Mormon Missionaries: Yesterday my wife and I were leaving a small-town harvest festival when we encountered two Mormon missionaries. They were young men, probably no more than twenty or so. They had walked past us at first, then turned around and came back to speak with us. After asking where they were from, one from Utah and the other from Minnesota, we exchanged a little small talk. Then one of them asked if they could share a scripture with us. “Of course,” I said. He quoted a passage, and when he finished I said, “I’m a bit familiar with the Scriptures, and I don’t remember ever reading that. What translation is that from?” His answer just sank my heart. “Those are the words of the prophet.” There are moments when you immediately know what to say. Acts 3:22-23 came to mind almost at once. I knew I could have opened the Scriptures and challenged the entire premise behind what he had just said. Instead, I just froze.
I don’t even know what happened. Normally I enjoy conversations like that. I have deliberately stopped to talk with street preachers and wandering evangelists simply because I find religious conversations fascinating. Not because I am some good talker, I am anything but that. Usually I stumble through the conversation and later think of ten things I should have said. But I still enjoy talking with anyone the Lord brings our way.
Maybe what stopped me yesterday was that I saw myself in those young men. I remembered being young and full of religious zeal, convinced that what I was doing was pleasing to God, willing to speak to strangers and give myself completely to what I believed. I understand that kind of sincerity. I also understand now that sincerity does not make something true. Somehow, standing there, that realization felt less like an argument to be won and more like a weight to be carried. These were not theological abstractions standing in front of me. They were two young men sincerely giving themselves to a message that cannot give them Christ as He is revealed in the Scriptures.
In the end, everything comes back to Christ. The deepest difference is not about a prophet, a denomination, a translation, or even a collection of doctrines. It is about the identity of Jesus Christ. Who is He? That question has to come first, because everything else depends upon the answer. And once that Christ is denied, something much larger than one doctrine has been altered. The God of Scripture has been altered. The Gospel has been altered. Christianity itself cannot be separated from the person of the One who came, suffered, died, and rose again. Everything rests upon the identity of Christ, and Scripture is anything but hesitant in telling us who He is.
He is the eternal Word, John 1:1-2, the Maker of all things, John 1:3; Colossians 1:16, the brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image of His person. Hebrews 1:3. By Him all things were created, Colossians 1:16, by Him all things consist, Colossians 1:17, and in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. Colossians 2:9. He is the LORD of glory, I Corinthians 2:8, God manifest in the flesh, I Timothy 3:16, and the whole hope of the Gospel rests upon the glory of His person and the perfection of His work. I Corinthians 15:1-4; Hebrews 10:10-14.
Unless something changes my mind, I think I am going back tomorrow afternoon, about the same time, to see if those young men are there again. Not because I have suddenly figured out the perfect thing to say. I certainly have not. Perhaps I will simply begin, “I’m as confused as anybody. I don’t have much figured out, and the more I think about these things, the more aware I become of how much I don’t know. But I believe I do know where to look for light. Not to another prophet, not to another voice claiming authority, but to the Scriptures themselves, and through them to Christ – the One to whom they testify. John 6:68-69. MPJ
Postscript: “The Lord stopped my mouth.” That’s a complicated thought, because ultimately we know that nothing happens outside of His hand. And yet I also think we have to be careful not to use that too conveniently as an excuse for our own silence. The same could probably be said of the passage about being ready to give an answer for the hope that is in us. We might reason, “Well, nobody asked me, so why should I say anything?” But I suspect it is more complicated than either of those explanations.
For myself, I’ve never thought of myself as evangelistic, and I’m certainly not a naturally gifted communicator. Sure, over the years I’ve picked up plenty of phrases, arguments, and clever ways of responding to people, but in the end that amounts to very little. Sometimes we look at someone and, from outward appearances, imagine that they have so much figured out that we almost feel intimidated by them. But the truth is, none of us has anything figured out apart from the mercy of God.
Those two young men are no more outside the hand of the Lord than the rest of us. Their lives, their understanding, and whatever the Lord may be pleased to do with them are entirely in His hands. Maybe that is what I want to remember more than anything when I speak with people like that. They are not simply Mormons to argue with, or positions to dismantle. They are men who, just like me, stand entirely in need of the grace and mercy of God. I certainly want to be able to give an answer, and to speak plainly where truth is concerned, but I hope I never become more interested in winning an argument than in remembering the helplessness we all share apart from grace.