Food for thought

"High in the Colorado Rockies where skiers flock each winter for the runs at Vail, local churches were forced by high land prices to build an ecumenical chapel overlooking the slopes. Members of the Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Christian Science, and Jewish congregations all worship there apres-ski.
The centerpiece is a small cross fashioned out of two ski tips. When Jews hold services, the cross is easily moved aside, but when the Vail ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints applied to use the chapel for its services, the request was denied by a 7-3 vote in 1985 of the Vail Religious Foundation, which oversees the chapel.
"This is an interfaith chapel, not an intercult chapel," the Reverend Stephen A. Hoekstra, a Baptist minister, told the Rocky Mountain News."
(In Mormon Circles, 1991,Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., pp 198)

14 comments:

handmaiden November 26, 2008 at 8:06 PM  

Hello Bot,
Nice to have you joining me on my blog. I appreciate your comments here. Nicely written. I will bring responses to your post comment on the main frame on my blog soon after the holiday is over. Thank you again for you interest.
In Christ (the only high priest),
handmaiden

handmaiden November 26, 2008 at 10:19 PM  

Mormons are New Testament believers to a point-after that-they are Joseph Smith followers, not Christians. Let me ask you Bot, when Gordon B. Hinkley stated that the Mormon Church does not believe in the "Traditional" Jesus, but a Jesus of "This" dispensation, did you believe him? Or did you get a little confused and shrugged it off as nothing, or did you ever get what he was saying?

Bot November 27, 2008 at 5:18 AM  

What Gordon Hinckley said is that he (we) don't believe in the Trinitarian Jesus, but do believe in the Jesus of the New Testament.

handmaiden December 4, 2008 at 8:58 PM  

Hey Bot,
Re-read the new slip from Deseret News and see if GBH said Trinitarian, ok?

handmaiden December 5, 2008 at 9:08 PM  

Please excuse the miss spelling. I ment to say; "news clip."

Anita January 2, 2009 at 9:14 AM  

On baptism:

Early “Christian” churches were not practicing what Christ and His followers taught if they were not baptizing people properly. The standard is not what “early Christian churches” did, but what Jesus and His followers did in the Holy Bible. I find it poor reasoning to base real Christian baptism practice on what an early “Christian” church did and use it as fuel to discredit true Christian practices.

On the Trinity:

The following is a quote from Easton’s Bible dictionary:

1. God is One, and that there is but one God
2. The Father is a distinct divine Person, distinct from the Son and the Holy Spirit
3. Jesus Christ is truly God, and yet is a Person distinct from the Father and the Holy Spirit
4. The Holy Spirit is also a distinct divine Person.

One Old Testament verse and two New Testament verses that show the above to be true:

Isaiah 44:6 says: “Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: "I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god

John 10:30 says: “I and My Father are one.”

John 20:28 says: “And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.”

As for Dr. Bart Ehrman, he now considers himself an agnostic which completely disqualifies him as credible source on Christianity.

On God having a body:

John 4:24 says: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”

On man becoming a god:

As for St. Athanasius and Justin Martyr, they were mere men who usurped the Bible’s authority when they said that “all men are deemed worthy of becoming ‘gods,’”
Jeremiah 17:9 says: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” as well as Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” The “Gospel of Thomas” as a genuine book of the Bible is not valid (if you want to argue that the Bible is filled with errors, pit it against itself, not what people say or “other gospels” say), but I find it ironic that this same Thomas was the one who answered: “My Lord and my God.” Are we then to believe that his humility and embarrassment over not believing that the Savior had been resurrected was changed to a bold, self-assured statement that caused him to say that he will become a god? The quote "He who will drink from my mouth will become as I am: I myself shall become he, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him,” is poorly interpreted if it is interpreted to mean that Thomas thought this meant that people will become gods. A more accurate interpretation would be based on John 14: 18-20 where Jesus is promising that a Comforter will come (the Holy Spirit) and those who have Him will also have Jesus with them because they are One.

