by Sharon Lindbloom
20 August 2018

LDS Living, a popular independent faith-promoting magazine and website for Mormons, recently produced and published a video, “The 6 Questions That Led Me to Christianity.” In the fallaciously-titled video, an unnamed man explains why he joined the LDS Church. He begins,

“At 19 I had decided that Christianity could not be, possibly be true, based on the information in the Bible. So I wrote down these six questions that I thought, if someone could answer these questions, then maybe I could become a Christian.”

His questions (along with a summary of his comments) are these:

1. How do you identify the Holy Ghost?
The man explains, “You have to understand that all of the Christian faiths they have multiple ways of identifying it. But they never matches up with what it says in the Bible.” [answered at mrm.org]

2. Where is the church that is building a temple?
The man speaks of how important the temple is in the Bible and says, “We gotta get one at some point here.” [answered at mrm.org]

3. Where is my prophet?
Noting that the Israelites barely made it through even while having the prophet Moses to lead them, the man concludes that without a prophet, “I have no chance.” [answered at mrm.org]

4. …There must be three Gods?!
“The concept of the Trinity I always had a problem with” he says. “They always taught that Jesus was God in the flesh. Yet for some strange reason He always prayed to His Father, which means there were two people, and so if Jesus is a God and there’s a Father, then there must be two Gods. And then if there’s a Holy Ghost, there must be three. And so, I got in a lot of trouble for that.” [answered at mrm.org]

5. If God gave you the information for free, why are you gonna sell it to me?
The man explains, “I had a problem with the idea of paid ministry. If God gave you the information for free, why are you gonna sell it to me? And so, I had a problem with that, you see.” [answered at mrm.org]

6. What God, who’s supposed to be a good God, has no means for these people?
Speaking of those who have never heard of Jesus, the man reasons that people who lived “good lives” who never heard of Jesus, “never could be baptized.” [answered at mrm.org]

“The [LDS] missionaries were able to answer the whole six things,” the man explains. “There was no reason to not join the Church. It was done.”

The short video never reveals what answers the LDS missionaries provided, but there is no reason to think they would have taught anything other than standard Mormon doctrine (an explanation of the LDS answers to these questions are included in the MRM articles linked to above). The questions themselves seem highly tailored to Mormonism (i.e., about prophets, temples, unpaid ministry, etc.). They’re not the sorts of questions one usually encounters from skeptics (e.g., Where did God come from? How can Jesus be the only way to God? Why should I trust the Bible? etc.). It seems as if the man in the video specifically wanted to become a Mormon, not a Christian. If he were a sincere seeker trying to understand Christianity, he would not have had to look far to find biblical answers to his six questions.

As evidenced by the links provided above, the MRM website contains answers to all of the man’s questions, but let’s not stop there.

I did a quick Internet search for answers to the six questions. This quickly brought biblical answers in the top returns (see examples of these links below).

I visited the Got Questions? website and found answers to all six questions complete with Bible references (see links below).

I looked through the book by Bill McKeever and Eric Johnson aptly titled “Answering Mormons’ Questions: Ready Responses for Inquiring Latter-day Saints” and found answers to 36 relevant questions, including the six raised in the video. See:

How do you identify the Holy Ghost? Chapter 27: “Doesn’t James 1:5 say we should pray for wisdom? Why won’t you pray about the truth claims of Mormonism?”

Where is the church that is building a temple? Chapter 29: “Why doesn’t your church build temples?”

Where is my prophet? Chapter 35: “Why do you have difficulty accepting Joseph Smith as a true prophet of God?” (see also McKeever and Johnson, Mormonism 101, chapters 16-18.)

…There must be three Gods?! Chapter 15: “How do you justify the doctrine of the Trinity?”

If God gave you the information for free, why are you gonna sell it to me? Chapter 10: “Why are your clergy members paid?”

What God, who’s supposed to be a good God, has no means for these people? Chapter 22: “If there is no baptism for the dead, what about all those who have died without having heard the gospel?”

The man in the LDS Living video could have easily found Christian answers to his questions, but he either chose not to look, or not to accept the biblical answers.

Years ago I encountered a similar story when the LDS Church’s Ensign magazine published an article about the spiritual journey of a man named Jack Brown. Raised in a Christian home, Jack had questions that he claimed Christian ministers couldn’t answer. I wrote about this at the time,

“As he related his conversion story, he wrote, ‘I searched everywhere for answers. And I wanted answers that made sense…’ Later, recounting a discussion with his uncle [a minister], Mr. Brown explained, ‘[My uncle] was understanding but had no satisfactory answers.’ And finally, ‘When the [LDS] missionaries started telling us about where we came from, why we’re here, and where we’re going, I knew my prayers were being answered. Everything rang true, and a warm feeling in my heart told me, ‘This is exactly what you’ve been searching for.’” (Read more about Jack and my analysis of his search at mrm.org: “Searching for Answers or Seeking Confirmation?”)

