Think Wink.

Today I had an appointment with some more LDS missionaries. We went to McDonalds for some fastfood and to discuss our theological differences. You know, I always feel weird asking God to bless that stuff we call fast-food, but then again it reminds me that I have to believe in miracles to even ask. My good friend Shane Griffin gave me a very good book to read, Letters to a Mormon Elder by one of my favorite teachers/scholars James White. They came on last Tuesday to speak with me and I didn’t have the time last week. Shane gave me to book on Thursday, but I was busy all weekend. Friday and Saturday I was in Lee’s Summit with my Uncle Dwight. Sunday I was at Union Station here in KC, MO to see the Bodies Revealed exhibit. It was a good exhibit but I felt they didn’t need to identify the gender of every body in the exhibit. Of course I was with my youth group too.

Having crammed as much James White in my head as possible, I wanted to discuss the Mormon doctrine of God. Mormons are polytheists, Heavenly Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are all separate gods. This is not what the Bible teaches. However, I found that due to my lack of time to really ponder what was in Dr. White’s book, I really couldn’t articulate what I wanted to say. If I had pushed the issue of justification by faith alone and salvation by grace alone, I would have done much better. Justification I can walk through a given passage, exegeting it. Expounding the doctrine of God is more difficult because there is no passage I can just walk through.

I will make these observations. 1.) They did not hide a lot of Mormon theology from me. They spoke of pre-existence and God being an exalted man and them being polytheistic. I really appreciate that. 2.) I did not find their “one in purpose” a very satisfying exposition of Mosiah 15:1-5 from the Book of Mormon. Purposiveness is not in the text, they read it into the document. 3.) The missionaries did not want to stay in Isaiah very long and came back to their own theology. For example, I pointed to Isaiah 45:5-7 and Deuteronomy 6:4 and said there is only one God, how can they say their is three gods? 4.) They really had not answer to John 5:17-18 and John 10:30-33 and the Jews wanting to stone Jesus for claiming to be Yahweh. However, I messed up on that because I had not established the fact that both Father and Son are referred to as the one God, Yahweh. So with out that being argued, I can’t really hold that against them.

I am to meet with them next week and hopefully God will grant me to be better prepared and that I can share who the God of the Bible is, or may be I might tackle the issue of justification and grace from Romans 3-5 and Philippians 1-3. However, I do know that the little bit of truth I did mange to sneak in God can and does use for his glory, either to harden hearts or to save souls. I pray the latter for these men.

Inconsistency with in Mormonism

This Time Next Year…

A Blissful Headache