I will leave more comments about the deity of Christ and His atonement on the cross at later. Thanks to Bot for causing me to articulate Bible doctrine into words thereby strengthing my faith as I study out these things and to handmaiden for starting this blog in the first place!

Bot January 2, 2009 at 10:46 AM  

Anita,

Are you saying that Jesus "sprinkled" people, and they were baptized? Why would Early Christian churches build baptismal fonts if only sprinkling was necessary? Why were fathers baptizing their children in Early Christianity, if authority (priesthood) were not granted to lay persons?

Anita January 2, 2009 at 5:33 PM  

Bot,

I am not saying that Jesus sprinkled people at all. No where in the Bible is that practice mentioned. It is always by immersion and that is what I believe because the Bible says so. I didn't understand what you meant by "youth." Any time a person gets saved, the next step is public baptism that shows all who are watching that the believer is identifying himself with Christ, no matter what his age is. It doesn't MAKE a person a Christian, rather he gets baptized to show obedience to the Word. It is like wearing a wedding ring. If I have a wedding ring on, it tells others I am married, but it doesn't MAKE me married just because I wear it.

handmaiden January 2, 2009 at 9:22 PM  

Welcome Anita and thank you for your encouraging words. Bot, did you read my post dated the 29th of November this year? The post says a lot about baptism and supports what Anita is stating. God Bless

Anita January 6, 2009 at 10:53 PM  

On Christ’s atonement:

The Bible teaches blood sacrifices all throughout the Old Testament. The very first blood sacrifice was in Genesis 3:21 “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.” Can you imagine the horror and guilt Adam and Eve must have felt as they witnessed an innocent animal of God’s creation being sacrificed in order for them to have clothing? It was because of their sin that their eyes were open to see that they were naked. Up until this time, Adam and Eve lived in paradise, in complete satisfaction in their relationship with God and with each other. The next sacrifice is found in Genesis 4:4 where Able offers the sacrifice of a lamb. Throughout the book of Leviticus, God establishes the laws pertaining to sacrifices. God very clearly declares by these blood sacrifices that the payment for sin is death. Leviticus 4:26 "And he shall burn all his fat upon the altar, as the fat of the sacrifice of peace offerings: and the priest shall make an atonement for him as concerning his sin, and it shall be forgiven him."
Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Hebrews 9:22 says: “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.” In the Old Testament, God establishes the need for a blood sacrifice. It was a solemn and sincere practice that had to be offered in true faith and obedience. The New Testament presents the birth of Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten son. John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Jesus Christ came into this world to die a cruel death on a cruel cross. (Which David prophesied of in Psalm 22:16. How awesome that an Israelite would prophesy of a Roman torture and death hundreds of years before it was a practice! It’s just another wonderful way that God shows His Word to be true, perfect and in agreement with itself.) Jesus came to shed his perfect, innocent blood on our behalf so that we could be made clean in God’s eyes. 2Corinthians 5:21: “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” He rose again and showed that he conquered death and Hell. Acts 2:24: “…whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.” In the New Testament, Paul tells that the law was put into place to show us that we cannot, by any means, keep the law. Galations 3:24: “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” We had to see how terrible and offensive our sin was to God, that’s why He put the law into place. When Christ, God’s Holy Lamb came to pay the penalty of our sin, the practicing of animal sacrifices was put away because there was no longer a need for it.

Obviously, believing what the Bible says about Christ’s resurrection, as well as His life and death, are all extremely important elements of a Christian’s faith. If He had not risen from the dead (John 2:19 “Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.), He could not have conquered death and Hell for us and neither would He have been who He claimed He was (John 4:25 “The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things..” John 4:26 “Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.”). Although the prayers Jesus Christ prayed in the garden of Gethsemane in Matthew 26:36-44, Mark 14:32-41 and in John 17 are beautiful, submissive examples to us and there is much to be gleaned from His words, there is nothing that indicates these prayers were to be meant as atonement for our sin. If that was all that it took, don’t you think Christ would have stopped there and not gone through all the horrible suffering that He did? The answer is of course He would have, but it wasn’t enough. When He was on the cross, then He answered “It is finished.” John 19:30.

