Get a Mormon (Or Christian) Today!

Aside from the life transforming introduction of Jesus Christ in my life, I would have to say the second most transforming moment was meeting Bryan. Before meeting Bryan, I had been a "Christian" (believed in God) my whole life, then a "Born-Again Christian" (Born-Again Christian) since the age of 17 (about four to five years prior to meeting Bryan).

Now in that time, I was learning a lot! I was at church as much as I could be, meeting many wonderful men and women of faith and actually took a Bible class in which I received my Associates degree in biblical studies. Even though I had gone through all of this, it didn't seem real to me, nothing was making it personal... I felt like I was reading a book and everything was making sense, but I couldn't see how it affected me in my everyday life...

Enter Bryan. All of a sudden I am introduced to Mormonism in all of it's glory! Now, I have to not just read about what I believe, but I have to "know" what I believe... In such a fashion that I can relate it to others, in this case, to Bryan. When Bryan and I began our discussion it quickly became apparent that even though we use a lot of the same words, our understanding of these words were completely different. Words like salvation, atonement, grace, and even Jesus Christ had different meanings for both of us... So I undertook the task of learning all I could about this religion I knew almost nothing about.

The result has been amazing, even though we haven't completed our goal of finding out which of us are right or wrong (even if we're both wrong) we know we're well on our way. Along the way, we have both gained an incredible personal knowledge of what we believe in as well as a reverent respect for God (Whoever that may be).

Meeting a Mormon has been such an instrumental help in my life that I would like to encourage you to do the same! If you are a Christian, I would challenge you to find a Mormon "PenPal" or something like that, if you don't know where to find one, Bryan would be more than happy to hook you up. Same goes for you Mormons who read our blog, contact me (Paul) and I will find someone who can help you understand the Christian faith.

Not all Mormons are as cool as Bryan, and most Christians are cooler than me, so your journey will not be exactly the same. We will try to match you up with the best people who are as interested in theology as you are. I encourage you to at least give it a try in love and see what God has for you to learn.

Mormons who would like a Christian email person contact Paul @ panos04@gmail.com

Christians who want their very own limited edition Mormon contact Bryan @ bryguy16@gmail.com

Please include your gender, age, and brief religious background in your email, thanks!

-Paul

Bryan's Talk!?

"Hey! Things have been really crazy for my the last few weeks. My bro got home from his mission from Frankfurt Germany! So I never got around to doing my blog post. Soooooooo I am just going to post portions of a talk (I get in front of my ward (the church members in a small area) and basically give a lesson) that i gave a few weeks ago (except this is just a couple paragraphs because it's a blog and that's how we roll).

I met a Christian named Paul about two years ago, and ever since then we've been discussing our different religions. He has read the BOM, and the PoGP, but hasn't gotten his answer from the spirit that they are true. A few times he has said that he wishes miracles would happen in his church. He wonders why miracles don't happen like they did during Jesus' time. It's because their church doesn't have the priesthood.

A few months ago we planned to go to the other persons church. He went to our true church, and I went to his not-so-true church. Unfortunately nothing really happened when he went to our church. But my testimony was strengthened by going to his church. Always talking to him has tried my testimony, but the second I walked into his church I knew it wasn't true. The people there were nice and they were teaching true stuff out of the bible, but it was missing something. Right when I walked in, I just had a feeling that this church didn't have all the principles, and that I am 100% sure that I am in the right church. The priesthood gave me the gift of the Holy Ghost, and by that gift we are able to find the truths around us.

Now I will be talking about a blessing I received before I had a surgery. The end of June last year, I was hearing a weird popping noise in my chest. After two weeks I decided to go to the doctors. After an x-ray, they found out that my lung had collapsed. It is called a spontaneous pneumothorax. Nobody knows exactly why the lung collapses, it just happens.

Anyways, so I had to have a tube in my chest so they could drain the air and liquid that was in there. I only had to stay in the hospital for a day, but it was still one of the worst experiences of my life. Moving at all would cause me so much pain. A week later I went back to the doctors for my checkup. After an x-ray, they found out that my lung had collapsed again. Finding that out was the worst thing I could ever imagine. I could not think of going through what I already had again. Since my lung collapsed, I had to get a more extensive surgery. Instead of one day with mostly sleeping, I would have to be in the hospital for six days. Instead of the pain that the one tube brought me, I would have to have three tubes.

I won't get into any more details, but I will tell you what kept me sane. A few hours before the surgery my brother came to give me a blessing. I don't remember what he said, but I remember the change that took place in me. I felt happy, I knew that I would be fine. All of the depression I was feeling before, vanished. The blessing did not cure me instantly, even though I was hoping for that. But it was the greatest blessing I have received. I still had horrible pain over the 6 days, but I was not depressed. I wasn't exactly happy, but it was pretty close. Miracles don't have to have limbs instantly grow back, or sight to return to be miracles. My lung was still collapsed, and I still had to go through the surgery, but a miracle happened that day. I would will never forget it."

Alrighty! That zit! Mormon's rule! I will be interviewing my newly-returned-brother in the next few days to get another awesome blog post. Now you gotta wait, wear green and you'll be fine!

First Vision, Not Exactly 20/20?

The official version of the First Vision can be found in your “Pearl Of Great Price”

In the interest of brevity (apologies, I was way too wound up for my last post, but we’re trying to keep a Monday weekly post schedule) I will refer you to the link for the full account and summarize it here.

Confused by the multiple “revival” campaigns happening near Joseph, and not knowing which to join, he decided to pray according to James 1:5 “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” So he went into the woods to pray to God and God actually shows up! Not just God, but Jesus too! Jesus proceeds to tell Smith not to join any of the churches, that they were all wrong, that their creeds were an abomination.

