One of the areas of most disagreement between traditional Christianity and Mormonism is the conflict over grace and works. The divergence in views is complicated by the misrepresentation of both camps of the other’s belief system. Many Christians have complicated the issue by misrepresenting Mormon teaching. Mormons do not teach “works only.” Neither do they ignore the role of grace or faith. These are essential Mormon doctrines. Stephen Robinson states it thusly:
But only at this point, when we finally realize our inability to perfect and save ourselves, when we finally realize our truly desperate situation here in mortality and our need to be saved from it by some outside intervention—only then can we fully appreciate the One who comes to save (Believing Christ, 1992, p. 33).
Okay, I am getting all excited to invite you over to my living room to discuss our observations of Galatians over milk and cookies!
Oh, but wait!
What observations?
Oh, that’s right.
We don’t have any yet.
Well, if you thought I was going to do all the work here, you have another think coming! 
There are a few tools we still need to gather before we start this study:
Bible
Pen or Pencil
Note paper
Colored pencils, highlighters, and/or crayons
Concordance (optional)
Greek Lexicon (optional)
There are also a few ground rules we need to follow. If you plan to participate in this study you will need to refrain from using *any* outside sources that offer interpretations of the text such as commentaries, religious websites or magazines, or Bible studies on the book of Galatians. If you use a study Bible this means refraining from peeking at the notes as much as possible. You can use a concordance for cross referencing and a lexicon for word studies in the original language. If you don’t want to mark your Bible all up with highlighted words and phrases you might consider making a photocopy of the section.
I just saw that Living Hope Ministries is soon to release their new video documentary – The Bible vs. Joseph Smith. I can’t wait to see it!
From the trailer – interview with an LDS member, Greg. He states:
“I guess it could be said that the Bible backs me into a corner”
watch the trailer for the upcoming video by Living Hope Ministries here:
http://mormonchallenge.com/index.html
I can relate to what Greg says! The Bible backs me into a corner too! All the time!
Welcome to the introduction for our new Inductive Bible Study series!
Today we will be reviewing the basic components of the inductive study method for those who might be unfamiliar with this approach. There are lots of different ways to do a great Bible study – word studies, topical studies, devotional studies, etc. but I really like the inductive method because it’s so much fun for me to set aside all my prior ideas and dig into the scriptures to mine out the overarching themes and ideas.
It’s great to learn from people who have studied the Bible much longer than I have and I can gain from their knowledge, but I also want to be like the Bereans who studied the scriptures for themselves to make sure the new revelations they were being taught matched up with the scriptures they already had (Acts 17:11).
God rewards those who set themselves to study His words. I look at the example of Daniel who learned what God was going to do in the future by diligently studying the writings of the prophets (Daniel 9:2). I think of those who were slow to recognize (or who totally missed) the Messiah because of their unbelief in the words of scripture (Luke 24:25-27).
So, what exactly is an Inductive Bible Study?
This is going to be a phenomenal experience! A Bible study on a blog!
Are you up for the challenge?
First of all, I would like to give a few reminders of our common ground and then correct a possible misunderstanding that some of us may or may not have.
Our Common Ground:
1) we both accept the Bible as the Word of God
2) both of us think our beliefs more accurately resemble the beliefs of the original apostles
3) both of us think the Bible backs up our beliefs
Before we begin I would like to address a misunderstanding that has been observed by BYU professor Stephen Robinson in How Wide the Divide. I believe resolving this misunderstanding will reduce the level of our disagreement so that we can have productive and friendly debates related to the interpretation of the Biblical texts.
In my last post I mentioned that I had been considering a new blog name. After giving this some thought and prayer and discussion, I have decided to leave the primary name the same. I truly do love Mormons and that is why I created the blog in the first place. If I didn’t love Mormons I can think of at least a hundred other ways I would rather spend my time.
I have decided, however, to change the subtitle from “respectful conversations” to “friendly debates.” In striving for complete honesty, I believe this subtitle more accurately reflects the kinds of discussions that occur here. We are not having conversations in the sense of ecumenical dialogue. Though we try to maintain a variety in the subjects of our posts, when we challenge the truth claims of Mormonism debate inevitably ensues. We do not desire to strive and argue, but we do seek to “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 1:3).
The comment policy has also been updated to describe what we envision for a friendly debate. See the comment policy under “What is a Friendly Debate?” on the top right-hand side of the blog next to the Home and About Us pages.
