just a wild story that Joseph Smith told us? Well, sorry. This, for some reason, this slide never goes through when I don't have internet. I have to come in manually. There we go. Well, actually, a lot of people did see the gold plates. At the start of any Book of Mormon, which, by the way, you can download a copy of the Book of Mormon for free on the app store. It's the first few pages, you have these testimonies of people that saw the Book of Mormon. So you have this testimony of the eight witnesses. These were eight people who Joseph Smith showed the plates to, and they talk about how they passed around the plates, the golden plates, and they, they turned the pages, and it felt like metal, and, and they held them in their hands and saw them with their eyes. And then you have the testimony of the three witnesses, uh, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris. And they describe that they went out into the forest and prayed for a heavenly testimony to be given to them that the Book of Mormon is true and the word of God. And they describe in this, again, anyone can go read it. They, uh, describe that an angel appeared to them and showed them the gold plates, that they were able to see them and have this experience as well. Uh, there were other people that saw, and then they signed this document that is now included in every copy of the Book of Mormon. There were other people that saw the golden plates as well. Uh, my favorite story, uh, of these is Mary Whitmer. So she was hosting Joseph Smith, uh, and some of the people that were helping with the translation of the Book of Mormon at her home. And she was cooking for them and cleaning for them, and she was exhausted, and she was frustrated because this had been going on a very long time, and she was just worn out. And she describes praying and, and having an angel appear to her and show her these golden plates and saying, "Mary, you have been so faithful and so diligent in your help, uh, of this great work that you deserve a testimony." And she describes, uh, seeing the golden plates. So, really interesting there. There's other stories like that. Uh, so why does the, why does the Book of Mormon matter? Well, we would point to the Book of Mormon as evidence for a couple things. First of all, if the Book of Mormon is true, Jesus is Lord. That's amazing. Jesus died, and, uh, Jesus died on the cross for us, and we, and we can be forgiven of our sins. Uh, if the Book of Mormon is true, the Bible is true, because the bi, the Book of Mormon affirms the message of the Bible. Uh, if, and then, uh, if the Book of Mormon is true, Joseph Smith was a true prophet, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is his restored church on earth, because, uh, the Lord God would not give true scripture to a false prophet or a false church. So that's why we, uh, think the Book of Mormon is very important.
All right. Now, we're going to kind of jump into some, some doctrinal stuff, some, uh, differences maybe between classical Christian ideas and, uh, LDS ideas. Uh, the nature of God and man. So, I'm quoting here from the Westminster Confession of Faith, which I think is authoritative, uh, to some extent on what most mainstream Christians would believe, most mainstream Protestants at least. It says, uh, we believe in a God without body parts or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible. So we would, uh, reject almost every one of those down the line. We believe that God does have a glorified body, not like ours, but a glorified body, similar to how we might see Jesus's body. Now, um, his resurrected glorified body, uh, God without parts, that's obviously referring to divine simplicity. We reject divine simplicity. Uh, a God without passions, we believe God is very passionate. Uh, we would say we see that in the scriptures, he's jealous, he's, uh, loving, caring, all these things. I know you guys would nuance that out a little bit, um, that's worth further conversation. Um, immense or immutable, which means unchanging. We believe God does change in some ways. Not in his goodness, not in his morality, but God does change in some ways. Uh, for instance, he forgives us. That's a change in God where one moment we were under condemnation with him, and now we are under his mercy and his forgiveness. So we would see that as a change in God. Again, I would know these would be worth conversing, uh, talking about further and parsing out. Um, uh, eternal, we have you there. God's eternal. So, we got one thing. Um, incomprehensible. He's in, we would say he's, there's some things that are incomprehensible, but we would also say we can know God very intimately and maybe even know a lot about his nature. So, uh, for all of those differences, let's give one, two, three. Heresy. Um, we would point to verses such as these in the Bible that would say that man and God are closer in ontology, in nature, than we might imagine. So we'd point to Genesis 1:27. So God created mankind in his own image. And again, I know there are different ways to parse that out, what that means, but we would say God, that means to us, God created us to be like him, or he created us like him in certain ways. We would point to verses like Romans 8:17. This is Paul speaking. And if, uh, about our nature, the nature at least of those who are in Christ. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. So we would see ourselves as heirs to adopting all that God is. We would say that we are seeking to become like God. And again, that's one, two, three. Heresy. But we find it to be a beautiful doctrine that that God is all-loving. We have a little bit of love, but God is growing us in our love so that we can also become all-loving like him, or he has all knowledge. We have some knowledge, but he's giving us further knowledge so we can have all knowledge like him. So he's, we see this as a path to grow like him, and him teaching us and helping us to become and take on more of his attributes is how we would see a lot of this.
