10 Common Mistakes Made When Reading the Bible Part 4

Unprepared to engage Mormon missionaries when they knock on the door.

Our thanks to Adams Road Band for that musical introduction. We're looking today at point number seven in his piece, reading a presupposed doctrine into a verse or passage. You start off, Eric, by citing Jeremiah 1.5, and this is how it reads, Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. Now, one of the reasons why we're citing from the King James, as I've explained this week, is because the King James is the version of choice that Latter-day Saints read from. And so, sometimes in a witnessing situation, if I know that's a Bible version that they respect, I find that it's sometimes easier to avoid any unnecessary arguments, so I just go right to that Bible verse that they are supposed to respect.

Whereas if I use the ESV, they might say, Oh, well, that's the ESV. I don't believe it. So I'll avoid that. So I don't mind going to the King James.

I'll read that to them. And so in this case, Jeremiah 1.5 is talking about what Mormons believe to be the preexistence of all human beings. So what do you say about that? Well, I write, Many Latter-day Saints use this verse to support their presupposition by showing how all people lived in God's presence in a preexistent state before they were born into this world. That's a very important doctrine because that's where all humans had a chance to choose the Savior of the world, a choice between Jesus and Lucifer. And so everybody who is born onto this world made that choice of Jesus, whereas one third of our brothers and sisters in the spirit world were cast out of heaven for choosing Lucifer. And in early Mormonism, you had another third that were not as valiant as they could have been in this alleged war in heaven.

And they would be born with a black skin. For much of Mormon history, those who were of African heritage were not allowed to hold the very important priesthood that most other Latter-day Saint males would be able to hold. So there's a lot connected to this doctrine of the preexistence, although some things are not as emphasized like they used to be. And we understand that. One thing that this verse doesn't seem to do is to tell us that when it comes to the preexistence in Mormonism, it's not just human beings.

It's everything. And you have a citation from BYU professor Charles Harrell, and we've cited this book before, and that's a book called This is My Doctrine. What did Harrell say about this? On page 212, he writes, a distinctive LDS teaching today regarding preexistence is that all living things, humans, animals, plant life, and even the earth itself, had a preexistence as spirits. The idea that the trillions upon trillions of insects and noxious weeds have spirits that existed for eons prior to their fleeting and seemingly insignificant existence on earth is a curious thought. Even more astounding is the notion that they will be resurrected in an immortal glory at some specified time in the future. Bill, let me ask you, how many Latter-day Saints actually know what Harrell is talking about?

Because it's not just humans, as you said, it's everything. That's a great question because I can't recall in all of my witnessing situations of any Latter-day Saint explaining that doctrine to me in that way. Usually they'll go to Jeremiah 1-5 and specifically say that this is referring to our personal preexistence as humans. But my question that I like to ask is, why would you assume that that's what Jeremiah is supporting when we know that the Jews did believe, as Christians believe, that God, the God of the Bible, is an all-knowing God who knows the past, present, and future, as clearly as we may know the presence in our lives right now, why would you discount that this may be talking about that foreknowledge that God would obviously have when he says, before you came out of the womb, I sanctified you or set you apart and I ordained you to be a prophet unto the nations.

If God is in control of all things and is duly sovereign as we believe, why wouldn't this be speaking of his foreknowledge and the plan that he had for Jeremiah when he was to be born? But in Mormonism, you have this elevation of humanity. Men and women are highly esteemed in the LDS Church, and so they assume by reading that verse that they knew God just as much as God knew them, but it doesn't say that in this verse. And in fact, the Christian theologian D.A. Carson, who did not emphasize Mormonism, but he brought this out in his book called Exegetical Fallacies on page 115, he said, what the Mormons are really doing is appealing to their book, the Pearl of Great Price, for the content of their doctrine and appealing to the Bible at a verbally ambiguous point and over-specifying what the text says in order to claim the Bible's authority.

So what is he saying? Carson says, well, they don't really have anything in the Bible, so they have to take a verse like Jeremiah 1.5—and there are a few other verses as well, for instance, one in Job—and they make that into something that fits their preconceived notions that they get from extra-biblical Scripture. The Pearl of Great Price is not part of the Bible. We as Christians don't hold to it, so they know that just by showing from the Pearl of Great Price that there is a pre-existence is not good enough for the Christians. So they're going to have to come up with support from the Bible, and it doesn't work because this verse is not saying what the Mormon is saying about pre-existence. So what they're in essence doing is they are reading into the passage something that is not there, and we would call that eisegesis. I've said it before on this show, what I find amazing is Mormons seem to be more apt to read into biblical passages, but they don't always do that with the Book of Mormon passages. Isn't that odd? They seem to exegete their own Book of Mormon passages in a proper way.

