Aaron vs. Kwaku: The Debate Part 5

Is it 101 for teams is a valuable resource for anyone wanting a simplified view of the Mormon religion from a Christian perspective is one-on-one for teens is available at the Utah lighthouse bookstore in Salt Lake City or MRM.org is the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from a biblical perspective viewpoint when 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 hoping you're having a very pleasant Friday. Welcome to this additional viewpoint on Mormonism on your host, Bill McKeever, founder and director Mormonism research ministry and with me today is Aaron shuffle all of my colleague at M. R. M this past week we've been discussing a debate, a formal debate that Erin had with a latter-day St. man by the name of Quaker who L this was on March 6, 2020 at the Utah Valley University. There were about 300 people that showed up for this, and we are discussing some of the issues that were supposed to be debated and as you've heard us. Explain this past week. Sadly Quaker who decided to go off the track and going to his own little tangents trying to make Christianity look bad because of some of the things said or even done by professing Christians of the past but here you brought up one portion from doctrine and covenants section 86 which is a takeoff from Matthew chapter 13 starting with verse 24. Why don't you explain what that is and why you brought that up so when I hear Christians address the apostasy.

I usually have the Matthew 16 passage with the gates of hell and operability of the church and a few other stable great texts, and the other the other argument here is that the three neophytes according Mormonism are still sticking around that priesthood authority John still had peace and authority, not an accountant section so that doesn't seem to satisfy the definition of great apostasy.

Replace it is taken from the earth, and I think that's a valid argument, but we have yet more scriptural evidence to look at and we have some pretty powerful what's called kingdom growth.

Parables in Matthew 13 Matthew 13 starts off with a parable. The parable of the sower where you got different soils receiving seed and Jesus explaining the different responses they are going experience with people as a can of God grows.

You see people fall away. And so Jesus is giving us an explanatory framework for a enduring growth of the kingdom in the midst of filings away in the midst of bad reception. Jesus goes on to talk about another parable. The parable of the wheat and tares, and in this parable Jesus sets up one field and he talks about how the Son of Man he later interprets the parable has planted this. The good seed, and the evil one comes that night and he plants the bad seed so that the parameters of this print parable at different is one field there's two sewers and what's amazing about this parable is that Jesus goes on in the same chapter to interpret it. So if you're wondering what it means you can just keep reading and Jesus explains it himself. He explains that the wheat continues and it persists until the harvest at the end of the age.

The final judgment and that is when the tears are are to be uprooted.

The idea was if you do this prematurely then the wheat will also be uprooted and so there's a there's a coexistence that's tolerated between the wheat and the weeds until the harvest at the end of the age now scholars recognize this as Jesus talking about the kingdoms enduring growth and right after he gives the parable Jesus gives to more he gives one of the mustard seed, which start small, grows large and he talks about the three measures 11 and those parables as well. You have a gradual uninterrupted unstoppable growth in all three of the kingdom growth parables after the parable of the sower and light tried to explain in the debate was that Joseph Smith saw these kingdom growth parables as a threat to the great apostasy narrative so that he doesn't D&C 86 the starts out by saying I'm gonna tell you what the parable of the wheat and tares meant and he recasts it. So in order to make my point. What I did is I quoted from a BYU professor that you spoke about in this program since Charles Harrell and he has a book called this is my doctrine. The development of Mormon theology and what significant about this book is.

It seems like on the whole, to be the only serious overview treatment of the development of Mormon theology on wholesale widescale basis. Now he is I would I would taken actually to be a closet agnostic instead of the secular progressive the way he treats true that in the book the way he is very cynical toward the Bible so I don't agree with him.

I think of him as a as a secular progressive in in a Mormon veneer. But the book is an regrettable book when it comes to morning history and he recognizes this in his chapter on the great apostasy so I quote Harrell as observing that Joseph Smith recasts this parable in D&C 86 to teach that the kingdom would be uprooted that a second growing season was required and that Joseph Smith construes the other two parables as being about the book of Mormon and about the three witnesses. So while Jesus sees these parables even by his own expiration in the chapter. Jesus sees these parable these parables as kingdom growth parables concerning the unstoppable perpetual uninterrupted growth of the kingdom to the end of the aged harvest, the final judgment. Joseph Smith sees them as supporting the great apostasy the uprooting the obliteration of the church. The obliteration of the wheat and the uprooting of it. The second growing season required and how is to start pretty straight forward contrast so I would ask my evangelical brothers in Christ and sisters to consider this in Matthew 13 and if you Google it, you'll see Joseph Smith's treatment of each of these parables, but it's pretty powerful that Jesus gets the glory.

