Christmas Book Citations Doctrines of Salvation Part 4

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MRM.org .1 examines the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from a biblical perspective view .1 Mormonism is sponsored by Mormonism research ministry since 1979 Mormonism research ministry has been dedicated to equipping the body of Christ with answers regarding the Christian faith in a manner that expresses gentleness and respect. And now, your host for today's viewpoint on Mormonism welcome to this edition of viewpoint on Mormonism on your host, Bill McKeever, founder and director Mormonism research ministry and with me today as Johnson. My colleague at MRM we continue looking at the book selections from doctrines of salvation. The thought that we haven't mentioned this book before in this series but today were looking more closely at some of the statements that Joseph Fielding Smith is credited with saying in this book and I might mention again this book is a special addition that was compiled from the three volume set doctrines of salvation. This is unique in that somebody or a number of somebodies must have gone through doctrines of salvation and taken out with they felt was important and included it in this special leather bound edition that was given away as a Christmas gift in the year 2001 by the first presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to various church employees as well as two other general authorities in the church that, as you can imagine most of the things that Joseph Fielding Smith has to say. We do not agree with.

But there are some things occasionally that he'll say that certainly we can agree with it and one of them has to do with taking Scripture out of context. Eric, what is he say on page 189. In the book selections from doctrines of salvation, isolated scriptures give wrong impression. It is wrong to take one passage of Scripture and isolated from all other teachings dealing with the same subject. We should bring together all that has been said by authority on the question, of course, we would ask, what is he mean by authority and he could very well be giving a reference to the general authorities in the church, you have the authority to interpret various passages now, we would agree that it is wrong to take one passage of Scripture and isolated from all other teachings dealing with the same subject pick yet isn't that what a lot of LDS leaders do.

Even Joseph Fielding Smith himself is guilty of taking passages out of context, I mean there are a number of verses that the Mormons have taken out of context isolated them and given the wrong impression. As Joseph Fielding Smith criticizes here on page 189. Take for instance Genesis 126 how it says that man is created in God's image.

How many Mormons have use that to imply that God has a body of flesh and bones that versus not saying that it all or John 1016 were Jesus speaks of other sheep. What of Mormon leaders done with that they tried to give us the impression that Jesus was speaking of neophytes and Lamanites that were across the ocean on the other side of the world. Yet the context gives no indication for such interpretation or take, for instance, Psalm 82, six were talks about Ye are gods still say see, that proves that men can become gods and that's what Jesus was talking about in John 1034. But no, that's not what Jesus was talking about and neither is that supported by Psalm 82, six, then you have the, the famous one that we hear a lot when were talking to Latter Day Saints about the importance of grace. Though stable, what about James 220 faith without works is dead. All of these passages have been lifted from its proper context. I could add many more.

Matthew 548 be therefore perfect Mormons love the quote that one but yet when you ask him okay well are you perfect other forget a conversation that Randy sweet who was with MRM years ago.

He and I were at the Mormon Battalion visitor center in San Diego and we were talking to our tour guide about grace and she brings up Matthew 548 and so we asked her will. Are you perfect and she said will nobody's perfect, then why did you bring up Matthew 548 and interpret it as if somehow you were supposed to be. You see, they are not using these verses properly. So certainly we would agree that isolating scriptures will give the wrong impression. And that's why it's important that we look at the context of a passage and try as hard as we can to understand the intent of the author not to look at it as a proof text for something we already believe there are books out there in the Christian world that help a person to better understand what it means to do proper exegesis hermeneutics. We can just proper interpretation is what that means. And besides, the context that you're pointing out and that's 1 Easy Way is just to look at the verses before and after to see what was actually being said, we have to also understand the genre and the author and the date in the audience and other things like that to be able to do proper interpretation. So the way that we would go about looking at the book of Revelation versus the way we would look at Proverbs or Ephesians differs depending on who the audience is and who's doing the writing. What kind of genre it is, since I think as Christians we need to be careful that we don't make the same mistake by taking a look at Scripture and making it say something that it doesn't say one of the worst things you can say in a Bible study is this is what it means to me that's not what were trying to get across were doing a Bible study. We don't want to know what it means to me. We want to know what does it mean I give you one more example of where Christians are at fault and that would be Revelation 2218 about taking things out of this book were adding things to this book. Some Christians have erroneously assume that that's talking about the Bible and therefore it condemns anything like the book of Mormon, or the doctrine and covenants again Christian, I would be careful the context seems to very clearly imply it's talking about the book of Revelation, not the entire Bible. There was no entire Bible. As we understand it today when John wrote those words.

