Salvation, Is It A Grace vs. Works Problem

[Tanyan]

Do our best to keep the commandments and follow Christ.

You are welcome to interpret the scriptures any way you like. What does that passage mean to you.

If you can lose salvation through evil works, surely you can maintain salvation by obedience and good works. I never said I that works will save us. Only through Christ's atonement can we be saved. After all we can do, our works will never save us. We will always be unprofitable servants.

Luke 13:24 [vrs 23-30 for context].

In His Debt/Grace, Tanyan, LDS JEDI KNIGHT.

[Hoops22]

Do our best to keep the commandments and follow Christ.

Again, where can I find "do our best,"?

You are welcome to interpret the scriptures any way you like.

No, I'm not. And neither are you. Words have meaning. Doctrine is important.

What does that passage mean to you.

That faith is a gift from God.

If you can lose salvation through evil works, surely you can maintain salvation by obedience and good works

good point. Are you prepared to defend such "heiracy" to the lds brethren.

. I never said I that works will save us. Only through Christ's atonement can we be saved.

This sounds great. Until we get here...

After all we can do, our works will never save us. We will always be unprofitable servants.

This piece of lds scripture has come to have no meaning left at all.

[busybee]

Luke 13:24 [vrs 23-30 for context].

In His Debt/Grace, Tanyan, LDS JEDI KNIGHT.

Thanks for doing that. It's 01h50 where I live and my brain has turned to mush with this ongoing round and round and round and..... You get the idea!!!

[revelation]

Here's the thing. What I have quoted to you is the scripture from the bible.

You decide you cannot do it. You decide you cannot be saved in that manner.

Therefore you change the bible to mean something else, something other than what it plainly states and teaches.

It is not I that changes the Bible, It is not I that needs something more than scripture i.e. BOM Joseph Smith, etc. It is Joseph Smith and the BOM and the LDS apostles and prophets that change the clear teaching of scripture. For you read scripture not through the eyes of scripture but rather, through the eyes of Joseph Smith, The BOM, the LDS apostles and prophets. The Bible says many things that Joseph Smith has rewritten! You have showed me yourself! So since you believe you have been treating me as you would have me treat you, in that Spirit, I say to you in your own words: "to anyone with a brain, it is very clear!" "use your brain!" "you "idiot".

Now does that last part sound loving to you and make you feel loved and respected? If it does, then for your sake alone I will continue to call you and "idiot" and tell you to "use your brain" but if you prefer I didn't say those things, then just say the word and I will stop.

Now. You accuse me of twisting the scripture and as I said above, it is Joseph Smith who twists the scripture in his JS translation!

God says (and I simply Echo his words): "But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness"

Joseph Smith twists the words by changing them to : "But to him that seeketh not to be justified by the law of works, but believeth on him who justifieth not the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness"

So Joseph Smith is the one who twists scripture! Very clearly, very plainly! "You idiot"! "to anyone with a brain, it is very clear" "Use your brain!"

I prefer to believe God, you prefer to believe man. (a man named Joseph Smith)

[urroner]

Again, where can I find "do our best,"?

No, I'm not. And neither are you. Words have meaning. Doctrine is important.

So, where can I find "doing our best isn't necessary?"

Words do have meaning, but when I ask for definitions for the word "works," I don't get any or I get one when I'm giving a list of definitions pulled out of a book and said that these are all acceptable, but the poster failed to state which definition was the most important. So Hoops, words do have meanings and with this in mind, what is the meaning of the word "works" for you. Please don't tell me what it isn't and please don't tell me the Mormons are damned and not saved. None of those are definitions.

Thanks Hoops, I look forward to your definition. It might help get this thread back on track.

[revelation]

All that is required of us is our best. Your best may be more than my best, but my best is still my best.

We need to be as obedient as we are capable of being, and Christ, through His Atonement, will make up the difference.

Can't remember exactly where it is, but somewhere in the Bible a father asks Christ to heal his son. The Savior asks him if he believes and his response was "I believe. Help thou mine unbelief", or in other words, "Please make up the difference. Do for me what I cannot do for myself" Christ will make up the difference. His contribution will always outweigh ours infinitely, but we are still required to do our best. It would be arrogant to go through this life doing anything less than our best and still expect Christ to pick up the tab for our laziness.

