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Thanks for joining us again on Ask the Expert.
I'm Phillip Vanwinkle and with us on today's show
is my good friend Nathan Franson.
Good to have you with us.
Thank you.
Nathan is our expert as we continue to talk
about Mormonism.
We've had many great shows. We invite you to go back
and watch those again and again if you have any Mormon friends.
Today's show is really gonna help us out in a number of ways.
We're going to be asking some questions, to the Mormons.
Things, as perhaps as they come to your door,
if I'm understanding right,
you can ask them to help them go to heaven.
Well, it will give us a good understanding
and hopefully challenge them.
Right.
And give them things to think about.
Well, we said before we're not trying to condemn a person.
Right.
We looked at doctrines already.
We talked about the authenticity,
or the lack thereof, of their sacred books.
We've seen a lot of those things.
On this show we want to ask the question,
what would I say if a Mormon were to come to my door?
What questions could I pose to at least make him think?
Because we dont want him to just be off and be lost.
We want him to be saved too but we want to do it in a way
that we dont turn him away straight off, right?
Exactly.
So go ahead and lead us then.
What would you say since you are,
well I won't say a recovering Mormon,
but you used to be a Mormon?
So, what would you say having the background you have,
what would you ask?
For those who aren't familiar with Mormonism,
we need to realize that most in the Mormon faith
are sincere people.
Try to put yourself in those shoes.
If you're going up to someone for the first time,
engaging them in a conversation and discussion
about a particular subject or particular faith,
think about how you would want to be treated and the discretion
you would use according to that.
They want to know the truth,
they want to understand the truth, all of us do.
So what we want to do, as we've mentioned in the past,
is to find that common ground.
The questions we are going to be looking at today are kind of
preliminary questions or early questions before we get into
all the doctrinal matters or the things which can lead
into the doctrinal discussions.
There are questions that, if we knew absolutly nothing else
about the Mormon faith, we did not know where they came from
we did not know what they believe about certain issues,
we could ask based on our first encounter with them.
Now are these questions mostly taken from scripture,
and by scripture I mean the Bible,
or is it just questions in general that people should know,
or have common knowledge of or what?
Not necessarily common knowledge.
This is, again, if you were to have a pair
of Mormon missionaries as it would be,
come up to your door and you knew absolutely nothing else
about the Mormon faith, these are questions that you could
try to engage them with just on that first encounter,
to where you would just first meet them.
Things that you would notice for the very first time
regarding them, and questions you could use
just to kind of set up the discussion, which will hopefully
cascade into something much better and much greater.
A bible study they could be interested in and learn from.
Exactly.
These are questions that could equip us to sit down with them
and, hopefully, encourage them to study.
So let's do it then. So they knock on the door
and what?
Well, the first thing you want to be mindful of is
the tactics that they're going to be using.
Alright.
When they send a pair of Mormon missionaries out
into the United States, or the world for that matter,
one is always going to be more experienced then the other.
Okay.
You're going to have one who's been in the field for months,
sometimes they just have a month or two before they leave,
and one is going to be, normally be, fresh.
Because they're going to kind of have one leading the other,
showing him the ropes and so forth, and that is typically how
they will aproach you with this.
Okay.
We need to realize and acknowledge
we're not going to convert someone overnight.
We're not going to convert them in one discussion.
We're not going to have them going away deciding,
giving up everything they may have been a part of for years.
(Phillip) Right.
But if we can plant that seed of doubt that's all we need to do.
We're called to preach the gospel we're called to
do everything we possibly can and when these men
come to our door, there's no need to be afraid of them.
I think many people are either turned off or intimidated.
They may think these young Mormon men are educated and
will be able to stump them and they certainly do not want that.
For what ever reason, they just kind of
turn a cold shoulder to them.
Right.
They'll slam the door in their faces.
We need to recognize that when we are fulfilling
the great commision, when we're doing the work
of the kingdom, we go public with it.
Right.
We can't just sit back and be dormant about it.
Christ told us to go into the the world and preach the gospel
to every creature. What a great opportunity
this is to have someone fall in our lap like this.
Right.
We did not just go into the world,
we have someone come to us when they come up to our door.
We could really sit down and use this opportunity
to present the gospel.
Well, I think a lot of times, and maybe when I was growing up,
it might be that one reason we shut the door on the Mormons
or we won't give them an opportunity
is really we don't know how to talk to them.
Exactly.
And it's not that we don't care about them.
Probably most Christians you talk to would say,
"Yeah I would love to sit down and talk to a Mormon
but what would I say?"
Exactly.
So I'm hoping that maybe we could cover some ground with
this today.
Well we'll hopefully be able to open some doors and get
people thinking about this.