Okay. So, let's jump into God's plan for us. This kind of ties into what we were talking about and, uh, kind of, uh, God's process to help us become more like him and to come back and live with him and be in this divine unity with him. Uh, how does that happen? Well, we would say that even before this world, even before we came here to live on earth, this had already begun. We would say that the spirit part of us existed before we ever came to this world. So before we were born, our spirit was with God, and then that spirit came to be on earth to be tested. Like we talked about earlier, right? This life is a time of testing. There's good and evil because of the fall, and it's a time to choose. Well, in God's presence, it's kind of hard to choose evil. So he had to, there, there's, so he's sending us to this earth where good and evil are very prominent, and we're separated from God to some extent. And so we have this real chance, like kids going out on our own, to choose our own way and to choose what we want and to demonstrate our agency. So we went from this premortal life, is what we call it, spirit world, or, yeah, premortal life, to, to our mortal life. And then obviously, we have this, this, uh, this mortal existence, which is full of testing and hardship and all these things. And then again, we, we differentiate ourselves a little bit more. Some people believe in kind of an intermediate period before final judgment. So some people have a concept of that. Uh, we have a concept like this called spirit world. So this is an intermediate period, intermediary period between death and the final resurrection and judgment, where our spirits are, uh, if, if we were righteous in life and accepted Jesus, our spirits are in what we call paradise, a state of peace, a state of rest. And for those that were wicked, did not follow Jesus, they're in a, uh, we would call spirit prison, which is a place of suffering, but it is also a place of growth. So something that would differentiate us a little bit from maybe a mainstream Christian view is we would say that in this spirit world, our souls can undergo further progress, and we can, uh, grow to become even closer to God, and our souls can continue to be cleansed in, uh, preparation for final judgment, where we will be in the full presence of God. So, uh, and we would say for the people that didn't accept the gospel, um, there's, there's kind of this question in mainstream Christianity that different people have different ways of of working with this. But what happens to the people who've never heard of Jesus's name and never had the chance to accept him? Are they destined for hell? Well, what we would say is this spirit world is a chance when they will be taught the gospel and have will have the chance to accept those things and undergo spiritual change at that point. So although this isn't outlined in super detail in the Bible, we Oh, and by the way, and we would even say because we believe in the necessity of baptism for salvation, we would say that they can even accept a baptism in the spirit world, their spirits. They can't be baptized. But people on earth can be baptized in their behalf for them, and they can choose in the spirit world to either accept that baptism and reap the benefits of that baptism or reject that baptism. So when we say baptism for the dead, we're not talking about baptizing dead people. Common, common, uh, misunderstanding there. We're talking about we would be baptized for someone who had passed away, and they have the chance in the spirit world, this intermediary period, to accept it or reject it.
Um, okay. Uh, so let's just talk about some Bible verses that maybe hint at these sorts of things. So this is 1 Peter 3:19, talking about the resurrection of Jesus, uh, after he had been crucified. Well, what was he up to after he was crucified? So we would say after being made alive, Jesus, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits. He made, he went to the imprisoned spirits and made proclamation. Well, what is he proclaiming? Well, he just died and suffered for the world. The, the tradition, such as you would find certain traditions, such as the harrowing of hell in the Catholic tradition, would say that he was going to these spirits and proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, proclaiming salvation through his name. So we would point to verses like this in the Bible and say there's a precedent for people after their death being able to accept the gospel and progress in some way. So, interesting stuff there. Uh, we would, now this verse, this next verse, which mentions baptisms for the dead, is kind of controversial. People, uh, LDS people like to quote it and say, baptisms for the dead, right there. It's a little more complicated than that, but let's look at it. This is 1 Corinthians. This is Paul speaking to the saints at Corinth. He says, and he's talking about, let's lay some context here, actually. So the people of Corinth were doubting the resurrection of the righteous, the bodily resurrection of the righteous. So, uh, and Paul was pushing back on that, and he said, "Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf?" So he's pointing out that there's this practice that is going on in the saints of Corinth where people are being baptized for those that have passed away, those that have died. And he's sure, he doesn't give explicit, um, he doesn't say, yes, keep doing this or something like this. But it's interesting that he mentions it. He doesn't condemn it. And he even uses it to teach a true principle. He says, "You're doing these baptisms for the dead, but you don't even believe in bodily resurrection." Like, why are you being baptized for them, presuming it's a true practice, uh, if you don't even believe they will be raised? So, it's an interesting thing there. And we would point to verses like this to say there's some precedent for these beliefs in the Bible. Although we do rely on our, the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants to fully expound on these kind of teachings.