Do you always do your best?

[revelation]

Do our best to keep the commandments and follow Christ.

You are welcome to interpret the scriptures any way you like. What does that passage mean to you.

If you can lose salvation through evil works, surely you can maintain salvation by obedience and good works. I never said I that works will save us. Only through Christ's atonement can we be saved. After all we can do, our works will never save us. We will always be unprofitable servants.

Thats not what a link given in this thread said. It says we are saved by faith and obedience to the commandments

[revelation]

So, where can I find "doing our best isn't necessary?"

Words do have meaning, but when I ask for definitions for the word "works," I don't get any or I get one when I'm giving a list of definitions pulled out of a book and said that these are all acceptable, but the poster failed to state which definition was the most important. So Hoops, words do have meanings and with this in mind, what is the meaning of the word "works" for you. Please don't tell me what it isn't and please don't tell me the Mormons are damned and not saved. None of those are definitions.

Thanks Hoops, I look forward to your definition. It might help get this thread back on track.

Works are anything we do in accordance with God's will.

[Hoops22]

So, where can I find "doing our best isn't necessary?"

You also can't find "Thou shalt maketh the long distance 3-ball". So what?

So Hoops, words do have meanings and with this in mind, what is the meaning of the word "works" for you.

Any physical or mental production that is for the purpose of justifying me before God.

please don't tell me the Mormons are damned and not saved.

I've never said nor wrote that. I think you know that.

[urroner]

Works are anything we do in accordance with God's will.

So are evil works and works of the flesh in accordance with God's will?

[urroner]

Any physical or mental production that is for the purpose of justifying me before God.

Okay, so your definition of works is "anything that I do for the purpose of justifying me before God.

Suppose God wanted me to do X and I did X, would that be considered by you as works?

[revelation]

So are evil works and works of the flesh in accordance with God's will?

Of course not

[urroner]

Of course not

What is wrong with this definition for "works," - Anything we do with our own volition. This covers works of righteousness, works of the flesh, and even works of evilness. Grace is what God or Christ do for us, things we can't do, and works are what we do on our own volition, right or wrong.

[shalamabobbi]

All that is required of us is our best.

Where does the Bible tell us this?

Two here:

In the parable of the pearl of great price.

In Luke 14:26-33

And revelation, I don't mind you calling me idiot..

[shalamabobbi]

I prefer to believe God, you prefer to believe man. (a man named Joseph Smith)

Correction, you prefer to believe your interpretation of the bible,

and to pronounce it inerrant, based upon what heaven only knows..

[revelation]

What is wrong with this definition for "works," - Anything we do with our own volition. This covers works of righteousness, works of the flesh, and even works of evilness. Grace is what God or Christ do for us, things we can't do, and works are what we do on our own volition, right or wrong.

What is wrong with what definition? Mine? Good works are those works which are pleasing to God, evil works are those works which are not pleasing to God. When I speak of works, I generally mean only Good works.

[urroner]

What is wrong with what definition? Mine? Good works are those works which are pleasing to God, evil works are those works which are not pleasing to God. When I speak of works, I generally mean only Good works.

Okay. I realize that not too many mainstream Christians on this board have accepted my definition. Is there any thing in my definition that could be changed to make it more palatable with these Christians without changing it drastically and without defining what it isn't?

What is wrong with what definition? Mine? Good works are those works which are pleasing to God, evil works are those works which are not pleasing to God. When I speak of works, I generally mean only Good works.

Okay. I realize that not too many mainstream Christians on this board have accepted my definition. Is there any thing in my definition that could be changed to make it more palatable with these Christians without changing it drastically and without defining what it isn't?

[urroner]

What is wrong with what definition?

My definition - Works are anything that man does on his own volition.

[revelation]

Correction, you prefer to believe your interpretation of the bible,

and to pronounce it inerrant, based upon what heaven only knows..

Okay, then help me out here.

My interpretation of the Bible is that:

those who believeth on him that justify the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. The Bible says:

those who believeth on him that justify the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

How have I misinterpreted that? I believe it word for word.

You say:

those who believeth on him that justifieth not the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. The Bible says:

those who believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

You have added a single word which entirely interprets the scripture in complete opposition to what it actually says! And you charge me with misinterpreting the Bible?!