One of the things you are going to notice they're going to do is
if you present a question to them,
which one may not be able to answer,
the other is likely going to step up
and it's probably going to be the one
who's out in the field more.
The more experienced.
They've seen more questions, they've dealt
with more discussions, more personalities and so forth.
So if you talk to one of them
it's not going to take very long to see
who's been out there for a longer time.
They may answer a question with a question if you talk to
someone who is not going to be able to answer a biblical
question they're going to try and redirect that conversation.
They're coming to you but they're having
the very same intention that we're going to have
sitting down with them.
They want to convert us to Mormonism
just as we want them to the truth.
(Phillip) So they're going to want to control the situation.
(Phillip) They're going to be the one
to want to be in control of the discussion.
Is that what you mean?
They will. I mean, they will allow for questions to be asked
and they do want to open the discussion open the floor
for their talking and that's great, but they will try
to redirect questions if you do not press them on it.
If one is not able to answer a question for you,
don't allow them to move on.
Press them on it and hold them to the question at hand.
Zero in on someone who might be a little bit newer
than the other one, ok?
Do not allow the other one just to speak up and if he tries
to take control of it because the first might not know.
There's nothing wrong with saying,
"Well, what does he say about it?
I want to hear what he says about it."
And you can still be courteous
in doing something like this
and there are different ways to make the most out of this study.
For one we want to be polite about it.
You know, we're going into this
with the same thought process as they are.
They want to be polite because they're interested
in a Bible study as well.
A lot of people go into this, as you said,
and they don't know what to say.
Immediately they become defensive.
They want to debate them, they want to just kinda jump off
what they think they know about Mormonism
and they want to challenge them
and try to push them into a corner.
Well, that's not going to work for anyone.
No one is going to, for one, listen to that.
You'll probably not get a second Bible study out of it
and who can blame them?
They were looking to have a discussion,
not just to have an open debate.
Now there are going to come times
where the doctrine does have
to come to the surface, and that might seem harsh
but that's what truth is going to do.
Truth tears down error.
It's not me that's going to be tearing it down.
We need to allow the authority of the Bible to do that for us.
Well I think you make a good point.
If somebody is going to offend somebody in this scenario,
it needs to be God offending the Mormon, not me.
Because if I offend him, I should apologize,
but if God offends him, God's not going to.
So I think you're right there's a way
that we should handle them when they come.
There's a way to be polite, find the common ground.
We both want to live by truth.
We both want to please God,
and that's the great thing about it.
We both want a source of reliable information
that is going to help us get to heaven, with that.
Other things we can do to really draw out the discussions,
as with any discussion, is to ask open and closed questions
at the right time.
You know, a closed question is a yes or no question
and you're not going to get very far with that,
especially on that first or second encounter with them.
We want to open this up.
We want to leave it interesting to the point
where we want them to come back
so we can keep talking and discussing and opening the Bible
for further study and so forth.
An open question which can't be answered with a yes or no
is what enables us to open up or pushes them to open up.
It challenges them to study and find answers for themselves.
It prevents arguments.
There's a whole number of ways.
Well, a lot of that
is just based on common sense communication.
If you want to be a good communicator,
you don't want to ask yes or no questions all the time.
When you dated or with your spouse or whatever,
you want to have a real communication exchange.
Yes and no questions is not the way to do it.
Exactly, and at the same time, it allows us to see
where they're coming from to see how much they really know.
We don't want to just sit there and lecture to them.
Asking questions is really going to be able
to open that door of communication.
A lot of these questions, some of them are going to be
yes or no questions but some of them -
We want to try to keep stimulating thinking
and hopefully challenge them to sit down and study themselves
so they can study themselves into the truth
so they can respond to the gospel,
because that's our ultimate goal with them.
So let's go to the door then.
Let's go to the door and now the Mormon is coming,
he's knocked on my door and I say, "Hey"
and he said, "Hi I'm somebody from the Mormon church."
Ok. Well, they're going to say, "I'm Elder So-and-So
from the Mormon church" and there's your first one there.
The first thing we see,
other than seeing these young men with black ties
and dark suits or white shirts riding around on bicycles,
is you're going to see their name tags.
That's what they're known for.
People who are not religious at all
know who the missionaries are
when they see them riding their bikes.
Well, that name tag is the very first place
you can go with that.
If you know absolutely nothing else about them,
we can go to that name tag
and hopefully challenge them with something right there.
"Elder So-and-So."
"In the Bible, we can see in 1 Timothy chapter 3,
we can see what the qualifications of an elder are.
And they call it a bishop.
A bishop comes from the Greek word episkopos
which is the office of an elder.
It is an authoritative position.
There are certain qualifications that need to be met with it.
Now a young Mormon missionary is going to know nothing
about what the qualifications are.
They haven't been told, they haven't been taught
what this is.
