Robby Lashua introduces his STR University course “Engaging Latter-day Saints,” sharing two key takeaways from the history of the LDS church.
Transcript
It’s happened to most of us. You’re at home relaxing when, suddenly, there’s a knock on your door. You look to see who it is and discover two young men in white shirts, black ties, with bike helmets under their arms. The Latter-day Saints missionaries are ready to share their Mormon faith with you and your family. Are you prepared? Are you ready to engage with them about their faith and yours? I know many people in this situation who have ignored the knock, pretending not to be home. This might be tempting if you aren’t ready to engage, but if you’re prepared, you’ll be excited to talk with Mormons about spiritual things.
This course is designed to prepare you to engage with LDS missionaries when they come knocking at your door. We will cover the origins of Mormonism, LDS scripture, LDS theology, and four witnessing methods that will prepare you to speak truth to your Mormon visitors. I’m confident that by the end of this course, you’ll be excited about engaging with Latter-day Saints. No need to ignore the knock on your door!
Before we get into the specifics on witnessing, we need to understand some key points about the Mormon faith. So, where do we start? Well, the origins of the Mormon Church begin with a man named Joseph Smith. The importance of Joseph Smith to Mormonism cannot be overstated. The seventh president of the LDS Church, Heber J. Grant, once said, “The whole foundation of the Church rests firmly upon the inspiration of the living God through Joseph Smith the prophet.” Gordon B. Hinckley, the 15th president of the LDS Church, said, “An acquaintance said to me one day, ‘I admire your Church very much. I think I could accept everything about it except Joseph Smith.’ To which I responded, ‘That statement is a contradiction. If you want to accept the revelation, you must accept the revelator.’”
The importance of Joseph Smith to Mormonism cannot be overemphasized. He is believed by Mormons to be a true prophet of God who restored the only true religion to planet Earth. LDS theology is based on his revelations and his writings.
So, who was Joseph Smith? Joseph lived between 1805 and 1844. He grew up in a poor family that lived in Vermont and New York. His father was said to be a gold digger and a treasure hunter. This led Joseph to hobbies of treasure hunting and using seer stones and other types of divination to find treasure. In 1817, the Smith family moved to Palmyra, New York, where there was a religious revival happening. The Smiths joined the Presbyterian Church. During the revival, there were arguments between different Christian denominations as to who was more correct or who followed Scripture more closely.
This arguing over which church was the right church confused 15-year-old Joseph Smith. One day, while reading his Bible, he came across James 1:5, which says, “But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” Reflecting on this verse, Joseph went into the woods by himself to pray. While praying for wisdom, Joseph asked which denomination of church was true and which one he should follow. As he was praying, suddenly two personages appeared to him. He said one of them was God the Father and the other was Jesus Christ. The Father pointed to Jesus and said, “This is my beloved Son, hear him.” Here’s what Joseph Smith said was the response to his question about which denomination was the true church: “I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in His sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: ‘they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof.’ He again forbade me to join with any of them; and many other things did he say unto me which I cannot write at this time.”
Three years after this encounter with God the Father and Jesus Christ, on September 21, 1823, Joseph claimed that an angel named Moroni appeared to him three different times. At each appearance, Moroni told Smith that he had been sent from God to reveal ancient gold plates inscribed with the history of the early inhabitants of the Americas. But that wasn’t all that these gold plates contained. According to Joseph Smith, the plates also contained the fullness of the everlasting gospel as delivered by the Savior to the ancient inhabitants. Remember, according to Joseph’s first vision, all churches on earth were corrupt. These gold plates contained the fullness of the everlasting gospel—something, according to Joseph, that no other church on earth had. Moroni told Joseph to look for these plates that were buried near the Hill Cumorah but not to remove the plates until further notice. Four years later, Moroni appeared to Smith again and told him to dig up the plates and translate them. The gold plates were said to be written in “reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics.” The translation of these golden plates is what we call today the Book of Mormon.
Time out. What do we make of Joseph’s claims about visions and visitations from angels, Jesus, and God the Father? More importantly, what does the Bible have to say about Joseph’s multiple visions and the message of these personages. Galatians 1:8 says something really important when answering this claim. Paul says, “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed.” This verse sounds eerily similar to what Joseph Smith said happened to him. An angel came with another testament that contained the fullness of the everlasting gospel. Paul commands that such an angel is to be accursed. However, Joseph Smith claims to have listened to the angel, found the gold plates, and then proceeded to translate them.