Anita January 12, 2009 at 9:29 AM  

On Restoration of the Christian Church:

The teachings of Martin Luther were used as an example in an earlier blog of the apostasy of the Christian church. Let me say that Martin Luther challenged the Catholic rituals and traditions when he upheld the Bible as the only source of religious authority. Catholics have a priest system, but the Bible teaches that the need for priest authority was done away with because of what Christ did on the cross. Hebrews 8:1: “Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens…” Luther also maintained that the Catholic Church was corrupt in it’s doctrine of salvation. He believed the Bible was true and that justification for the sinner came by faith alone through the grace of God. He understood justification of the sinner as entirely the work of God. He believed there were no righteous acts that could be performed in God’s sight that would justify a person. Ephesians 2:8,9 “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

He explained his concept of justification in the Smalcald Articles:

"The first and chief article is this: Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, died for our sins and was raised again for our justification (Romans 3:24-25). He alone is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29), and God has laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6). All have sinned and are justified freely, without their own works and merits, by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, in His blood (Romans 3:23-25). This is necessary to believe. This cannot be otherwise acquired or grasped by any work, law or merit. Therefore, it is clear and certain that this faith alone justifies us ... Nothing of this article can be yielded or surrendered, even though heaven and earth and everything else falls (Mark 13:31)"

So when Martin Luther wrote that “Christianity has ceased to exist among those who should have preserved it,” he was merely stating his belief that the Catholic Church had corrupted the doctrine of salvation (they said it was through works) and that having priests was no longer necessary to be cleansed from sin. By his statement in the article above, he was by no means discounting biblical teaching, indeed, he was reinforcing it by pointing out the apostasy of certain Catholic teachings.

Jesus Christ Himself said: “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” {Peter: this name signifies a rock} Matthew 16:18. The “Church” that Christ was speaking of here was not an organized denomination, but rather a group of believers that make up the body of Christ. Mormon scripture proclaims that all religions are an abomination and wrong, but this flies directly in the face of what Jesus taught in Matthew 16:18. This very foundation of Mormonism proves that it is a man-made religion because it violates this statement made by Christ in Matthew. Even Mormons are challenged by their own to test the scriptures. What are they to test their scriptures against? The unchanging, infallible Word of God would be wise. It is THE source for which to test ALL doctrines. The conclusion is that Luther and probably Williams (I didn’t go into depth regarding William’s teachings) were saying in essence that in order to change the unchangeable scripture, God Himself would have to destroy His Word, start creation all over again from the beginning, and erase all biblical teachings from the mind of His followers. He would have to go against His Word that He states in Matthew 16:18. That is not going to happen since: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” James 1:17. Praise God for His unchanging, unsearchable ways! What a great, merciful God ALL mankind may serve if they will only accept the perfect sacrifice of His Only Begotten Son! 2Pe 3:9: “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

Bot January 12, 2009 at 12:53 PM  

It was the Creeds which were an abomination. The Creeds are not to be found in the New Testament.

Creeds are man-made; Christ's church was made by Him.

Godhead November 15, 2010 at 3:56 PM  

Bot you are just spouting Mormon doctrine, and have given no solid arguments from the New Testament that support your Mormon beliefs.
You have had to go elsewhere. You do not believe in the New Testament Jesus, You do not believe in the New Testament. Muslims also say that they believe in the same Jesus. Using that name and believing in who Jesus is are two very different things. What the New Testament says is...

For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. (Mat 24:5)

So acknowledging that Jesus is the Christ is one thing, teaching a different Christ is another. Thats what you clearly do.

Godhead November 16, 2010 at 2:46 PM  

Bot said... "A literal reading of the New Testament points to God and Jesus Christ , His Son , being separate , divine beings , united in purpose".... which is just not true.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. (Gen 1:1)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. (Joh 1:1-3)

Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse. (Rom 1:19-20)

For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. (Col 1:16-17)

It is clear from the very first that God Himself had created and He had done that through His word which was Jesus Christ. Who became flesh and dwelt amongst us.

