Original title: Unity and Epistemology; Are feelings and experience enough?

In this episode, Brendon and Skyler discuss the thirty-fifth lesson in the LDS Come, Follow Me sunday school manual. This week (Aug. 21-27) is titled “Be Perfectly Joined Together” and covers 1 Corinthians 1-7. 

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! 

Pastor Brendon's Colossians series can be found here. 

Correction: The George Albert Smith quote was from Elder George A. Smith who was an early Mormon apostle, not President George Albert Smith who was the eighth president of the church. The one quoted was a Mormon apostle and member of the LDS First Presidency from 1839 until his death in 1875. President George Albert Smith was president of the LDS church from 1945-1951. 

The mentioned and recommended article by Matthew Emadi is “What Do Mormons Believe About God?” These differences are super important, especially given some recent examples of obfuscation. 

Seminary Manual: here, here, and here  

Note the cited GA quotation in the first lesson: “If we build our foundation on Jesus Christ, we cannot fall! As we endure faithfully to the end, God will help us establish our lives upon His rock, ‘and the gates of hell shall not prevail against [us]’ (D&C 10:69).” One cannot help but notice a) the citation, not of Matthew, but of the D&C; and b) If that was not true of the very church Jesus was speaking of originally (due to the coming apostasy), is this really the best verse for assurance to the members who believe that very failed church had to be restored 1800 years later?    

“The Candle of the Lord” ; “The Mantle Is Far Far Greater Than the Intellect” (Boyd K. Packer) 

“How To Learn By the Spirit” (Richard G. Scott) 

“The Charted Course of the Church in Education” (J. Reuben Clark) 

The New Testament Made Easier by David Ridges 

Understanding Paul by Richard Lloyd Anderson 

Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians by Richard Draper and Michael Rhodes 

Joseph Smith: here and here 

George Albert Smith: JD 3.25 

Wilford Woodruff: JD 18.188 

Orson Pratt: JD 1.294 

Charles W. Penrose: JD 26.23 

John Taylor: JD 21.346; JD 8.97 

Brigham Young: JD 1.3; JD 17.155 

George Q. Cannon: JD 22.324 

By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus by Charles Larson (also: here, here, and here, here) 

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

Conflict in the Quorum by Gary Bergera 

Watchman on the Tower by Matthew Harris 

Lying For the Lord – The Paul H. Dunn Stories by Lynn Packer 

An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins by Grant Palmer 

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

Quest for the Gold Plates by Stan Larson  

“The Secret Mormon Meetings of 1922” by Shannon Caldwell Montez 

Jason Wallace:  Temples Made With Hands?;The Magical Mormon Scriptures; Was The Burning in Your Bosom From God?; The Vanishing Lamanites; After Mormonism...Now What?; The Bible vs. Bart Ehrman 

Justification Reconsidered by Stephen Westerholm 

Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen (also here and here) 

• See also Machen’s fantastic book What Is Faith? (also here) 

The Temple and the Church’s Mission by G.K. Beale 

A Peculiar Glory by John Piper 

1 Corinthians (ZECNT) by Paul Gardner 

Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes by Kenneth Bailey 

St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archaeology by Jerome Murphy-O'Connor 

The Cross Before Constantine by Bruce Longenecker 

Paul’s Two-Age Construction and Apologetics by William Dennison 

“Epistemological Reflections on 1 Corinthians 2.6-16” by Richard B. Gaffin 

The Pauline Eschatology by Geerhardus Vos 

Destroyer of the Gods by Larry Hurtado 

Return of the God Hypothesis by Stephen Meyer (also here and here) 

On the Reliability of the Old Testament by Kenneth Kitchen 

Interpreting Eden by Vern Poythress 

The Territories of Human Reason by Alister McGrath 

Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckham (also here) 

Jesus and His World by Craig Evans 

The Historical Jesus of the Gospels by Craig Keener 

Christianity at the Crossroads; The Heresy of Orthodoxy by Michael Kruger (also here) 

Simply Trinity by Matthew Barrett