Stay tuned for some upcoming friendly debates!
If you are anything like me you may find that you often know things with your head, but don’t always experience them with your heart. It is difficult for me to envision a God that created the universe that also personally cares for me. I know that when Christ died on the cross, He died for me. But even though I believe this to be true, there is a part of me that is disconnected from that truth. Was He really thinking of me when He died? In the middle of an agonizing crucifixion and suffering the torment of being forsaken by the Father, was He really thinking of me? I represent just one soul that is alive today on a planet embittered by war, famine, heartache, homelessness, poverty, and abandonment. My generation is just one of many which have gone before. Lives have begun and vanished. Doubtless billions of people have considered the very same thought that they are just one drop in an ocean of humanity. From a telescope my vision and importance become even smaller. I am just one among billions and our planet is infinitely insignificant in comparison to the entire cosmos.
I mentioned on a previous post that I had grown weary of the debates I’ve encountered on the blogosphere. I’d like to share a little bit more about my introduction to the blogosphere and my experiences while residing here (albeit quite sporadically of late).
I didn’t grow up typing on a computer; we didn’t even own one until I was about twelve and it was one of those old Commodore 64’s that looked something like this museum exhibit. The DOS-based system was so confusing I couldn’t figure out how to operate most of the programs it boasted of. My relationship with technology has been somewhat sketchy ever since. I have a cell phone and digital camera that I know the basic rules of operation for and I’ve recently mastered the ability to change the cable between the TV and the DVD player, but I don’t rush to purchase the latest model of anything and I have a reputation among those who know me of being a little bit behind the technological times.
I ran across this You Tube and thought it would be relevant to post here. This is Dr. Michael Brown, a Jewish believer in Jesus Christ and founder of ICN Ministries (RealMessiah.com), responding to the Jewish objection that worship of Jesus amounts to idolatry. Brown uses the Hebrew Tanach to show how the complex plural-unity of God was revealed prior to the New Testament. I’ve seen LDS bloggers say the doctrine of the Trinity cannot be derived from the Old Testament alone. While I agree, there are certainly clues in there… and Michael Brown does an excellent job of detailing them.
At the risk of overstating the obvious, I’ve been taking a significant break from Mormon research and blogging lately. I’m continuing to grow in my understanding of my own personal weaknesses, one being the tendency to become intensely passionate about a topic to the exclusion of all else until I am so burned out on that topic that I never want to have anything to do with it again. I almost shut down the blog entirely near the end of last summer, but then decided to keep it up and only contribute on a more occasional basis. I still enjoy the people in the blogosphere, but have grown weary of the topics and frustrated with the debates. I’m also well aware of my own need for improvement in being an effective ambassador to those of other faiths and my break from blogging has been allowing me more time for personal reflection and study. I hope you have been enjoying Stephanie’s posts as much as I have.
In other news, I have been fascinated with the evolution controversy lately and am probably going to burn myself out on this topic as well. I have recently learned that Western scientists who are married to Darwinian theory have apparently lost some credibility with scientists in the East and have been accused of adopting evolution as a religion. The controversy revolves around the increasing fossil evidence surfacing in China that there are no precurser transitional forms for the fossils in the Cambrian explosion. These discoveries in China are causing one of the world’s leading researchers of the Cambrian explosion (J. Y. Chen, paleontologist at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology) to turn Darwin’s Tree of Life upside down. In the clip I just linked to, Zhou Qui Gin, a senior research fellow at Chengjiang, states her conclusion simply: “I do not believe that animals developed gradually from the bottom up. I think the animals suddenly appeared.”
During the early polygamist period of Nauvoo, members of the Church were strictly secretive about the practice of plural marriage. Although Joseph Smith himself was married to more than 30 women, Emma would adamantly deny that he ever started the principle of celestial marriage. But the reality was that her relief society friends and acquaintances had been engaging in plural marriage to her husband for years in front of her face and behind her back. No doubt most of the prominent members of Nauvoo would have been aware of the practice, even as they continued to deny it to outsiders. George D. Smith articulates the problem in his book Nauvoo Polygamy.
Even pioneer families in Utah looked back on the Nauvoo period with a degree of confusion, unable to state with precision “some cause or other” for their expulsion. Nevertheless, if one had asked what people knew about plural marriage from 1846 on, almost all Mormons who had been in Nauvoo would have known about it, even while they continued to deny it to “gentiles.” European Mormons were a different matter. They would have scarcely believed the rumors (2008, p. 444).