The translation of the gold plates happened as follows: Joseph would place his seer stone into a hat, press the hat against his face, and in the darkness of the hat, the words from the gold plates would supernaturally appear on the seer stone, one at a time. Joseph would then tell his scribes what the word was, and they would write it down. This method was denied by Mormons for a long time, but recently, the LDS Church has admitted that this is actually what occurred in the translation of the Book of Mormon. On their official website, which is sanctioned by the prophet and is therefore considered infallible, they’ve admitted to the seer stone being used in the translation of the Book of Mormon. Here’s what they say happened: “Joseph placed either the interpreters or the seer stone in a hat, pressed his face into the hat to block out extraneous light, and read aloud the English words that appeared on the instrument.”
After the translation of the Book of Mormon, Smith gave the gold plates back to the angel Moroni, which has eliminated any possibility of examining the gold plates. Additionally, no one except Smith ever saw the gold plates. There are claims that 11 men saw the gold plates, but when you investigate the sources, what we find is that these men claimed to have seen the plates in visions or “through the eye of faith.” None of them claimed to have physically seen the gold plates.
An honest question to ask about the gold plates is, why were they even necessary? Think about this. Joseph Smith claimed that the prophet of the Book of Mormon compiled and preserved these gold plates. Then God sent Moroni to tell Smith of their importance and where to find the gold plates so that he could restore the true church to the world. A lot of effort went into creating, protecting, and revealing these gold plates, but all Joseph Smith actually needed was a rock and a hat. Why were the plates even necessary? He didn’t translate from them in the traditional sense. He used divination through a seer stone. The gold plates were completely unnecessary to the revelation of the Book of Mormon.
However, in 1830, Joseph Smith published the Book of Mormon in English, and with its publication, the Mormon Church was established, and Joseph Smith was believed to be a true prophet of God. The history of Joseph Smith is a broad topic, and in this class, we have barely skimmed the surface of the beginnings of the Mormon Church. However, there are two important points that I want you to take away from this class.
First, according to Joseph Smith, all churches after the death of the apostles became corrupt and didn’t contain the true message of the gospel. This Mormon doctrine is called the “Great Apostasy.” Here’s how the 12th LDS President, Spencer Kimball, describes it: “This is not a continuous Church, nor is it one that has been reformed or redeemed. It has been restored after it was lost. It was lost—the gospel with its powers and blessings—sometime after the Savior’s crucifixion and the loss of his apostles. The laws were changed, the ordinances were changed, and the everlasting covenant was broken that the Lord Jesus Christ gave to his people. In those days. There was a long period of centuries when the gospel was not available to people on this earth because it had been changed.”
Secondly, Joseph Smith claimed that the Mormon Church is the restoration of the true church of Jesus Christ, not just another church. It is the only true church. The LDS manual True to the Faith, which is “A Gospel Reference,” explains it like this: “The fullness of the gospel has been restored, and the true Church of Jesus Christ is on earth again. No other organization can compare to it. It is not the result of a reformation, with well-meaning men and women doing all in their power to bring about change. It is a restoration of the church established by Jesus Christ. It is the work of Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son. As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you can receive blessings that were absent from the earth for almost 2,000 years.”
What’s interesting is that Jesus Christ himself had something very different to say about his true church. In Matthew 16:18, responding to Peter’s declaration that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus said these words: “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock, I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.”
Are we to believe that Jesus meant he would build his church until the death of his apostles, and then, after an 1,800-year hiatus, he would restore it? Are we to believe that Jesus failed to build his church for 1,800 years? No. Jesus said he would build his church, and he has been building it for the past 2,000 years.
In this class, we’ve looked at a brief history of the origins of the Mormon Church as founded by Joseph Smith. We discussed the two bedrock beliefs of the Mormon Church—first, that there was a great apostasy, and second, that Joseph Smith was used to restore the true church of Jesus Christ on earth. In our next class, we will discuss the books considered Scripture in the LDS Church.