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. (Joh 1:14)

It is clear that God is the creator. That all things were created through Jesus and so Jesus is God.

Bot used this argument... "To whom was Jesus praying in Gethsemane, and Who was speaking to Him and his apostles on the Mount of Transfiguration?"

The relationship of the Father and Son is defined in that Jesus was the Word. "And God said"... Genesis 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26, 29. So Jesus is the Word of God that became flesh, a man. The Father is the Mind of God as we can deduct from he passages.

But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. (Mar 13:32)

For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. (1Co 2:16)

Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. (Joh 7:16)

So Jesus is God, for He is the Word of God and Speaks the will of the Father who alone knows all things. Thus the Father has to be the mind of God. The Father Creates through the Word. You cannot separate the two. There is a clear distinction between the Mind of God and His Word.

I and my Father are one. (Joh 10:30)

They are two distinct parts of the one true God. That's what the New Testament Teaches. I don't know how to make it anymore clearer then that. What Mormons teach about God the Son and God the Father is not in the New Testament. They will twist whatever verses they can, but ignore the ones that I have quoted. Ones that speak with certainty. Notice that Bot does not quote at all from the New Testament when arguing that the New Testament Jesus is the one that the Mormons believe in. He uses only one verse which he claims has been changed or added in later versions. The fact that he avoids quoting from the New Testament but uses other quoted that he does not even site the source, should be enough to course one to doubt. All arguments about who Jesus was should only come from the New Testament itself and whatever prophecies in the Old Testament are relevant. Bot does not do this. He said, "A literal reading of the New Testament..." But avoids it for most of his argument and cites other suspect sources and uses glib arguments. How do you use a literal reading of the New Testament as the bases of your argument and then have 99% of your argument based on unreferenced sources outside of the New Testament?

About Me

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Michigan, United States
I spent a lot of time deciding if I should write this blog or not. I'm not a great writer and I'm not going to pretend to be. I need to share what I have learned and I might not make some people happy with what I am saying. This blog is a way for me to release the thoughts and feelings that come with knowing I grew up in the wrong religion. A healing process if you will.

How To Read This Blog

Please start with the month of February 2007 and read backwards. This is the most effective way to understand, in order, why I say what I do.

Handmaidens Creed

1.I believe in God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit as one God without beginning or end.
2.I believe the Bible to be the Holy Inspired word of God with full truth and righteousness. No other writing is.
3.I believe that the work of the Lord comes first. Before any temporal thing or person.
4.I believe that grace is a gift and Christ gives that gift freely to all who believe.
5.I believe that the beauty of a woman is contained inside of her and not by what she looks like on the outside.
6.I believe that marriage is sacred and represents the Godhead on earth; two are one just as three are one.
7.I believe that love is more powerful than any other power. Remember, God is love.
8.I believe that tithing is not a part of God's new covenant, free will offerings are. And that doesn't mean just money.
9.I believe that the Aaronic, Levitical, and Melchizedek priesthoods are abolished and Christs Holy Priesthood whom Christ is the "Great High Priest" is eternal.
10.I believe that every believer is a priest in the "Priesthood of Believers".
11.I believe that when two are one, nobody is to separate the one.
12.I believe that Christ is the only way to heaven.
13.I believe that our bodies are temples, not man made buildings.
14.I believe that liars make fools out of others and the liar hates the fool.
15.I believe that all believers are in authority to preach the gospel.
16.I believe that the word 'organization' to describe Christs body is evil and has no place with God.
17.I believe the Americas are not the land of Zion and Christ will return to His origonal land-Israel in the Middle East.
18.I believe that God has set out correct ways of worshiping Him, not man.
19.I believe in holding to the truths of the Bible and not mans understanding of it.
20.I believe that the world is full of evil and Satan can easily gain control over the minds of those who do not profess Christ of the Bible to be their only Messiah.
21.I believe that Saints are those who know the real Savior, Jesus Christ, of whom the Bible speaks of; not the jesus of a cult.