In the New Testament for planting a kingdom that would not be uprooted, and Joseph Smith straightforwardly sees the writing on the wall.

Here he sees.

Though this does not fit well with the restoration narrative needed where the kingdom the field as it were) for 1800 years and needs this rescuer Joseph Smith to help replanted so correct me if I'm wrong. What you're basically saying here is that if a latter-day St. wants to believe doctrine and covenants section 86 which is taken from Matthew 1324 and following. They have to deny the explanation that Jesus himself gave for those verses and the conclusion that Jesus gave for that parable in those verses. Yes, and Mormon scholars have a hard time dealing with this so they end up arguing that maybe Smith isn't actually interpreting the parable. Maybe he's just recasting it and in the sense that he's reusing the language the problem though is that that's not how D&C 86 starts. It starts with a concerning the parable, it gives a very straightforward reinterpretation of the parable. This is very straightforwardly a Jesus versus Joseph Smith scenario. So if you had Mormon missionary sitting in your front room and you turn to D&C 86 very quickly.

How could you instruct a Christian to use that in which parks in particular, would you point so I would E the Matthew 13 wheat and tares parable Jesus's own expiration. I don't want to ask some reading comprehension questions, like does Jesus think that a second growing season would be required and what is the order of the harvest, the order of the uprooting at the very end, why, why is it that at an operating prematurely or is discouraged. So I asked him some basic reading Wrenching questions and then maybe supplemented with Matthew 16 Jesus says I will build my church and the gates of hell never prevail against it and later he says heaven and earth will pass away, my words will never pass away, and at the very last paragraph of the same book the Gospel of Matthew Jesus gives the great commission and he sends out his disciples with his verbally given authority to go evangelize the nations and with a view to the evangelism of all the nations. He says I will be with you to the end of the age so it is just a great case to be made for the gospel met anybody want to come back and focus on the parable of the wheat and tares, and then maybe go to D&C 86 and discuss how Smith teaches that the kingdom would not perpetually grow would be destroyed would be uprooted that the basic details of the parable would be flipped and Aston and if they can make sense of that you want at the great things about evangelism to Mormons is that even when we were dealing with hard soil. Even when we do with people who will never receive what we say we will know that even when that's the case we get joy in glorying in Christ, we get to exult in Christ we get to have pleasure in this supremacy of Jesus Christ his excellencies and what is excellencies here is hidden, having brought a kingdom planted a kingdom. Jesus says if if I cast demons out in the kingdom of God is come among you. So Jesus brought a kingdom that we can celebrate as an enduring perpetual singularly planted kingdom that does not need a second growing season and the reason why this is so crucial in our conversation with Latter Day Saints is because LDS leaders have made it clear that if there was not a complete apostasy of the Christian religion is the way BH Roberts of more than 70 set it there would be no need for the Mormon church to exist.

So if you can convincingly show a latter-day St. that Jesus himself said there is not going to be a complete apostasy.

Hopefully they're going to think that through and realize then there's a problem with the existence of their church is the very foundation of their church. This notion of a complete apostasy cannot be true. Therefore there's no need for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Why would you encourage someone to go online and listen to the entirety of this debate. There's a lot of nuggets there you work with.

Hopefully to motivate you to further study bigger issues that will hopefully be a catalyst for researching a thousand other topics we been talking with Erin shuffle all of her colleague here at Mormonism research ministry in the debate that he had with quake to L on March 6, 2020 at the Utah Valley University and I would encourage you to look at this debate and, as Aaron has said, I think there's a lot that you will gain from it.

You can easily Google it just Erin quake to quake. It was spell KW a KU's last name is El EL and debate in that Google search thanks Erin for sharing that and I hope that a lot of people will take the time to look at what you had to say during that debate and use some of the information that you brought up in their own individual witnessing scenarios. Hope you have a great weekend. Thank you for listening.

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