Original title: Dealing with Doubt

In this episode, Brendon and Skyler discuss the fourteenth lesson in the LDS Come, Follow Me sunday school manual. This week (Mar. 27-Apr. 2) covers Matthew 14, Mark 6, and John 5-6 - and is titled "Be Not Afraid".

We invite you to worship with us on any Sunday - either at First Baptist Church of Provo or Christ Presbyterian Church in Magna. We welcome visitors!

Note the difference: The LDS seminary manual asks: "How can focusing on your faith in Jesus Christ and His power and love for you during difficult situations help you?"; Focus on your faith.

Compare that with the simple sentence out of V. Poythress' book (cited below) commenting on the same NT passage: "Faith here was not faith in faith, but faith in Jesus...[and] Faith in Jesus needs to be generated by who Jesus is." (p.185) Or Machen (cited below) stating, similarly: "think not about your faith, but about the Person who is the object of your faith."

LDS Sources:

Lucifer; JST John 6; J. Smith quote in the manual; "self-reliance"; LDS hermeneutics (exegesis or eisegesis?); D&C 131

John 6 (here and here; notice the equation of following Jesus and being a member of the LDS church, or believing Jesus' teachings and questioning the policies and doctrines of the LDS church)

Jesus Christ Chosen as Savior

Diagram, from the current year - 2023, for explaining the LDS "virgin birth" is on this page

New Testament Made Easier by David Ridges

The Power of the Priesthood (Boyd K. Packer)

The Living Bread (D. Todd Christofferson)

Stay in the Boat and Hold On! (M. Russell Ballard)

To Whom Shall We Go? (M. Russell Ballard)

Brad Wilcox Fireside

The Constitution: A Heavenly Banner (Ezra Taft Benson)

The Great and Abominable Church of the Devil by H. Verlan Andersen

King Follett Discourse (KD) and Sermon in the Grove (Joseph Smith)

E.g., from KD: "'I do the things I saw my Father do before worlds came rolling into existence. I saw my Father work out his kingdom with fear and trembling and I must do the same. [Then] I shall give my kingdom to the Father so that he obtains kingdom rolling upon kingdom,' so that Jesus treads the tracks as he had gone before...What did Jesus Christ do? 'The same thing as I saw the Father do.' Saw the Father do what? 'Work out a kingdom. When I do so, too, I will give [it] to the Father, which will add to his glory. He will take a higher exaltation, and I will take his place and be also exalted."

The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith ed. by Joseph Fielding Smith; The Words of Joseph Smith ed. by Andrew Ehat and Lyndon Cook; Joseph Smith's Commentary on the Bible ed. by Kent Jackson

Brigham Young: JD 1: 46-53 ; JD 4:218; JD 8:206-207; JD 10:5; JD 11:268; JD 18:260 

"[I]t is most significant that in the Hebrew language the word for man is Adam, hence in the some-odd 84 passages in the gospels when Jesus referred to himself as the Son of Man, it can be taken quite literally as a claim on Jesus' part that he was the son of Adam." (Teachings of President Brigham Young, 3:327)

Heber C. Kimball: JD 1:355-357; JD 3:108; JD 4:329

The Mormon Hierarchy: Wealth and Corporate Power by D. Michael Quinn (also here)

Resources:

Mormonism: Shadow or Reality? by Jerald and Sandra Tanner (also here)

The Mound Builder Myth: Fake History and the Hunt for a "Lost White Race" by Jason Colavito

The Vanishing Lamanites (Jason Wallace; also here)

Approaching the Book of Mormon (Bill McKeever)

The Secret Mormon Meetings of 1922

Christianity at the Crossroads; The Question of Canon; Canon Revisited by Michael J. Kruger (also here and here)

Christianity and Liberalism; The Person of Jesus; and What is Faith? by J. Gresham Machen

Christless Christianity by Michael Horton (also here and here)

Confessions by St. Augustine

None Greater by Matthew Barrett

James White on John 6

Biblical Words and Their Meaning by Moises Silva

Exegetical Fallacies by D.A. Carson

Jesus and His World by Craig Evans

Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckham

Evidence for the Bible (Mike Winger)

The Modern Search for the Real Jesus by Robert Strimple

The Gospel Code by Ben Witherington III

Divine Government: God's Kingship in the Gospel of Mark by R.T. France

The Coming of the Kingdom by Herman Ridderbos

The Miracles of Jesus by Vern Poythress

Can You Believe It's True? by John S. Feinberg

Was the Burning in Your Bosom From God? (Jason Wallace)

Christian Apologetics; The Defense of the Faith; Christian Theistic Evidences by Cornelius Van Til

Greg Bahnsen debate (also here, and here)

R.C. Sproul's Blueprint for Thinking (also here)

The Last Superstition; Five Proofs by Ed Feser (also here and here)

Redeeming Philosophy; Logic: A God-centered Approach by Vern Poythress (also here)

The Atheist Illusion (Jason Wallace)

The Territories of Science and Religion; Science Without God? Rethinking the History of Scientific Naturalism; The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science by Peter Harrison

The Savior of Science; The Origin of Science and the Science of Its Origin by Stanley Jaki

The Victory of Reason by Rodney Stark

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization by Anthony Esolen (also here, here and here)

Return of the God Hypothesis by Stephen Meyer

David Hume by James N. Anderson

Jacques Derrida by Christopher Watkin

The Power and Message of the Cross (Alistair Begg)

Monothelitism

The disappearance of the "mushy middle"

Roman Catholic Priest as "Alter Christus"

Aurelius Clemens Prudentius