Um, okay. So, now we get to judgment. And there should be one down here called spirit world, or, uh, called outer darkness, which is kind of the LDS view of hell. We just don't believe very many people go there. So we would believe that after the spirit world, after final judgment, it's not just, uh, uh, heaven or hell, there's some nuance there. We would say that there's a celestial kingdom, a terrestrial kingdom, and a telestial kingdom that you can go to, depending on your, uh, your loyalty and allegiance to Jesus, depending on your righteousness and other things. So, um, and then I would, Christians kind of think this is crazy. They say, "I've only ever been taught heaven and hell, right?" Well, let's look at some Bible verses that maybe teach a similar concept, if not the same. There's a pretty common understanding in mainstream Christianity that our works do maybe give us rewards in heaven, right? There's this idea that, um, our righteous works will give us greater, um, greater rewards, more crowns in our, or more jewels in our crown, is sometimes how it's, uh, portrayed. Let's look at a verse that kind of gives this idea. Matthew 6:20. This is Jesus speaking. The context is the Sermon on the Mount, and he's talking about people who, he's talking about how we shouldn't do works to boast, but we should do works to, uh, increase our relationship with Jesus. We should pray in our closet. We shouldn't pray on the street corner. We should, uh, you know, pray in our closet where people don't see us. So the context is is works. And he says, "But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moths and vermin do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal." The context being these, these righteous works that we do will have rewards in heaven. So heaven for some people might be more rewarding for, uh, might be more rewarding than for other people. Uh, similar other verses. And the sea gave up the dead which, oh, this is Revelation, uh, 20:13, obviously talking about the end times, and the resurrection, final judgment. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it. And death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them. And they were judged every man according to their works. So our works have, have something to do with our judgment. Um, so even if you guys don't have the celestial, terrestrial, celestial kingdom, I would say it's well-established within the Bible that our, that our actions in life, the manner in which we live our life will affect our reward in heaven. So then maybe just take that a step further, we parse that out a little bit into these three kingdoms. But we would say that the fundamental groundwork is there in the Bible.
Okay, moving on to soteriology. So, we've learned about kind of God's plan for us, God's nature, history of the church. Now, we're going on to soteriology, which is the study of salvation. How are we saved? And, uh, we would say that what we call the gospel of Jesus Christ, or the, the, the laws and ordinances of the gospel of Jesus Christ, would be first, faith in Jesus Christ. Second, repentance, baptism, or making and keeping covenants. We see baptism as a covenant with God where we're promising to live a new life. Um, and then we would say enduring to the end. So these are the things that, that we must do to fully, uh, experience God's, um, power, his forgiveness. Forgiveness is, is there all through this process. Um, his help is there all through this process. But we'd say this is the formula, if you wish, to, that God has given us to, um, fully accept the atonement of Jesus into our life. And I just put some Bible verses there that have strong language tying salvation to each of those things. So, for instance, enduring to the end, that's kind of one that I see to be unique. Well, I guess if you don't believe in eternal security, you would say enduring to the end's important, but enduring to the end. Matthew 24:13. But the one who stands firm to the end will be saved, right? Repentance. Repent therefore and turn back that your sins may be blotted out. So it's putting repentance as a condition to have our sins washed away. Now, obviously, we'll never be fully repented. Repenting is a daily process, but it's something we must be doing continually to experience what, uh, what Luke, or what, uh, Acts is talking about, that our sins may be blotted out. So we're moving on.