And revelation, I don't mind you calling me idiot..

Well in all truth, I don't think your an idiot, I have alot of respect for you in so many ways.

[LeSellers]

Jesus teaches that we must be perfect before we follow him.

Which, somehow, you all twist to mean that, since we do not (or cannot) be perfect, we should ignore any effort to do so.

That is, I hope you won't be too offended, just plain stupid.

It is a real eye opener to study the scriptures and see that God demands perfection and nothing short of it.

We have Mathew 5:48 â??Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.â? Our father in heaven isnâ??t trying to be perfect, he IS perfect. We are to be perfect as he is perfect. The verse doesn't tell us to try and become perfect.

But that is not what the verse says.

He said,

48 Therefore, you will be perfect, just as your Father, the [One] in the heavens, is perfect.

48 ἔσεσθε οὖν ὑμεῖς τέλειοι, ὥσπερ ὁ πατὴρ ὑμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς τέλειός ἐστιν.

Will be therefore you complete, just as the father of you in the heavens complete is.

The two words you do not get are "you will be": ἔσεσθε ... ὑμεῖς (which is the second person plural, indicative middle deponent of εἰμί, I am; thus "you will be") and τέλειος ("perfect" in the same sense as we use in "past perfect tense"; one derivative means "dead").

The Greek word we would see if it were what you think this verse means is τελειότης. But it is not τελειότης, and thus Jesus did not mean that we would become "perfect", he meant that if we do what He had been discussing in the first 47 verses of Matthew 5, we would become "complete". It is not a commandment at all, but a conditional prophecy.

In Mathew 19:21 "Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

Notice in Mathew 19:21 above, Jesus teaches that the man must be perfect before he can even begin to follow Jesus.

τέλειος still means "complete", not "perfect".

But that meaning (while literally accurate) is not what Jesus meant at all. He was answering the young man's question: What do I need to do to gain eternal life? The answer was, get rid of your ties to the telestial world, your goods, and follow Christ. It was not a chronologically ordered commandment, it was just two parts, both of which the young man had to obey. You will notice, I am sure, that Jesus required that he do something, not that he just believe, not that he merely have faith. The young man had to act.

Jesus didn't say: "go and try not to sin no more" Jesus said "go and sin no more" (John 8:11)

Jesus never taught once that we are to try our hardest, rather, he taught that we must be perfect.

So, the answer is to ignore obedience. Sorry, your approach is ludicrous; it stands any sort of logic completely on its head.

When I told my students to learn the First Law of Thermodynamics, I didn't say, "You will have to give me the basic idea on the test," I told them to learn it. Nonetheless, if one of them had written "Energy can only change forms, and the total energy in the universe is constant. In a thermodynamic cycle, the heat put into a system is equal to the total of the work the system does," I'd have given him full credit, even though the formal statement is

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only change forms.

In any process, the total energy of the universe remains the same.

For a thermodynamic cycle the net heat supplied to the system equals the net work done by the system.

If I then, being evil, know how to give As unto my students: how much more shall our heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him, even if they are not "perfect"?

James 2:10 teaches us â??For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking ALL OF IT.â? So in light of this verse, the entire law of Jesus is like a balloon. One little sin is like a pin that pops the entire balloon. Think about that verse. Every time we sin, we have broken the entire law. This is exactly the doctrine of Jesus as I have shown.

What doe this have to do with LDSs? We do not believe that we are under the law. The Law of Moses was fulfilled in Christ. Pulling that canard out of your, er, hat shows that you have not the least idea of what James was conveying, nor to whom he was writing.

How do you think God views those who break his entire law? The answer to that is found in John 8:34-35 â??Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house for everâ?

Yet, when we do our best (even though we admit it is not sufficient, and that we rely on the Atonement of Jesus Christ to "fix us"), you chide us for becoming more Godlike as we improve by our attempts to obey His commandments. You are simply making no sense whatsoever.

So the servant of sin will not abideth in Godâ??s house for ever. That is a grave warning for us.