Mormon missionaries had been sent across the Atlantic as early as 1837 and had started a growing work in England. In fact, according to Church records, 100,000 converts emigrated to Utah prior to the turn of the twentieth century. British emigrants made up almost half of the population of Utah by 1870.
John D. Lee is one of the more interesting characters of LDS history. To his detractors he was the malevolent leader of the Mountain Meadows Massacre; to his devotees he was nothing but a scapegoat vilified by Brigham Young, who excommunicated Lee for his management of the tragedy. But Lee was a much more complex figure whose private life was as fascinating as his public persona.
The year Joseph Smith was killed by a mob in Carthage Illinois, a baby named Mary Ann was born to John and Marcy Williams. The Williams had joined the LDS movement early in its history—most likely during the Nauvoo period. They later joined the westward headed wagon trains to Utah. They were not the most prominent of Mormon families, but Mary Ann would marry John D. Lee, one of the most prominent leaders of the early church. Lee describes the event in his diary: “In 1856 I was married to my sixteenth wife, Mary Ann Williams.” In total, Lee was married to 19 women but, as he explains, he viewed the total number as eighteen only.
The last wife I got was Ann Gorge. Brigham Young gave her to me, and I was sealed to her in Salt Lake City by Heber C. Kimball. This was my nineteenth, but, as I was married to old Mrs. Woolsey [his fifth wife] for her soul’s sake, and she was near 60 years old when I married her, I never considered her really as a wife. True, I treated her well and gave her all the rights of marriage. Still I never count her as one of my wives. That is the reason that I claim only eighteen true wives.
I just finished watching Gary Habermas’s lecture on Near Death Experiences (NDEs). As an expert on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Habermas also has extensively studied the phenomenon of NDEs and has written the book Beyond Death: Exploring the Evidence for Immortality.
I believe it is normal for people of every faith to occasionally wonder, “What if everything that I believe is false?” It is a question with which every honest person needs to wrestle. After all, there are as many paradigms of the world as there are people. What kind of arrogance would presume that my view is correct, simply because I think it is?
Near Death Experiences deliver a critical blow to the idea that life ends after death. In his research, Gary Habermas cites studies showing that eight million Americans have had NDEs. While some of these experiences are reports of “seeing a light” or “going into a tunnel,” others are much different. There have been multiple cases published in peer-reviewed medical journals of patients who have reported the events surrounding their death–including remembering who was in the ER room, what was said during CPR, what the equipment looked like in the room, how the room was arranged, etc. Unlike the stories of people who reported “going towards the light,” these are details that can be verified. Of more interest, Habermas reports a study of NDEs in people born blind. These individuals were able to report physical descriptions of their physicians and nurses, although they never were able to see either before or after their NDE.
I went to see a presentation of Handel’s Messiah tonight. I had gone last year and was so moved that I wanted to go again this year. I love music and Christmas and worship of the Savior. The only thing that is a bummer about going to a formal presentation like this is that it doesn’t feel very appropriate to express my worship how I would like. The music and words are so powerful that several times I wanted to raise my hands, or fall on my face, or dance. I saw some judgmental looks, though, when a cell phone went off during the pause right before the Hallelujah chorus (and, yes, I admit I was surprised by the cell phone too and joined in with some of the “looks”!) :) So, when the Hallelujah chorus started and I wanted to raise my hands I didn’t really want to have any of those “looks” directed my way! We were in a church so, on the one hand, it seemed like I should feel free to worship as I would at church. But I was in a church building I had never been in before, surrounded by strangers that were there to see an opera, not necessarily to worship the Messiah (although I’m sure many were there to worship, but they were doing it in a more formal way). So, even though I restrained myself tonight (for fear of being despised like David), it was kind of fun to imagine how others might react if I shook up the stoic setting a bit.
During and after the concert I was thinking about the impact that Handel has had on so many people by creating this magnificent oratorio that sings the words of the gospel, blending Old Testament prophecies and New Testament promises in such a powerful way, appealing to the mind and heart. Over 268 years after it was written, his musical masterpiece continues to be one of the most popular works in Western choral literature (according to the ever-trusty Wikipedia).
The alto soloist for tonight’s performance was a BYU grad. She had a lovely voice.