Um, so sometimes when people see that, they say, "Okay, well, that's a lot of things that we have to do." But salvation is Jesus's work, right? And you just talked about baptism. We have to choose to have faith, endure to the end. Well, what's Jesus's role in this? Well, we would say this. This is, uh, Elder D. Todd Christofferson. So we have a quorum of the Twelve Apostles that we, similar to how the, we had, you know, there's 12 apostles in Jesus's time. We say we have 12 apostles today. This is one of the modern living 12 apostles. And he describes Jesus's role through this process as this: "We do not need to achieve some minimum level of capacity or goodness before God will help. Divine aid can be ours every hour of every day. No matter where we are in the path of obedience." So, a lot of people, even in my own church, and I wish we could get away from this, would see that forgiveness is something that comes after we've completely finished repenting. We've cleansed ourselves of all sin, and then we get God's forgiveness. I would push back at this and use quotes like this that say Jesus's help is every step of the way. So it's a very synergistic, uh, process where we are submitting ourselves to the Lord continually, and he's entering into our lives and giving us grace and forgiveness as we continue to, uh, move towards him with our hearts and actions. So, um, our, just wrapping up some loose ends, some things we wanted to talk about, our view on scripture and revelation. So I think most Christians would affirm that the Bible is the infallible, uh, the sole infallible word of faith. It's perfect. Um, we would say that, uh, God communicates to his prophets authoritatively, and they write scriptures, and it is inspired of God. So we would affirm 2 Timothy 3:16. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. So we would affirm all that it's given by inspiration. Uh, does that mean it's perfect? Because it is God. God is perfect. God is communicating through an imperfect vessel. And so we would say that sometimes there can be things like opinion put into scripture. God's communicating perfectly, but, uh, but that, that, um, imperfect vessel doesn't always communicate that perfect revelation perfectly. So, so we would not believe in the Bible as the infallible sole, uh, or the sole infallible rule of faith. One, two, three. Heresy. But, uh, obvious, but we do believe it's inspired. But would we say our own books of scripture are infallible? Well, let me read you, uh, the title page of our Book of Mormon says this: "And now if there are faults, they are the mistakes of men." So we would say even in the Book of Mormon, there could be faults as the mistakes of men. We would see the, the revelation given to the prophets. Well, they, we believe those prophets were given revelation the same way you guys are given revelation. So when you pray, when you're asking for truth, when you're asking for guidance, what is that process of receiving revelation? Well, maybe a voice to your heart, maybe you've had words come to your mind, maybe you've read something in the scriptures that inspires you and gives you direction. We would say that's a very similar process to what was happening to the prophets. Obviously, they're maybe on a higher level and more in tune with Christ. So they're going to be more, uh, more authoritative, and they're also given authority to give direction over the whole church. We're not right. We don't have that authority. They, they do. So scriptures are something higher, but wouldn't say something that's completely infallible. So there we have that.
Uh, this is my last slide. Just something I love. The Book of Mormon is a symbol. So let's go over some things about the Book of Mormon. It had 12 witnesses, right? We had the earlier, I talked about the eight witnesses. I talked about the three witnesses. So that brings us to 11 and Joseph Smith. There were 12 official witnesses of the Book of Mormon. There was a special witness named Mary Whitmer, who we talked about. Uh, the, the Book of Mormon was brought out of a stone box by a, by Joseph Smith. The Book of Mormon was buried in the ground a long time ago. It was raised up to spread the message of salvation through Christ, and then it was taken up into heaven. Well, this is really interesting. Jesus Christ had 12 special witnesses of his resurrection. Jesus Christ had a special witness named Mary, Mary Magdalene. Jesus Christ was, uh, put into a stone box by a, Joseph Smith, a stone box, stone tomb. He was put into a stone tomb by Joseph of Arimathea. He was buried in the ground, raised up again to teach the message of salvation through Christ, and then he was taken up into heaven. So these are all, do we say these are all just conveniences? We can just write these off. Well, I would say that, that the Book of Mormon is a symbol of the resurrection of Jesus, and that Jesus has done a work in these latter days to increase faith in him, to show them miracles still happen. And that miracle is, is the Book of Mormon, which is a, a Christ-centered book that testifies of him. And in my own life, I went through a, a period of agnosticism where I was very close to atheism and, and didn't really believe for a while. And it was a lot because of the witness of the Book of Mormon that brought me back to belief in Jesus. And, uh, I'm largely, uh, I largely believe the Bible today because of these really interesting, uh, doctrines taught in the Book of Mormon and the arguments and, and this miracle that is the Book of Mormon has brought me from non-belief to belief to believing the Bible. So, um, yeah, that's it. Uh, thank you, guys. Uh, let's open it up to questions. Yeah, fantastic. Great. Can we give him a hand?