Yes, it is. So, rather than sitting idly by waiting for God to purge us of the desire to sin, we do what we can to overcome the very impulse to commit them in the first place. We cannot do it alone, to be sure, but I know that any of your creedal Christians admit that the impulse to sin still lives within their breasts. So. apparently God doesn't do it, at least not all at once. The minister who lived next door to us in California told me that he was still a sinner (at age 85 or so), and that he had been "saved" when he was a young man. Sixty or more years later, he was still a sinner, so God must be very slow left on His own. You make me think of an old joke. Please be polite and laugh even if you've heard it before (and don't give away the punchline. A man was standing in the garden he had just finished weeding. The harvest wold be great, and it looked beautiful. A minister came along and said, "That's a fine garden you and God have made there." The man replied, "Thank you. But you should have seen it when God was working it alone."

But in LDS repentance, you must first overcome your sin. Any sin you don't overcome by LDS teachings remains unforgiven.

This is not LDS doctrine. Our repentance does require an effort to overcome the sin, but the forgiveness of sin is wholly dependent on Jesus Christ, and when forgiven, the sin is as if we had never committed it in the first place. I do not know where you got this idiotic idea about how we repent, but you need some revision to your notinos.

The LDS teaches that sin cannot abide with God. And I agree that sin cannot abide with God.

So you just sit around, doing nothing, and mallowing in your sins, because you cannot even try to stop. Hmmm, that's just ridiculous.

But the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are God. So sin cannot abide in any part of heaven. If your sin isn't forgiven, you cannot abide with God in either the Celestial, telestial or terrestial kingdoms. You must be perfect and spotless to abide anywhere in the kingdom of heaven for where there is Heavenly father, Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit, there abides God. Sin cannot abide with God.

But, as I said above, your sins are forgiven when we repent. They do not exist any more. So, we can live in the Celestial Kingdom. We are washed clean in the blood of the Lamb of God. As Nephi said, "I glory in my Jesus" because He redeems my soul from the bondage of sin into which I sold myself. He paid the price of that sin. It is up to me to cloak myself with His proffered mercy and power, but they are His mercy and power, not mine. I must reach out and take that cloak, and to do so I must acknowledge Him my God and my Savior, and my King forever. I must choose to follow Him, and do my human (and thus imperfect) best, but without that attempt, without that trial, there is no reason for Him to forgive me.

Your ability to dictate to us what we believe is extremely poor. You would do much better were you to let us tell you what we believe, and then respond, because your mind reading act is a failure.

Lehi

[revelation]

Okay. I realize that not too many mainstream Christians on this board have accepted my definition. Is there any thing in my definition that could be changed to make it more palatable with these Christians without changing it drastically and without defining what it isn't?Okay. I realize that not too many mainstream Christians on this board have accepted my definition. Is there any thing in my definition that could be changed to make it more palatable with these Christians without changing it drastically and without defining what it isn't?

Oh! I think I see what you meant now. Sorry about that.

Your definition is true if you call those things just "works", however I would think most of the NON LDS generally mean only GOOD works when they say "works" (Good works are things done in accordance with God's will). Why? How do they define it? ( Just Curious.)

[shalamabobbi]

What is arrogant is thinking that man can do anything to foster or nurture his own salvation.

Ah the depth of EV understanding..

Does man have agency or is he predestined?

I will assume you believe he has agency..

Is he held accountable for how he exercises that agency?

I will assume you say yes, else no heaven, no hell..

If man exercises it to disobey God's law is he liable to be punished?

If he exercises it to walk in compliance to that same law, is he then free from the fear of punishment?

What is salvation? Is it deliverance from punishment for broken laws?

[shalamabobbi]

You say:

those who believeth on him that justifieth not the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. The Bible says:

those who believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

You have added a single word which entirely interprets the scripture in complete opposition to what it actually says! And you charge me with misinterpreting the Bible?!

The basis of this discussion rests in whether the bible is truly innerrant or not. Have some scriptures been altered in the translation process from the original as it fell from the lips of the apostles? At the time of Paul's ministry there were 70 extant manuscripts that we know of, there may have been more, that tried to combine the law of Moses with the gospel of Christ.

After the leadership of the church was killed who was there qualified to correct these problems?

The God who called and sent prophets throughout all history has not lost the capacity to do so since the meridian of time.

His kingdom has always been one of authority and order.

Look at these scriptural contradictions.