So our first question could be, just seeing them,
our very first glance at them, our very first meeting:
"Why are you young misionaries,"
and you can direct it at them as well,
"why are you young missionaries referred to as elders?"
When we have in Titus chapter 1 and verse 6,
"If any of you be blameless," refering to an elder,
"the husband of one wife..."
and ask them right there, "Are you married?"
(Phillip) So who's your wife, right?
Exactly.
"Having faithful children, not accused of riot or unruly."
They may meet some of those qualifications
and certainly they will.
They're not going to be guilty of riotous or unruly behavior,
but they need to meet all of the qualifications with scripture.
Who at nineteen years old,
which is the typical age of a Mormon missionary, is going
to be married at that age, much less have faithful children?
Yeah, and faithful, meaning faithful at that point
to that Mormon faith.
Yes, and 1 Timothy 3:2 says, "a bishop (or episkopos )
must then be blameless, the husband of one wife..."
It's reiterated with this:
"vigilant, sober with good behavior" and so on.
So we can ask them, "Are you married?"
If not, "Then why do you consider yourself an elder,
and do you fit these scriptural qualifications?"
Okay, so probably what might he say?
Most of them are going to tell you it's just a title.
It's given to them in the Bible.
We can take them over to where the Bible talks about titles
and about how we should not have titles
and that's a reasonable place to take them.
But they may not know, they may say they want to study this.
I may go back and do this
but the bottom line is, the qualification is what it is.
Okay, so question number one when they come to the door,
your first thing is, you can captalize on the name tag
they are wearing and say, "Okay, so you're Elder John Smith.
"So Mr. John Smith, where are your wife
and faithful children," right?
(Nathan) Exactly.
There's one question we can kind of open it up with.
We don't need to be mean about it, but press it on them.
Ask them why.
And if it is just a title, why are they taking a title
that we see the qualifications
- the biblical qualifications that are authorized by God -
that they do not fit?
Do you really want to put yourself in a position
that is not authorized by God
especially if you want to please God.
You're doing something that would
completely disqualify you from that.
And another question we could ask that is similar to this.
Now remember in the last episode I was talking
about me being a deacon at the age of twelve.
Uh huh.
(Nathan) Okay, we see the qualifications of the deacons in the Bible.
We can ask them,
"Why do you install deacons at twelve years old?
The qualifications of deacons we see in
1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 12,
"Let the deacons be the husband of one wife."
What twelve-year-old do you know is the husband of one wife?
"Ruling their children," so this implies they have children.
What twelve-year-old is going to have children
and be ruling their own house well?
And you can ask them straight up, "Do your children at twelve
have their own children and rule their own homes?"
And they're not going to be, you don't think,
offended by these,
as much as they might not have any answer for it?
Is that what you're saying?
They might not have any answer.
They might try to skip around the answer,
but if you press them on it,
you may get as far as to have them say they will go study
on it and get back to you.
Our objective is to challenge them with this thinking,
but at the same time get them to come back.
We want the answers for this.
We want to make sure they fit everything, biblicaly speaking.
Not what I say, but how do they fit the Bible with this?
So we can ask them with these children.
And another question we could ask them.
Go for it.
And this is a big one.
"Would you follow a doctrine which contradicts the Bible?"
Now we certainly know what Paul wrote to the Galatians
concerning the consequences if anyone disputes that.
"Would you follow a doctrine
which contradicts the Bible?"
Well if you wouldn't, why not?
"And if so, why would you use it if it contradicts the Bible?
"For one thing why would you trust it?
Why use the Bible
if it contradict any other source you have?
(Phillip) So if I ask a Mormon this question here,
would you follow a doctrine that contradicts the Bible,
it almost seems like a lead-in question because the next,
I don't know what your next question is,
but in my mind the next question is then,
"Would you follow a doctrine that contradicts the Bible?"
Well, I'm guessing they would probably say no.
That would be my guess.
I may be wrong in that, but if they said "No,"
I would then need to be prepared to show
where the Bible contradicts Mormon teaching.
Right. Well, that's going to come later.
And what we need to do is hold them to that.
Because if not, then why not?
And ask them, and that's great because they're going
to give us an answer that the Bible is the authority.
They understand that.
So we actually want a yes or no answer on this question.
We're not looking for an open-ended question
as much with this question.
(Nathan) Exactly, and if they say no, ask them why they would not do it.
And then let's hold that aside because we want to
come back to that, and remember,
especially later on, when we're going to deal
with doctrines that are obviously contradictory.
Okay.
This one is sort of similar to the last question.
(Nathan) Does the Bible contain everything to be added
to the Lord's church?
You touched on this in one of the past episodes.
Does it contain everything that is needed to remain faithful?
Well, if the Bible contains everything we need
to be added to the Lord's church,
why do we need the Book of Mormon?
