My Mormon friend from work asked me to diner tonight. He had invited the local Mormon missionaries. The first part of the evening went well. I was about to tell my sidewalk joke but resisted because they do not know my humor yet. After diner, we talk about how the great apostasy that Amos prophesied was now over b/c of Joesph Smith. I asked him if that have been fullfilled before Christ, he said no. I left it at that. Later he said that when Joesph Smith was looking for the truth, he prayed to God and then a pillar of Light was above him and, God said something and then the Book of Mormon was formed. I asked him, "if Joesph Smith was looking for the truth, then why did he not look in the Bible? Jesus said 'I am the truth, the way, and the life. No one goes to heaven except through me.'" He did not answer my question. Some other things happened and then my friend used 1 Peter 4:6. That was a reason why they baptized for the dead. I looked up the word death in that verse. It meant spiritual died. After the missionaries and my friend went through all the passages the Mormon use to justify that died being baptized. They realized that Jesus, Peter, and Paul were talking about different deaths. The missionaries were speechless. One said that he was going to have to study what I was saying. I told them that the reason I went to the Greek, was because of the mistranslation that can happen between languages. The biggest thing is that they only used 2 verses to tell use that Joesph Smith ended the apostasy. The night ended with everyone leaving and me talking home Shela. She is also Mormon. She asked me what religion I was and I answered Christian. Towards the end on the drive, I said that my parent are more work based salvation. That is what the Mormons believe. I started exampling my belief in salvation by grace by telling here that all works are like dirty rags to God, quoting Isaiah 64:6. Then exampled Eph 2:8-9 that God does it all and finished, as I drove up to her dorm, that Paul wrote in Romans 11:6, if by works then it is no longer a gift. Please pray for Shela that the words I spoke will set in if they are true as spoken by God.
BTW, it is almost 2100 and I need to be at work at 0030. I have not slept yet.
