July 2003
August 7, 2003
Dear Family and Friends,
I just got back home from being in California for most of the month of July. I had a great time with my entire family; we haven't all been together since Christmas of 2001. I also had a great time with many friends (sorry if I wasn't able to get with some of you down there). I scheduled the trip perfectly in avoiding the hottest month in recorded history for Salt Lake City!
As for additional ministry related to Mormonism, I was able to train the college group at Emmanuel Faith Community Church in Escondido, CA. I taught three times to them. This was in preparation for their mission trip to Utah August 7th - 13th. They just arrived this evening. We have a lot of neat things planned, so please keep us in prayer.
One day last month when I went to surf at the Oceanside pier, there were two LDS missionaries passing their literature out and engaging people in conversations. I sat my board down and went to engage them in conversation. That conversation went for about an hour and a half. I mostly talked to one missionary, since the other's English wasn't that good. I started out talking about the nature of God, and then when I felt like they really understood what I was saying, I spent the rest of the time arguing that Mormon individual salvation was impossible. The latter was on the basis of Christ's claim to be perfect (Mt. 5:48), and the Mormons' attempt to fulfill this by keeping all the commandments (2 Ne. 25:23, Moroni 10:32, D&C 1:31-2, etc.). They finally pulled the plug on the conversation, but I'm convinced that they were genuinely troubled by all the problems that were raised.
Doing the work of an evangelist (2 Tim. 4:5),
Rob Sivulka
Rob@Mormon Info.org
Mormon Info
****PRAYER LIST****
- For God to do His thing through the Emmanuel Faith College group
- For financial provision
- For the ability to get my rough draft comprehensive done this month for school
****MAILBAG****
hey Rob, I have a question for ya and if you have time you can give me an answer -k- Bob Millet, a prof @ BYU, uses Hebrews 11:40 to back up their belief in redeeming the dead. After reading this verse I have no idea what to make of that, I would think that he's taking it out of context, but how? What the heck is this passage talking about?
[I responded:] Ps. 49:7-8 says no one can redeem his bro, and Millet should know better since he's the guy who's preaching "sola gratia" to the rest of his LDS brethren. *Being made perfect* is quite different from *being redeemed*. The "us" in 11:40 is an identification of New Testament believers. The OT believers are perfected by us, since we are identified with Christ and His Church and the way to get into that Church, viz., the gospel... the fulfillment of the whole OT. The gospel Church completed the Jewish Church in other words. It's Christ though that brought the enlargement of knowledge and fulfillment of the OT Church. We are simply a dependent manifestation of Him in this age.
I think it is interesting in the Old Testament how the writers will say "and isn't the rest told in blah blah whatever book about whichever king...now we don't have those!!
[I responded:] Ya, LDS do that to show how the Bible is incomplete. The prob is that just because something is cited doesn't mean it belongs in the Bible. Paul quotes pagan philosophers in Acts 17. Certainly they don't belong in the Bible.
In Hebrews 1:5 it almost reads like "I will be his Father and he will be my son" it kinda gives the impression that Christ wasn't always there...a new thing but I know he was always there so why is it worded that way? If you have second...
[I responded:] Ya, it could be understood that way, but we already know from Ps. 2:12, Prov. 30:4, etc. that the Son qua "Son" was already around, in fact from eternity (Isa. 9:6, Micah 5:2). Plus Hebrews 1:8 calls the Son "God". So I think the future tense in verse 5 ought to be understood as referring to His incarnation or "when he bringeth in the first-begotten into the world" (vs. 6).