The search of the unnamed man in the LDS Living video strikes me as the same sort of search undertaken by Jack Brown (and others). It is not necessarily a search for truth, but rather a search for confirmation of what they want the truth to be.

This approach is certainly not rare; God, through the biblical Apostle Paul, found it prudent to warn,

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.” (2 Timothy 4:3-4)

As noted in my previously referenced article,

“Mormonism claims to have answers. Scientology claims to have answers. Islam and many other religions claim to have answers. But having answers isn’t the key. What matters is the content of those answers. There are plenty of religions willing to tell people what they wantto hear; but an appealing answer is worse than worthless if it isn’t the truth—no matter how well it fulfills our desires or soothes our itching ears.”

Mormonism has answers to the man’s six questions, but the answers are not are not biblical. If you are interested in the truth, biblical answers are easy to find. The Bible’s answers might not be what you want to hear, but without a doubt, God’s truth is always what you need.

Internet Search Returns:

https://godlovesmormons.com/still-need-temples/
“Do We Still Need Mormon Temples”
God Loves Mormons

http://mit.irr.org/are-mormon-temples-extension-of-biblical-temple
“Are Mormon Temples an Extension of the Biblical Temple? The Old Testament Temple and New Testament Faith”
Luke P. Wilson, Institute for Religious Research

https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/why-we-must-understand-the-temple-in-gods-plan-today
“Why We Must Understand the Temple in God’s Plan Today”
Interview with D.A. Carson, Professor, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

https://www.gty.org/library/bibleqnas-library/QA0258/are-there-prophets-today
“Are There Prophets Today?”
John MacArthur New Testament Commentary on Ephesians 4

https://www.gotquestions.org/prophets-today.html
“Are there prophets in the church today?”
Gotquestions.org

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/what-is-the-doctrine-of-the-trinity
“What Is the Doctrine of the Trinity?”
Matt Perman, Desiring God

https://carm.org/does-the-trinity-really-teach-there-are-three-gods
“Does the Trinity really teach that there are three gods?”
Matt Slick, CARM

https://carm.org/pastors-paid
“Is it okay for pastors to be paid for ministry?”
Matt Slick, CARM

https://www.christianitytoday.com/pastors/1981/spring/81l2066.html
“What The Bible Says About Paying Your Pastor”
Wayne Grudem

https://www.focusonthefamily.com/faith/becoming-a-christian/is-christ-the-only-way/what-about-those-who-have-never-heard
“What About Those Who Have Never Heard?”
Robert Velarde, Focus on the Family

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/what-happens-to-those-who-never-hear-gospel/
“What Happens to Those Who Never Hear the Gospel?”
Matt Smethurst, The Gospel Coalition

Gotquestions.org:

Answering “How do you identify the Holy Ghost?”
https://www.gotquestions.org/guidance-Holy-Spirit.html
“How can I recognize the guidance of the Holy Spirit?”

Answering “Where is the church that is building a temple?”
https://www.gotquestions.org/temple-veil-torn.html
“What was the significance of the temple veil being torn in two when Jesus died?”

Answering “Where is my prophet?”
https://www.gotquestions.org/prophets-today.html
“Are there prophets in the church today?”

Answering “…There must be three Gods?!”
https://www.gotquestions.org/Tritheism-Trinity.html
“How is the doctrine of the Trinity not tritheism?”

Answering “If God gave you the information for free, why are you gonna sell it to me?”
https://www.gotquestions.org/pastors-paid-salary.html
“Should pastors be paid a salary?”

Answering “What God, who’s supposed to be a good God, has no means for these people?”
https://www.gotquestions.org/never-heard.html
“What happens to those who have never heard about Jesus?”

Mormonism Research Ministry website:

Answering “How do you identify the Holy Ghost?”
http://www.mrm.org/praying-book-of-mormon
“Should you pray about the Book of Mormon?”
Eric Johnson

Answering “How do you identify the Holy Ghost?”
http://www.mrm.org/feelings
“Are Feelings a Good Source for Truth?”
Bill McKeever

Answering “Where is the church that is building a temple?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=11&v=1YHDF8EfKdw
“Are Mormon Temples Biblical?” (offsite video linked at mrm.org)

Answering “Where is my prophet?”
http://www.mrm.org/ephesians-220
“Ephesians 2:20: Is the Mormon Church true because it’s built on apostles and prophets?”

Answering “…There must be three Gods?!”
http://www.mrm.org/trinity-basic-definition
“What is the Trinity?”
Eric Johnson

Answering “If God gave you the information for free, why are you gonna sell it to me?”
http://www.mrm.org/should-pastors-be-paid
“Should pastors be paid?”
Eric Johnson

Answering “What God, who’s supposed to be a good God, has no means for these people?”
http://www.mrm.org/baptism-dead
“Is Baptism for the Dead a biblical doctrine?”
Bill McKeever and Eric Johnson