Pastor Gabe's Old Blog

The following is the first chapter of the book  40 Mormon Beliefs and What the Bible Says, exploring what Mormons believe about their founder, Joseph Smith. The book is divided into 5 chapters with 8 points each, presenting Mormon beliefs and the biblical response. Available in paperback by clicking here . What the Mormons Believe About Joseph Smith 1) Joseph Smith is God's prophet. The Mormons believe Joseph Smith (1805-1844) is a prophet of God. His being appointed as a prophet and the writing of the Book of Mormon were prophesied in the Bible in Ezekiel 37:15-28. The stick of Judah and the stick of Joseph mentioned there describe the Bible and the Book of Mormon respectively, and the two will become one in God's hand. The "stick" is the wood ancient scrolls were wrapped around. The Book of Mormon, which Smith wrote by his own hand, prophesied about Smith in 2 Nephi 3. The preface to the chapter reads, "Joseph in Egypt saw the Nephites in a vision—He p...

Who's Anna McCarthy, I wondered. I've seen her articles bouncing around Facebook and Twitter. The most famous up to this point was entitled When He Became a She , about a time she encountered a former church friend who's now a different sex. Her most recent article, about a ministry in a strip club, drove me to do a little research. Her blog is called Just a Jesus Follower . I've looked through her material. For claiming to follow Jesus, she doesn't share many of his words. I scrolled through three articles before I finally found her first reference. She said, "Funny thing is, Jesus said if we followed Him, living in Jesus would be easy -- light even. (Matt 11:30)" I'd be curious to know how she thinks denying yourself and taking up a cross daily is supposed to be easy (Luke 9:23). Jesus clearly said that following him was the difficult road. The easy road is the one that leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13-14). In the same passage she quoted, Je...