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Not all visions are from Satan. These are all assumptions. I have my own proof that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God.
All I ask for is a little honesty and instead I get this...
God does require that baptisms are done by someone who is authorized to baptize.All I ask for is a little honesty and instead I get this...
God does not require being a baptized member of your church to be saved, your church does.
God does not require "being sealed" (i.e., families forever), your church does. Yes, this is something that is new and never in the history of Bible-believing Christianity has this been a requirement or teaching.
Do you want more lds-only commandments that have never been a part of Christianity?
Since it is your proof, then he is a prophet to you only. When actual evidence is examined without the lds slant, there is no way JS was a prophet. He fails the Biblical prophet test.
Stretch Armstrong doesn't stretch as much as you do. All of the scriptures you posted are taken out of context and do not relate to baptisms or sealing of families like you want them to.
They do fit the same as baptism for the dead fits and was acknowledged by Paul.
Fundamentally, however, they are all born of the same principle: the creation of their own religion on the basis of their claims to be prophets of God, with followers who believe that they really are prophets of God. Once people begin to accept the idea that Christ's Church, which He purchased with His blood, fell away (apostatized) and therefor needed to be restored by someone who allegedly is authorized by God to do so, through messages from angels and divine visions, etc..., or is otherwise more spiritually adept then any of the members, including even the whole body of the very bishops ordained by the holy Apostles themselves to have teaching authority in His Church, then the door is opened for an endless array of false prophets, false teachers, and those who believe things which are not true on account of those untruths. That's all.
Paul said something to cause us to believe that some Christians may very well have been practicing it. However, Paul never stated that Baptizing the dead is something that must be done and does not address in his epistle whether it ought to be done or not, and the practice was never embraced by the whole Church. The Church obviously has spoken and said that it wasn't something that ought to be done.
Whether you ever intend to join the Church that I'm a member of is God's business, I reckon. So it's not a thing I'm worried about.
Debating heterodox denominations isn't on my agenda here. Do you understand that it's not beyond the rightful scope of my debate with Mormons to shine a light upon the very problematic foundation upon which their false religion is built? Will you claim that I've no right to do that when debating a Mormon just because what I'm saying is troubling to you in some way? My points aren't meant for you, as a debate against your faith, any more than they are meant as an attack on the faith of someone like Richard Wurmbrand, or C.S. Lewis, to cite just a couple of examples coming out of other Christian faith traditions. My statements, even made as replies to yours, are for their sake (LDS), not yours.
Then that church that does not believe in baptism for the dead is wrong and Paul was right. God is fair and just. I will not be a part of a God who is not fair and just. God has indeed made it possible for everyone to receive the necessary ordinances for salvation for everyone, not just the few. God is LOVE and He LOVES those who LOVE Him and who LOVE their neighbor. Those who treat others badly are themselves ungodly.
Paul is only one member of the whole body of the Church, albeit a most highly influential one. Paul did not say that the Church "should" baptize the dead. He merely made a reference to a practice that he was aware of. He also wrote (if we attribute the authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews to Paul) that there is no forgiveness of sins after Baptism. Yet the Church receives both baptized sinners and apostates back into Communion if they repent, and does not refuse them on the basis of merely one person's ideas on the matter. The Church as a whole alone has the authority to determine what is good and what is needful unto salvation, not any single individual member, even if they are an Apostle, or one of the Apostle's successors; a bishop. So Paul was not right and the Church, of which he is a member, wrong.