1 John 1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

1 John 3:6 Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.

Now look at how Joseph was directed to correct the second verse:

1 John 3:6 Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever continueth in sin hath not seen him, neither known him.

Again if you believe in biblical inerrancy you are left with biblical contradictions, which prove that the bible did not make it through without mistakes being introduced.

The only resolution of these two verses is the idea encompassed in the doctrine of repentance, with the definition being the forsaking of sin, of learning to become obedient to the commandments.

1 John 1:10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

Notice here the past tense which agrees with the point I make..

And as for being friends, who is a friend - a yes man, or someone who tells the truth?

[revelation]

Which, somehow, you all twist to mean that, since we do not (or cannot) be perfect, we should ignore any effort to do so.

That is, I hope you won't be too offended, just plain stupid.

What is "just plain stupid" is a misunderstanding you have of our beliefs.

There are two doctrines. One is "Justification" and the other is "sanctification"

Justification = We are justified by faith alone and not by obedience to the commandments. Herein we are saved.

Sanctification = We desire to be obedient to the commandments out of thanks for our completed Justification above.

Justification is the horse and sanctification is the cart. The horse must come before the cart. We do not mix these two doctrines together.

With you all, I am speaking about the doctrine of Justification, not sanctication.

Does that make our doctrine clearer?

But that is not what the verse says.

He said,

The two words you do not get are "you will be": ἔσεσθε ... ὑμεῖς (which is the second person plural, indicative middle deponent of εἰμί, I am; thus "you will be") and τέλειος ("perfect" in the same sense as we use in "past perfect tense"; one derivative means "dead").

The Greek word we would see if it were what you think this verse means is τελειότης. But it is not τελειότης, and thus Jesus did not mean that we would become "perfect", he meant that if we do what He had been discussing in the first 47 verses of Matthew 5, we would become "complete". It is not a commandment at all, but a conditional prophecy.

τέλειος still means "complete", not "perfect".

But that meaning (while literally accurate) is not what Jesus meant at all. He was answering the young man's question: What do I need to do to gain eternal life? The answer was, get rid of your ties to the telestial world, your goods, and follow Christ. It was not a chronologically ordered commandment, it was just two parts, both of which the young man had to obey. You will notice, I am sure, that Jesus required that he do something, not that he just believe, not that he merely have faith. The young man had to act.

So, the answer is to ignore obedience. Sorry, your approach is ludicrous; it stands any sort of logic completely on its head.

When I told my students to learn the First Law of Thermodynamics, I didn't say, "You will have to give me the basic idea on the test," I told them to learn it. Nonetheless, if one of them had written "Energy can only change forms, and the total energy in the universe is constant. In a thermodynamic cycle, the heat put into a system is equal to the total of the work the system does," I'd have given him full credit, even though the formal statement is If I then, being evil, know how to give As unto my students: how much more shall our heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him, even if they are not "perfect"?

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b...p;t=KJV#conc/48

and

http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexico...G5046&t=KJV

What doe this have to do with LDSs? We do not believe that we are under the law. The Law of Moses was fulfilled in Christ. Pulling that canard out of your, er, hat shows that you have not the least idea of what James was conveying, nor to whom he was writing.

The context of James shows us that James isn't refering to the Law of Moses, but he is refering to the law of Jesus because he calls it the Royal law of: "Love your neighbor as yourself" That is the law of Jesus! That is what you call the "higher law" That is also the moral law of Moses. Read it for yourself:

James 2:8-11 " If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker."

Yes, it is. So, rather than sitting idly by waiting for God to purge us of the desire to sin, we do what we can to overcome the very impulse to commit them in the first place. We cannot do it alone, to be sure, but I know that any of your creedal Christians admit that the impulse to sin still lives within their breasts. So. apparently God doesn't do it, at least not all at once. The minister who lived next door to us in California told me that he was still a sinner (at age 85 or so), and that he had been "saved" when he was a young man. Sixty or more years later, he was still a sinner, so God must be very slow left on His own. You make me think of an old joke. Please be polite and laugh even if you've heard it before (and don't give away the punchline. A man was standing in the garden he had just finished weeding. The harvest wold be great, and it looked beautiful. A minister came along and said, "That's a fine garden you and God have made there." The man replied, "Thank you. But you should have seen it when God was working it alone."