So again the warning that Joseph Fielding Smith gives to his own people here on page 189 selections from doctrines of salvation is a good rule that we should follow as well when it comes to interpreting our Bibles another citation and one that I think we can also agree with is found on page 13 and this is what Joseph Fielding Smith says some hymns, profane deity, even in some of the sacred hymns that are universally use the frequent and familiar use of the name. The Lord enters and spoils their use so far as we are concerned a few hymns of this nature with noble, uplifting thoughts have found their way into the musical exercises of the Latter Day Saints.

It's interesting that he points his fingers to his own church because they have had for many years what they called the Green hymnal came out in the mid-1980s.

Obviously, Joseph Fielding Smith couldn't be referring to that because he died before that book was published with the fact that he is saying that the Latter Day Saints are guilty of including hymns that he thinks profane deity is quite amazing to me, especially as president of the church.

She seemed to have had the power to correct that if you wanted to, but I don't think he did, but I would agree that there are some songs that even we as Christians sometimes sing that I'm uncomfortable singing. I don't like some of the words to some of the songs you admit I do like a lot of the old hymns.

It's not that I'm against modern songs in the Christian church. I just want to make sure that the words conform to what the Scripture is actually saying and I think that general rule should apply to us just as much as it should apply to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It is possible for there to be bad theology in our Christian hymns or contemporary courses, and I know years ago there is to be debate over which was the right one to have in a church service. Many churches have decided to have two services one would maybe feature the traditional versus the contemporary however you want to go about that just because it's in a hymnal or just because it's contemporary doesn't mean that it's going to have good theology so you need to always take a look as your singing a song and think about the words onto sing them mindlessly. But when you take a look at the Mormon hymnal actually wrote an article for a website MRM.org/10-LDS-hymns intent is 10. If you go to that I've listed 10 different hymns and I want to talk about one of them because I agree some hymns profane deity and I think him number 284 is a good example of this in the LDS hymnal. If you could hi Nicole Lobb, this is what verse one says, if you could hi to Kola the twinkling of an eye, and then continue onward with that same speed to fly. Do you think that you could ever through all eternity. Find out the generation where God's began to be God's plural yes and that it would certainly not be anything the Bible would talk about.

But in Mormonism. There's multiple gods that not all are worshiped only heavenly father's worship here in this world according to Mormonism, but God's do exist, verses two and three, or see the grand beginning where space did not extend or view the last creation where God's and matter, and again plural. The works of God continue in worlds and lives abound. Improvement and progression have one eternal round.

There is no end the matter. There is no end the space there is no end.

The spirit there is no end to race and then the refrain we are marching marching homeward to that bright land afar. We work for life eternal. It is our guiding star Bill I don't know if we could spend the whole show talking about all of the errors in this one him alone. Another song that we should get rid of his praise to the man. Talk about uplifting a human being. Of course it's supposed to be singing about Joseph Smith. That's another one that I find horrible on me just give you that one just because you brought it up. Praise to the man who communed with Jehovah. Jesus anointed that profit and sear blessed to open the last dispensation kings shall extol him and nations revere sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven and earth must atone for the blood of that man wake up the world for the conflict of justice.

Millions shall no other Joseph again in the refrain hailed of the prophet, ascended to heaven.

Traders and tyrants now fight in vain. Mingling with God's. He can plan for his brethren. Death cannot conquer the hero again while we more quotation that I want to look at modern inventions part of fullness of times. Listen to this folks.

Page 249, yet I maintain that there had been no restoration of the gospel, and no reorganization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, there would have been no radio, there would have been no airplane and there would not have been the wonderful discoveries in medicine, chemistry, electricity and the many other things were in the world has been benefited by such discoveries such as statement puzzles me because were Mormons involved in any of those discoveries or inventions. I mean, what did a Mormon have to do with the invention of the airplane. What did a Mormon have to do with the radio. What did a Mormon have to do with electricity. I mean names all these things as if Mormonism had something to do with those things coming about, how do you make such a connection.

I mean there's no connection. It's really a non sequitur. When you think about it. One doesn't have to do with the other.

But for Joseph Fielding Smith to make a connection like this is just amazing to me but this is what he says from page 249 from selections from doctors of salvation.

Tomorrow were going to finish looking at this book selections from doctrines of salvation, thank you for listening.

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