Not always. I think some of them really fudge when it comes to 2 Nephi 25-23, saved by grace after all you can do, and some will say, well that means in spite of all you can do, even though the text doesn't say that at all. But for the most part, they seem to exegete the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants, I would say pretty accurately. I have had Latter-day Saints point to the words of Origen who did believe in pre-existence. Okay, we do have some cases of Church Fathers, specifically Origen, but that was not universally accepted by the Christian teachers and the Christian believers, and so it is an abnormal view.

This is a view that is a minority view, greatly minority. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think even Origen knew that his speculative theology did not reign above what's clearly taught in Scripture, so I think he would be out of line in trying to make it sound as if Origen was orthodox in everything that he said. In point number eight, you say assuming that a passage is referring to all time rather than a specific time in biblical history, and the example you give is Amos 3-7, a verse that we hear often when we're talking with Latter-day Saints. It reads, surely the Lord God will do nothing but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets. And they have used this verse, the Latter-day Saints have used this verse to prove from this text that we must have Latter-day prophets even to this very day, and this is why they would look at the position of prophet in their church as showing that they represent God's design, and they refer to Amos 3-7 as proof of that.

What would you say to that? Well, it's interesting because the word prophets in the plural is used in the Hebrew, and in the LDS church they have one prophet. We have one prophet in the Mormon church, and yet this is saying plural. Now some have suggested, well, all the leaders can be called prophets, seers, and revelators, but if you want to be technical about it, there is only one man who's at the top. The others are apostles, and the two men who are part of the First Presidency, those are counselors to the president or prophet of the church. So you can make up whatever you want, but second, this verse is not saying that prophets would always exist, but in the day of Amos' writing, he revealed his secrets to these men, the plural, prophets.

This is what Norm Geisler and Ron Rhodes write. This verse should not be interpreted to mean that God will always have a prophet on earth. This passage affirms that God had previously warned the Israelites that judgment would follow disobedience, but they ignored the prophets, and they reference Amos 2-12.

In context then, Amos 3-7 simply points to God's chosen pattern of not engaging in a major action with the Israelites, this is judgment, without first revealing it to the prophets. And that's in their book, When Cultists Ask, on page 87. So, okay, how would we understand this in a New Testament context? The fact that we have a Bible that has all the necessary warnings we would need for what we believe to be full salvation, why would we need a human being on the earth to do what Mormons claim their prophet does? And the reason why I ask that is because, let's be honest, outside of making a big deal over what the Church should be called, did Russell M. Nelson really come up with any new, unique doctrines? I don't see them doing that in these latter days. They usually explain doctrines that have already been around. They're not coming up with new things. That was more something left to Joseph Smith and Brigham Young.

Well, let's just be honest. When you take a look at their standard works, the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, and the Doctrine and Covenants, you have nothing from the last 100 years. So you would think, if these men were the prophets who were getting revelation from God, why isn't anything being added to the Doctrine and Covenants over 100 years, and there's nothing? As far as the Christian is concerned, we don't need a human being to be our prophet. We have 1 Timothy 2.5 says we have one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ. And that man is our prophet according to Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 and 2. It says, Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.

But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. Bill, if you had a choice between the modern LDS prophet and Jesus to be your prophet, who would you choose? I think hands down I would go with Jesus, because the LDS prophets don't have a history of consistency, which tells me they're not speaking on behalf of God.

Otherwise, there would be a consistency. I don't find many Latter-day Saints today running to a lot of the things that Brigham Young taught. In fact, many of them want to get away from Brigham Young as much as possible, because Brigham Young said a lot of silly things. Unfortunately, people look to him as being a prophet, and sadly, believing him believed error. Something that the Mormon Church tells their people today is impossible to do when they say that God will not allow the prophet to lead their people astray. Yet certainly, in the grand scheme of things, that had to have been the case when we look at some of the teachings of the early years in the LDS Church. Thank you for listening. If you would like more information regarding Mormonism Research Ministry, we encourage you to visit our website at www.mrm.org, where you can request our free newsletter, Mormonism Researched. We hope you will join us again as we look at another viewpoint on Mormonism.