Not LDS here, but I have the utmost respect for every one of them I have got to know. I was broke down up in the Utah mountains, they towed my truck 37 miles with a chain to someone that would open their repair shop and fix my vehicle, stayed with me till the job was done. They would not take one penny.
I knew a lot of LDS when I lived in Az, rode horses and hunted with a lot of them.
They deserve better than to be made fun of.
I agree.
They don't need to be made fun if, but they need those who actually care enough about them to tell them about the real God of the Bible and how to be with him someday
And who says you are a spokesman for the real God? You are competing with 1500 other Christian faiths for that title who are as insistent you're wrong as you are they're wrong.
I don't see it as a competition.
What I'm sharing is a gift ...."The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.". Romans 6:23
That's One faith, regardless of what denomination may say on some other issues.
The other "faith" either adds to faith in Jesus, or takes away from Him. Those are basically the two faiths.
Grace is the kindness that God extends to us all through His Son Who purchased that gift by His own body on the cross.
When I was raised, I knew something about this, but never had anybody who took the time or knew how to show me from God's Word what He says about that.
Have you ever had that personal offer?
But others believe in the same Bible you do and see the salvific truth very differently. There is also the issue of baptism. It is an essential ordinance, but who has the authority? You see, you can't avoid the problem of "says who"?
There's lots written about baptism that clearly shows that it is not a requirement for salvation, but rather an "ordinance" if you will, or first step of obedience that is supposed to follow the gift received by faith.
The couple of references that certain sects use as their proof texts are understood by basic rules of interpretation that a teenager can learn.
For example, if the word " believe," is used in regards to Christ and His resurrection in the gospel of John alone, and it is......we should not assume that Peter is adding a new requirement of water baptism to salvation in Acts chapter two, verse 38 which is used as one of those " proof texts" for the denominations that promote works based salvation.
Except one is born of water and of the spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God, says Jesus to Nicodemus. And you say it's not essential to salvation? Says who? Not Jesus. Which then gets back to your authority problem: neither you or your minister have had hands laid on him (conveying authority) by anyone who themselves had authority. Which gets back to my original point (made in my first post and repeated below):
"I find the idea that there is today an integrated Christian " faith and church", which is God's faith and church in the same way there was a true and integrated Christian faith (and church) at the time of Christ, to be quite laughable. At the time of Christ, there was obviously only one church, one faith---one accepted canon of doctrine. Moreover, false doctrines were continually creeping in which the Apostles had to fight against. After the last Apostle died, it all went sideways. In fact, doesn't the Bible teach there will be "prophets and apostles" until we all come to a unity of the faith? Where are the apostles and prophets today when there is such obvious disunity? In fact, almost the whole of Christianity denies even the possibility of revelation post-Bible. There are now over 1500 "Christian churches" and they all teach something different about doctrines allegedly essential for salvation. They actually agree on very little. That emphatically was not the situation at the time of Christ. Moroever, in Christ's time the church had a recognized hierarchy and structure. You didn't get to just go out and start your own religion; you had to be called in the manner Aaron was called. (See Hebrews, I think). Also, where in heck do these modern "Christian" ministers get their authority? From the Bible? That's not how Christ conveyed his authority anciently. For starters, there was no Bible to read! Secondluy, apostles and disciples got their authority by laying on of hands from one who himself had authority received by laying on of hand by another, who had authority. The Catholics have the better of the argument here because they at least claim a direct lineage for authority from Peter. The problem is, their core doctrines are wholly apostate. It seems pretty clear to me that God predicted this (an apostasy, see eg., the Parable of the Son and the Husbandmen). The other thing that is just positively risible (to me at least) is this notion that the "Bible", which was collected and written by Catholic priests with the earliest Greek manuscripts coming into existence hundreds of years after Christ, is somehow the infallible word of God when it is full of contradictions and ambiguities that actually make dissent and divisions likely. You have to be willfully ignorant to believe that. These scrivener priests (who, at the time they collected and transcribed) were themselves members of an arguably apostate church with all kinds of bizarre, non-Biblical doctrines (eg., infant baptism and baptism by "sprinkling") arbitrarily decided which "scriptures" to include in the canon and which not to. Who gave them the authority to do that? Certainly not God. Modern Christianity today has little or no resemblance to its ancient version. The idea that what we see today is a continuation of God's church and doctrine is utterly ridiculous wishful thinking, in my opinion. Yet there is no shortage of bigots who want to denounce Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists and JWs, when the claims of the bigots are no more authoritative than those they mock."