You must be perfect even before you can begin to follow Jesus and one sin against Jesus' law of "love your neighbor as yourself" is like a pin popping the entire balloon of the law. One sin and you have broken the entire law, ALL OF IT.

Mathew 19:21 " If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

And again James 2:8-10 in context "If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it."

This is not LDS doctrine. Our repentance does require an effort to overcome the sin, but the forgiveness of sin is wholly dependent on Jesus Christ, and when forgiven, the sin is as if we had never committed it in the first place. I do not know where you got this idiotic idea about how we repent, but you need some revision to your notinos.

I said your repentance requires you to overcome your sin. That is what you also just said.

So you just sit around, doing nothing, and mallowing in your sins, because you cannot even try to stop. Hmmm, that's just ridiculous.

That is not what we believe. See my response under the definition of Sanctification at the top of this post.

But, as I said above, your sins are forgiven when we repent. They do not exist any more. So, we can live in the Celestial Kingdom. We are washed clean in the blood of the Lamb of God. As Nephi said, "I glory in my Jesus" because He redeems my soul from the bondage of sin into which I sold myself. He paid the price of that sin. It is up to me to cloak myself with His proffered mercy and power, but they are His mercy and power, not mine. I must reach out and take that cloak, and to do so I must acknowledge Him my God and my Savior, and my King forever. I must choose to follow Him, and do my human (and thus imperfect) best, but without that attempt, without that trial, there is no reason for Him to forgive me.

But my point is, if you must overcome your sins to be forgiven, you won't ever be forgiven because you won't ever overcome your sins in this life.

Your ability to dictate to us what we believe is extremely poor.

Ditto. You don't have the ability yet to dictate what I believe either but that's okay, at least when you try to do so in your own words, you show me that you are trying to understand what I believe, and it shows me very clearly what you yet fail to understand about my beliefs so that I can explain it better to you. So it is very beneficial to see where you get my beliefs wrong, so even if you don't get it right, it's okay, your fine. I don't hold that against you at all!

[revelation]

The basis of this discussion rests in whether the bible is truly innerrant or not. Have some scriptures been altered in the translation process from the original as it fell from the lips of the apostles? At the time of Paul's ministry there were 70 extant manuscripts that we know of, there may have been more, that tried to combine the law of Moses with the gospel of Christ.

After the leadership of the church was killed who was there qualified to correct these problems?

God is in charge of men, not the other way around. God is more powerful than man. God is able to keep his word inerrant he is a God who does miracles!

However, Satan knows the word is inerrant so the only way he can lead you away from God is to convince you that God's word has errors. Once he gets you to believe that, he can teach any doctrine he wants to. The skys the limit for him then!

Then Satan introduces Joseph Smith with all his false teachings and contradictions to scripture and you believe it!

You have eaten of Satan's bait! He has reeled you in!

The God who called and sent prophets throughout all history has not lost the capacity to do so since the meridian of time.

His kingdom has always been one of authority and order.

His kingdom is still one of authority and order. God's word is our sole authority. My conscience is not subject to any man. My conscience is alone subject to the word of God. Therefore I am kept safe from falling into the hands of false teachers and prophets who teach in contradiction to the word of God.

Look at these scriptural contradictions.

1 John 1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

1 John 3:6 Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.

These verses only contradict to those who interpret one verse and ignore the other verses in scripture.

So in reality, if the scripture contradicts something you believe, don't hire Joseph Smith to twist the other scripture out of place to fit your flawed interpretation but instead take it as a sign that something you believe right now, is wrong! Then learn to interpret scripture so that both verses are true and not contradictory!!

Scripture says the UNGODLY are justified. Joseph says the GODLY are justified. Complete contradiction! Why don't you try assuming the bible is inerrant and just learn what it then says. Just try it! Read it! AS IS!

Again if you believe in biblical inerrancy you are left with biblical contradictions, which prove that the bible did not make it through without mistakes being introduced.

Scripture doesn't contradict scripture.

And as for being friends, who is a friend - a yes man, or someone who tells the truth?

Someone who tells the truth. What do you mean by a "yes man"?

The truth is, I believe in God's word and you believe in Joseph's word and Joseph is a mere man.