If we do not need the Book of Mormon
to make it to heaven, the Bible contains everything,
as everyone is going to have a copy of the Bible,
why do we need anything else then?
Right. If it contains less than the Bible, it's not enough.
If it contains more than the Bible, it's too much. Right?
It's too much.
(Nathan) If I never heard of the Book of Mormon...
(Phillip) This one is a similar one.
...could I still go to heaven?
Well, if not, what is the point of proxy baptism?
If I could not go to heaven, if I'd never heard
of the book of Mormon, then what's the point of you
being baptized for me after I'm dead if I have no chance?
If I never heard of the Book of Mormon,
I can't get to heaven, then I'm never going to get to heaven.
If so, why would I even need it?
That's actually a very good question.
If you already know about proxy baptism,
because now they're going to be stuck in the horns of a dilemma,
they're going to have to answer this question,
because if you can go to heaven never hearing
of the Book of Mormon, then you don't need it.
Yeah. Why do you need it?
Okay. Very good.
Okay. Here's a big one and this has to do with, again,
the Eighth Article of Faith which states,
"We believe the Bible to be the word of God,
"as far as it is translated correctly. We also believe
the Book of Mormon to be..."
Well if the Bible is not translated correctly then
where is it not translated correctly?
They have the responsibility to show me.
And if it's not translated correctly regarding salvation,
why would you even use it?
Why would you trust it if it's not correct in salvation?
Why would you use a book you do not trust?
Your responsiblity to me in telling me the Bible
is not translated correctly in certain areas,
which they have done...
(Phillip) ...then he needs to tell me where.
(Nathan) You need to tell me where.
Your job is to get me to heaven, the same job I have.
To preach to you the truth to try and get you to heaven.
So if I'm wrong on anything I need to know it.
That's an important point on both parts and that is,
you and I, when we go to talk to someone,
we don't need to just make allegations like this.
If I were to say the Bible isn't translated correctly
or if I were to say to a Mormon it's not translated correctly,
but I don't have anything to support it,
I don't need to say it in the first place.
How successful would our Bible studies be
if we went doorknocking or sat down with someone
to discuss it with them and they called something out
that might be a Bible discrepancy,
if there was one regarding salvation,
and for me to say, "Well, that's just not translated correctly."
We would not get very far at all.
They wouldn't trust it and I wouldn't blame them
for not trusting it.
Well, they come back and say its not translated correctly
on certain things, well where?
The burden of proof lies on you with that.
Why would you use that book in the first place if it's not.
Right.
Alright.
(Nathan) This is one that comes from what Brigham Young stated before.
If man is what God once was, this is pertaining to the
celestial kingdom, being able to aquire the celestial kingdom.
If man is as God once was then who's God's god?
We can take this back as far as we want to go.
What is eternity if there was a beginning?
If God was created, who was the first god?
This is similar to one of the things that,
kind of, lead me out of Mormonism.
One thing with which I studied myself out.
In the Mormon sacrament, which is their version of communion,
and it takes place every Sunday morning, they actually use
bread and water and not fruit of the vine
and unleavened bread, they have a prayer that is said.
The very opening line and first line of this prayer is,
"Oh God the Eternal Father."
And I started thinking about that one day
and reading in other passages, "I am the Alpha and the Omega"
I always have been, I always will be,
and thinking if God is eternal then how in the world
could he have been as man is?
What is eternity if there was a beginning at some point?
It's hard to fathom because we live in a finite timeline.
We live from this point to this point.
Well, God has always existed and always will.
We can't even fathom eternity right now.
But if God was created, then who is His god and who is his god?
That's a very good question.
Now, I'm going to have to stop you
because we're almost out of time.
I want to give you thirty seconds to answer this question.
If a Mormon is watching this show, why should he
stop being a Mormon?
And why should he become a member of the Church of Christ?
Thirty seconds.
Well, first we want to look at the positive aspect of that.
Why be a member of the Church of Christ?
We know that Christ established one church and we see that
in Acts chapter two on the day of Pentecost.
It was the only church.
It was not a denominational church.
We do not see the Mormon church on that day of of Pentecost,
of which He established.
He told Peter, on this day I'm going to build my church.
It fulfilled prophecy.
We see Joel's prophecy fulfilled.
One church that Christ established.
How do I become a member of that church?
And being a member of that church,
it automatically excludes the Mormon church,
the Catholic church, any of the denominations
and religious organizations.
I want to be a member of that church
and see what I need to do to be added to it.
So that's really the basis of why you would want
to be a member of the Church of Christ.
Because it is the only way to salvation.
And it is not the Mormon church that is.
Well, thank you, Nathan, for being a part of this.
Thank you for joining us and we hope you have enjoyed