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Last night, I had a lengthy conversation with Latter-day Saint apologist Jacob Hansen about the nature of God. We covered a lot of ground — from creation ex nihilo to the Trinity, from the death of Egypt’s firstborn to hell and eternal punishment. I know I didn’t always express myself perfectly, and there are answers…
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According to LDS teaching, plural marriage was a divine principle restored in modern times and practiced anciently by prophets such as Abraham. Doctrine and Covenants 132:34 states: “God commanded Abraham, and Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham to wife. And why did she do it? Because this was the law; and from Hagar sprang many people.”…
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One of the common debates between Protestants and Latter-day Saints is whether human beings are by nature children of God. It’s a well-worn topic with familiar arguments on both sides. On the one hand, Scripture does speak of all people as God’s creation. In Acts 17:28–29, Paul reminds the Athenians that “we are His offspring.”…
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One of the most common Bible verses that Evangelicals quote towards Latter-day Saints is Galatians 1:8 — “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.” To be fair to my LDS friends, this verse can be…
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In my previous post, I wrote about how Latter-day Saints conflate the Abrahamic covenant with Christ’s New Covenant, seeing the two as essentially identical. As I argued there, this blurs the crucial distinction between God’s gracious promise and human obedience, leading to an overemphasis on works and an underappreciation of grace in salvation. Now I…
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Latter-day Saints often love to point to Jesus’s words about recognizing a prophet “by their fruits.” They highlight statistics like lower divorce rates or higher rates of charitable giving and claim that these outcomes prove Joseph Smith was a true prophet. But is that really what Jesus had in mind? And is that the only…
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One of the legacies of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints President Russell M. Nelson was his strong emphasis on covenants and the covenant path. President Nelson spoke frequently about covenants—especially about the Abrahamic Covenant. When I was LDS, I was taught to see the Abrahamic Covenant as the equivalent of the “new and…
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The Heart of the Matter When Latter-day Saints and Evangelicals talk about ongoing revelation, we often spend a lot of energy debating peripheral issues — like whether Revelation 22:18–19 supports the closing of the biblical canon. But that misses the heart of the matter. Latter-day Saints do not simply believe in an open canon; they…
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This morning, a friend liked an old post I made on the Book of Esther a few years ago, and so it got me thinking again about the story of Esther. From childhood, I always loved this story and enjoyed wearing costumes and going to the synagogue to hear the story of brave Queen Esther…
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“And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.”— John 1:16 (KJV) > “…he received not of the fulness at the first, but received grace for grace.”— Doctrine & Covenants 93:12 These two verses use the same phrase grace for grace” (or “grace upon grace”), but they tell very different theological stories.…