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April 19, 2019 4:17 am
Prepared to engage Mormon missionaries may not work. Perhaps the book is 101 will help Mormonism 101. Published by Baker look at your favorite Christian bookstore .1 examines the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from a perspective view .1 Mormonism 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 is the Mormon version of the gospel, an eternal life hack welcome to this edition of viewpoint on Mormonism. I'm your host, Bill McKeever, founder and director Mormonism research ministry with me today is Eric Johnson. My colleague at MRM there was an article in the January 2019 addition of inside magazine that was written by Lori Fuller and under her name. It merely says church magazines were not really sure what she does with church magazines, but apparently she is author because it is published in this edition of inside it was titled the gospel an eternal life hack and there were some things that Ms. Fuller says in this piece that I don't think you Eric or I know myself would have a whole lot of problems, but she does talk about commandments and keeping of commandments and how God gives commandments that actually helps us and she gives some examples and I think at face value. I wouldn't have a problem at all with some of the things he says. But there's things that she doesn't say in this piece that I think need to be discussed because when we discuss those things that she doesn't talk about.
I think some of her premises might tend to then be faulty.
But what caught your attention on this article, Eric, and what I think should catch everybody's attention who reads this is there's a pull quote off to the left-hand side on page 42. What is that say have you ever thought about how keeping the commandments makes life so much easier now. When I read that in the title the gospel and eternal life hack. I mean I'm thinking that idea of justification that Christians believe comes by faith alone, but in Mormonism's does not. Based on the Scriptures. Based on what the leaders say, and keeping the commandments makes life so much easier in Mormonism. The Mormon is struggling to try to keep all his commandments. And they're not doing a very good job of that. But she does bring out some examples.
As I said earlier that I don't think we would have a problem with because folks listen. Yes, God does give his creation, certain standards and guidelines commandments if you will, that if we follow them. Life will be easier.
There's no doubt about that and this is what she's trying to bring out many we should let Lori Fuller do the talking. So let's start off with her first paragraph would she say this is on page 42 it says last month, some friends and I were catching each other up on our week one friend shared that he was taking on the burden of his mom's alcoholism recovery. He was just younger than me and that sounded like the worst tasks ever.
Later that night, the conversation moved to how expensive smoking is and how someone we knew had been going through a pack of cigarettes a day to the method so much money she was trying to quit and was going through withdrawals. Her son was really happy she was quitting.
Though his dad had died of a drug overdose which made any drug use that much scarier for this kid. Finally, our conversation ended on coffee how much people drink every morning and afternoon and sometimes night and how they miss their lattes now that they couldn't afford them daily. As I drove home thinking about all these conversations I had the thought the word of wisdom is basically the biggest life hack ever and she writes in parentheses if you don't know a life hack is a way to make your life better living more efficiently, etc. as someone online described it a life hack is what was formally known as a good idea.
It's as if God said, here's a way to save you money help you stay healthy. Protect your kids and avoid really tough emotional burdens, including your own and others' addictions. It's almost as if God anticipated all the problems would be up against and gave us a way to avoid half of them was. She says it's almost as if God anticipated no, we believe that God is all-knowing, so nothing catches God by surprise. I think those because Mormons do believe in this word of wisdom, which of course has a prohibition on coffee that could be questionable because his coffee really detrimental to your health. Does it cost yes and if you were to go by your lattes is Starbucks or another coffee shop yeah it does add to some money but doesn't the same thing happened when Latter Day Saints drink their big gulps of Mountain Dew and and other drinks that have the caffeine content in it that does basically what coffee is doing. Let's just remind everyone that the word of wisdom in D&C section 89 doesn't say coffee per se. It says hot drinks. I always find it interesting that Mormonism has taken that to mean coffee and tea when it doesn't say that, but what about hot chocolate. If you go down to Temple Square during the festival that they have with the lights. Everybody's walking around with a cup of hot chocolate. That's a hot drink.
What's the difference and so it's interesting she points out coffee here yet but she goes on to say this in the next paragraph. She says with any of God's commandments we have the choice to follow them or ignore them, but as I thought of the word of wisdom is a set of guidelines from God that both anticipates and protects us from so many challenges. I thought what if all of God's commandments work that way.
