Day of rest. Went to church. The stars aligned again and the same person taught the in the investigator/new member class in Sunday school and in the Elder's quorum, except this time it was not me. I do not know how that happened, but all three ward missionaries also teach in the Elder's Quorum. In any case, the lesson in Sunday School was on the Word of Wisdom. The Elder's Quorum lesson was on a talk by Elder Richards in General Conference on the subject of "What manner of men ought ye to be" with references to the words of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:48 and in 3 Nephi 12:48 from the same sermon which Christ repeated to the Nephites when He appeared to them after His resurrection. I have observed in the process of doing missionary work that a likely potential convert really knows his Bible. Not just the quotes here and there from his minister, but somebody who has read it from cover to cover several times and has thought about it in its entirety rather than just the parts that fit into a particular religious doctrine. Such a person will not be going in endless loops with the common concerns and objections such as the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, polygamy, God speaking to a prophet, our ability to receive revelation including new scripture, and our ability to become like God eventually after returning to His presence. It will be so because in his study of the Bible he has discovered that the unity of the Godhead is in purpose and not in body, the twelve tribes of Israel came as a result of a plural marriage that was sanctioned by God at the time, God has a pattern of speaking to his people through prophets who receive revelation and record it - that is how we got the Bible in the first place, if we want to receive knowledge we are entitled to ask God, and Christ himself told us to be perfect like the Father in the Sermon on the Mount. When I went on a mission in 1994 I was still a relatively new convert. I decided that I needed to read the Bible from cover to cover. I was amazed at how smoothly the "rough" parts of the Bible fit into the LDS doctrine while at the same time every other religion I encountered had to basically skip over them. There were passages here and there that required explaining and clarifying, but not too many in comparison with every other religion I encountered, and even that fit smoothly because the doctrine explains that while most of the Bible is true some of the truths were lost in translation or due to innocent or sometimes purposeful omissions or alterations over the long course of the human history. Thus an LDS missionary who did what he was supposed to and learned the Bible is tempted to Bible-bash. He holds his own quite well while defending his religion, which is a position of disadvantage, as it is much easier to attack a religion with the Bible than defend it. There is almost always an obscure passage somewhere in the depths of the Old Testament that throws a curve into almost any religious practice or doctrine. But the reason I said "tempted" is that he is not supposed to because that is not how conversions come. They come through quiet whisperings of the Holy Ghost, and an agitated argument involving the sophistry of men even if it is about the Scriptures does not bring it. However I made an observation that those who have actually read the Bible are more likely to have the Holy Ghost with them, and do not fight the truth, but accept it and live it. So whenever somebody claimed an allegiance to a religion that accepted the Bible (more often than not to get rid of us), I would always challenge them to learn it better and practice its teachings.
|