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Review of Mormon Church vs. Biblical Christianity and links to additional resources

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Our series on the Mormon Church was not about political issues or Mormon bashing–but an honest look at the beliefs of a religious system that uses the same words as the historical, biblical Christian faith, but that has, by their own writings, VERY DIFFERENT meanings in those words.

This is not a small issue, as the Bible clearly tells us that when we all meet Jesus one day, there will be some who will hear, “I never knew you–depart from me.”

That we put our faith into the real, historical Jesus is an issue of incredible importance. That we understand our historical, Bible-based faith well enough to know what makes it different from other faith systems is why we’ve done the class.

Our prayer is that you’ve learned why you believe what you believe from the class–and will be able to tell the difference between the historical, Biblical Christian faith and the many competing systems in our world. Check out the notes and additional resources below and grow strong in the true Christian faith.

Class notes from final review

Click on either image to download either full-page slides or notes. After the notes is a short video that overviews additional resource sites and finally there is a PDF page that you can download that has the site URLs shown in the video.

Final Mormon Review full-size notesFinal Mormon Review Notes

Video overview of Mormon apologetic sites:

Additional resources, websites and recommended books

Below is a list of PDF of links, just click on the image to download the list. In addition, here are a few of the books used for resources. There are many good books out today about the false teachings of the Mormon Church, but these are a good start. If you can only read one book, Mormonism 101 is the best one. Just click on an image to go to the amazon page for the book.

Mormon websites shown in videoAn excellent overview book on the topic.An accurate account of the bizarre history of the founder of the Mormon Church.Maze of MormonismKingdom of the Cults

Trinity #3–How the Persons of the Trinity relate to one another, a brief history of Modalism and other false views

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The Baptism of Jesus is one of the clearest Biblical pictures of the Trinity: Jesus was baptized, God the Father spoke and the Holy Spirit descended. All three Persons present and interacting; all One God.

From our Bible-based study of the Trinity, we have established so far that all three members of the Trinity are God and all three are Persons. Having said that, how do these persons exist? This was one of the early and most important challenges for the early church to figure out because, in part because the church came from both strict Jews who believed in ONE God and pagans who believed in many gods. How were they to understand Jesus?

For the first almost 500 years the church worked to clarify this truth. They did this in large measure through various church councils and the resulting creeds that came from them. This week we will look briefly at church history to understand their thought processes and ultimate decisions.

In the church today we stand on the foundation of careful study of wise Biblical scholars of the past and I hope this brief view of them will inspire you to study the church councils in more detail.

Study the Trinty #3 notes

Trinity #2–One God, three distinct persons in relationship to each other

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Last week we started our study of the Trinity and we could see from the Bible passages that God the Father is God, God the Son is God, and God the Holy Spirit is God. All of them in the Bible are described with the attributes of God. This week the lesson looks at what it means that each one is a Person. We also briefly look at the false Mormon interpretation of the Holy Spirit (who they describe as different from the Holy Ghost).

Click on the large image below to see the PowerPoint slides full size and click on the other image to download notes.

Trinity #1-Foundational to the Christian Faith and a key distinction from the Mormon Church

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In a recent television interview, Pastor Rick Warren was asked his opinion about the Mormon Church and he graciously replied that he had a problem with their view of the Trinity, that it was not the Biblical view. I appreciated that because it cut to the core of the difference between the Mormon Church and the Biblical Christian Church–what God do we believe in?

In this and the next several lessons we will look at this in detail as we study the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. God does not reveal things to us in the Bible to confuse us–He wants us to understand the Trinity. It is the foundational teaching about our God and where Biblical Christians different fundamentally with other religions and cults.

In this lesson we start by a review of “Progressive Revelation” how God reveals many truths to us progressively through the Bible. We also look at “explicit” and “implicit” truth to answer the questions as to why the word “trinity” is not in the Bible, but is still a Biblical truth.

If you want to see the PowerPoint slides full size, click on that image. To download the notes, click on the second image.

Study of the Trinity, #1, full size slideTrinity #1 notes

Interpreting the Bible literally and the Mormon view of God

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Why do the Mormons believe that God the Father has a physical body in contrast with the Biblical Christian view that God is Spirit? This and many more views about God that differ from are based on how each church interprets the Bible. The lesson notes that follow show the difference, plus give some extra teaching on how to interpret the Bible correctly.

Bible Literal Interpretation, full size slidesBible Literal Interpretation, 6 per page

The Mormon Celebration of Easter, very different than the one Biblical Christians celebrate

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Resurrection of Jesus, full pageThe Mormon Church celebrates the resurrection and therefore Easter, but their celebration of it has a totally different meaning to them than it does to Biblical Christians. They can say they believe in Jesus and the resurrection and that he died for people and rose, but they put totally different meanings into all these terms.

In reality, the Mormon Church believes that the resurrection of Jesus assures everyone will have eternal life. They believe Christ’s atonement erased the consequences of original sin for everyone. However, it is only through the Mormon Church that people can travel the path of exaltation and where men can someday become gods of their own world.

The lessons that follow show the Mormon views of the Atonement and of the Resurrection of Jesus. Thought the same words are used and though both affirm these events happened, the meaning put into the words and events is very different as the lessons that follow explain.

Importance of the distinctions

These distinctions are not minor disagreements about theological issues, but they define the meaning of the death of Jesus and the reality of eternal life for those who trust the real Jesus or eternal disappointment for those who trust a false Jesus and a false interpretation of his death.

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