And there you have the pivotal birth of the LDS church in modern days. In this depiction, Smith seems to be a fairly reasonable fellow. I mean, who wouldn’t be confused with all the churches back then going through their individual revival eras. Each church proclaiming personal damnation for anyone who would join another… Smith knew enough to seek out authority, and in this I applaud him. On what authority did any of these churches speak, why did one have to be a Lutheran or a Baptist, Catholic, or protestant? Why would joining one warrant Hell from all of the others? It was a messy mess, I don’t blame Smith for condemning them all, I might have done the same, but that’s not what he’s claiming has happened. Smith is claiming that Jesus Christ Himself is condemning the other churches. This carries a bit more weight than a man who simply disagrees with the established groups. Now Smith has found the authority he was looking for.

Now if Smith had really experienced what he claimed, how are the regular lay-people supposed to know about it? If I had lived back then, it would have seemed like an addition to the problem rather than a solution. Instead of X churches threatening damnation for not joining them, I now have X+1…

Well the Mormon Church has an answer for my problem: Pray. All a person needs to do is pray according to James 1:5 and Moroni 10:4 and they will receive an answer to their questions. They will receive a testimony of the truthfulness of the Mormon Church and know with a surety that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God and that the Church of Jesus Christ has once again been established upon the Earth, on a foundation of Prophets and Apostles.

The only problem is that I did this. I took the “Moroni Challenge” I read the Book of Mormon and then knelt down and prayed. I prayed that if the BOM was true that I would know it. I prayed that regardless of what I believed that the spirit would come and testify of it. I knelt/laid there for half an hour; my heart and mind open to anything. I was so open, that when I felt hungry, I decided to go get something to eat. (ok so maybe that's not as spiritual as you'd like, but I wasn't about to miss something just because I thought it wasn't "holy" enough.) I drove to McDonalds and as I was pulling up to the window to pay I had a thought: What if this person leans out the window and tells me that the BOM is true and the LDS Church is God’s church? I laughed about the plausible scenario and decided that if that happened, I would be spending a lot of time at McDonalds that night ;).

But it never happened; I went home and called Bryan, told him that I did everything and didn’t receive an answer. He was confused and didn’t understand why I hadn’t received one… I told him that I didn’t see any indication of “when” I was supposed to receive this testimony and he agreed that the time factor wasn’t specified… He also agreed that it was lame that it didn’t happen right away :P

This was in September of '09... to this day I have not received a testimony for the truthfulness of the Mormon Church. On the contrary, as I learn more and more, the less likely I see Mormonism as being possibly true. But I still reserve the right to be wrong and if the Mormon Church is true, my prayer is as has always been, that I would learn it quickly.

Wow, how did a post on the first vision turn into this? :) Maybe it’s the spirit ;) I’ll keep it like this and wrap up with my prior thoughts on First Vision.

According to www.mrm.org there are at least nine different versions of the First Vision. The article raises many good questions for example:

• Which version of the vision is verifiably valid, vacant of vagueness?
• Did Joseph’s own handwritten account show him to be a committed student of the Bible reaching the apostasy conclusion on his own prior to the vision?
• Was there an 1820 revival near Smith in the first place?
• Did the First Vision even happen, or was it a way to establish authority after Mormonism got started?

All of these questions are addressed in the mrm.org article and is well worth the read.

As always, I welcome your comments, questions, and songs.

Respectfully yours,

-PaulO

Baptism!

I don’t know how to start this topic as well as Paul did on the last one. Nothing can be as funny as that joke: “A-pasta-sea”. Do you get it? Get it? It’s funny because it sounds like apostasy. So instead of looking like a complete fool, I am going to go ahead and start.

Baptism: A Christian sacrament signifying spiritual cleansing and rebirth (Da link!)

"Therefore, repent all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me, and believe in my gospel, and be baptized in my name; for he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned; and signs shall follow them that believe in my name." (Ether 4:18)

Alrighty. Thanks for reading this week’s post!

Just kidding, I have more!

Most of the scriptures that I have about baptism can be translated in many different ways. In the example of Nicodemus:

"Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." (John 3:3-5) In this paragraph, Jesus is basically saying that spiritual baptism is more important than water baptism.

"Baptism by the spirit". What does that mean? When you are baptized by the spirit you receive the Holy Spirit. It means that you have received a testimony of Jesus Christ.

Is baptism required for salvation? "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned."(Mark 16: 16) The first part makes it sound like that it is required. But the second part only says that you will go to hell if you don't believe. So which is it? Mormons believe that baptism is required for salvation. Some Christians believe that it is necessary, but other Christians (like Paul) don't believe it is needed, but those others (like Paul) usually get baptized to show that they are truly Disciples of Christ.

Let’s all look at the story of the thief on the cross. Jesus said this when he being crucified. Luke 23:43 "And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise." Do you think a thief was baptized before he died? I don't think he was. This supports the Christian view that it really isn't needed for salvation.

But if Mormonism is right, and somebody dies before they get baptized, what happens to them? Well like i said before, in Mormonism, baptism is required for salvation. We do whats called Baptism for the Dead. Because they can't get baptized because of their lack of a body, somebody who has a body has to step in for them. We are being a proxy for them so they can have the necessary ordinances for salvation. More on baptisms for the dead in a future post.

So ya. Baptism = "required" for Mormons and some Christians. Baptism = "not required" for the other Christians, but they do it as an I-love-Jesus move. Tata!