What if a loving heavenly father who is experienced this life and its challenges, has given the guidebook to help us navigate the world as painlessly as possible. And what if you gave that to us because he loves us and wants to protect us till I found it interesting that she mentions a loving heavenly father who is experienced this life and his challenges. I think we both read past that the first time we read it and later we came back and caught that were not talking about Jesus here were talking about heavenly father who didn't live in this life, but rather it must be referring to heavenly father living in a previous world and that's exactly what Mormonism teaches of Joseph Smith did teach that God the father was once a man who lived on earth similar to this one and through his obedience to the commandments that were given him by.
Obviously, a God that proceeded him. That's how this acumen came to be known as heavenly father.
Within the context of Mormonism that she talks about the benefits.
For instance, of Exodus 20 verse 17 and says you want to be content with what you have, to be happy and grateful. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house.
Then she goes on quoting Exodus 2015 want to avoid guilt, incarceration, crippling bill and court fees want to keep people's trust and respect in your job. Thou shalt not steal.
Eric, would you have a problem with any of these issues that she's listing here inner peace as long as is talking about sanctification. Of course not, because the Bible is very clear that were supposed to work out our salvation with fear and trembling is Philippians 212 says Ephesians 210 says that we are God's workmanship, created by Christ Jesus to do good works, which he prepared in advance for us to do so now I have no problem with that.
Not to be fair to Lori Fuller. This PC is not trying to say that commandment keeping is far superior than the doctrine of grace as we evangelicals understand it she may believe that, but she doesn't seem to be bringing that out in this piece she's merely making the case that if an individual was to follow God's commandments that life in her opinion would be easier, though certainly as we have mentioned, we think that God gives commandments to protect his creation. He does not normally give commandments just to rain on our parade and just to be mean now, having said that, there are also commandments in the Old Testament that don't really have anything to do with the physical protection of the creation or the follower of God, but they are there to remind the children of Israel in the Old Testament of covenant promises that they are supposed to remember were not doubting that. For instance, the mixing of fabrics. If you mixed your fabrics with that bring about some kind of physical malady, no.
But the reason why that's there in the Old Testament was its symbolism was to remind the children of Israel, that they were not supposed to mix with those that were unbelievers that they did have a responsibility to follow what God dictated for them because it would only have a benefit for them and I think sometimes Latter Day Saints tend to ignore the fact that we as evangelicals do believe that commandment keeping certainly has its part.
We are not saying you shouldn't do that, although I find that many times Mormons do seem to have that stereotype will you all you believe is that just put your trust in Christ and go out and kill people advocating that all killing people violating that commandment of you shall not murder. Certainly would not be something we see is giving honor and glory to God.
So we would not want to engage in a practice like that but this is the stereotype, many of them have and I wanted to do this show because I think it's important for us to allow our Latter Day Saints friends to know that we certainly do believe that God gave commandments and keeping commandments are not a bad thing. The problem we have is when you elevate commandment keeping to the requirement of even achieving eternal life because it's in that context where we find the pull quote on page 42 that says have you ever thought about how keeping the commandments makes life so much easier. We would argue that in the context of Mormonism. I'm sure that a lot of Latter Day Saints would say that the demand on them to keep the commandments not just some of them, all of them would not make life so much easier. In fact, it causes quite a burden upon the life of the Latter Day Saints who sees themselves as a sinful individual that struggles to do what is right at all times. We all have that problem.
I think part of the prom for me when I first started reading this article was the title itself because when you use the word gospel that has a particular meaning when you come to what Mormon leaders are talked about, let me give you an example, we have 12 Pres. Spencer W. Kimball in the teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, page 502. He says ordinances are basic to the gospel. Now what is the gospel to which we speak. It is the power of God unto salvation. It is the code of laws and commandments which help us to become perfect and the ordinances which constitute the entrance requirements.
When I hear the word gospel. There's a huge difference between what Spencer Kimball is talking about and what the Bible talks about in the New Testament and that's a very good point because they have a definition of the gospel that is quite different than the definition that we would have the gospel is good news. But when you start inserting laws and commandments in order to gain the benefits of this good news, then the good news becomes bad news and that's merely what we want to bring out we're not having a problem with keeping God's commandments, but we would call sanctification. The problem