S6E27 As Far As It Is Translated Correctly

Summary

Standard of Truth Podcast — Episode S6E27: "As Far As It Is Translated Correctly"

Host: Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat
Guest: Dr. Richard Leduc
Date: July 9, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this lively installment, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard Leduc tackle historical misconceptions surrounding Francis Scott Key, delve into nuanced questions about scriptural authority, and address Latter-day Saint doctrines relating to the Bible’s accuracy, grace vs. works, and the need for prophetic guidance. With wit, candor, and deep historical context, the hosts answer listener mail exploring both faith-building and challenging aspects of Latter-day Saint beliefs.

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Main Discussion Points, Key Insights & Timestamps

1. Setting the Tone: Soccer, Family, and Listener Mail [00:37-06:43]

• Sports Banter: The episode begins with spirited discussion on the World Cup and soccer fandom, reflecting Richard’s multicultural family experiences and gentle ribbing about sports allegiances.
• Tour Announcement: A new church history tour is announced, humorously revealing their lack of self-promotion ([04:32]).
• Notable moment:
  “The one thing about being an American is that we come from all over the place, right? And so, yeah, I'm pulling a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but I was always France.” — Dr. Leduc ([02:08])

2. Listener Question: Francis Scott Key & National Anthem Myths [06:43-21:30]

• Reader's Query: A listener, Carol, shares a version of the Francis Scott Key story (suggesting he denounced America and became a recluse), asking the hosts how accurate this is.
• Corrections & History: Dr. Dirkmaat clarifies that most of the story is myth. The only accurate point: Francis Scott Key existed. Key was not a traitor nor self-exiled ([11:51–13:44]).
  • He did attempt to negotiate prisoner releases and watched the Battle of Fort McHenry from a British ship, inspiring the anthem.
  • Key's controversial legacy: he was a slaveholder, though he also engaged in early colonizationist emancipation efforts—complex for both his time and ours ([15:00]).
  • The hosts discuss why the later verses of "The Star-Spangled Banner" are little-known but thematically powerful, especially concerning hope and national identity.
• Memorable quote:
  “The controversy surrounding [Francis Scott Key] is that he's a slave owner… but he loves America. He is a nationalist through and through. And that's the reason why he wrote the anthem.” — Dr. Dirkmaat ([16:53])
• Comic aside:
  “No, Francis Scott Key did not become a recluse living on a boat… He's Howard Hughes.” — Dr. Dirkmaat ([20:54])

3. Latter-day Saint Scriptural Authority & The Article of Faith #8 [24:48-44:36]

• Transition to Missionary Q&A:
  Listener Elder Gur, serving a mission in Arizona, sends a multi-part doctrinal question set, chiefly about the phrase in the 8th Article of Faith: “We believe the Bible to be the word of God, as far as it is translated correctly.”
• Discussion on ‘Authority’ and Biblical Canon:
  • The hosts explain that the question of “who gets to decide what’s translated correctly” is deeply complex.
  • History of the Bible:
    • Decisions on canon were made centuries after Christ by councils; Protestants later removed books such as the Apocrypha with no consensus or prophetic authority ([32:11]).
    • Latter-day Saints differ in that they claim living prophets can clarify doctrine.
  • Notable exchange:
    • “Who held the authority to determine what books are canonized and what books aren't?... For a Latter-day Saint, it's the easiest thing in the world. Who holds the authority to determine which parts are correct? Well, we believe in prophets...” — Dr. Dirkmaat ([32:11])
    • Dr. Dirkmaat challenges sola scriptura, noting that the Bible itself never lays out this doctrine—nor does it say there can be no further scripture ([41:00]).
    • Example: If Paul’s lost letters were discovered, many Protestants wouldn’t accept them as scripture simply because they’re not already in the Bible ([37:19]).
  • Interpretation Challenges:
    • The hosts highlight how interpretation is inherently subjective and that no sect can claim full authority without a living prophet ([41:00–44:36]).

4. Grace, Works, and Assurance of Salvation [44:36–69:32]

• Q: "The Bible says we’re saved by grace alone, but the Book of Mormon says ‘after all we can do’. How do you reconcile this, and can someone have assurance of salvation?”
• Key Points:
  • The question reflects an Evangelical perspective, conflating elements of Calvinism (predestination, assurance) and Arminianism (free will).
  • Hosts dismantle the premise—a majority of Christians (Catholic, Orthodox) do not accept “grace alone” theology, and Protestants themselves are divided ([49:16]).
    • “... you're asking a question of me in an attempt to claim that my religion is false. But all that the question does is highlight just how unaligned all of Christianity is, [and] how badly we need a restoration.” — Dr. Leduc ([49:16])
  • Biblical Contradictions:
    • Dirkmaat points out that the Bible can be cited both for grace and works; e.g., Matthew 25 focuses on actions, not just faith or verbal assent ([62:55–67:32]).
    • Faith and works are inseparable in LDS theology ("exaltation" vs. mere salvation); the hosts explain that all will be saved from hellfire, but covenantal exaltation requires commitment.
  • Common Evangelical Objections:
    • “Thief on the cross” as an exception is noted but cannot negate the preponderance of teachings on baptism and good works ([56:18–59:32]).
  • Final Insight:
    • The hosts underscore that the Restoration answers these fundamental disagreements through prophetic clarification, making sense of doctrinal ambiguity ([70:01]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the nature of doctrinal disputes:
  “People often use the Bible like they are trying to win an argument in a bar over whether or not LeBron James or Michael Jordan is the greatest player ever…” — Dr. Dirkmaat ([60:55])

• On interpretation and need for prophecy:
  “Who determines who decided that they're not interpreting it right?... It's easy to just simply say the billion Catholics and Orthodox... don't really have the right faith in Jesus, or you have a very fundamental disagreement about what the Scriptures mean.” — Dr. Dirkmaat ([49:49])

• On why Restoration matters:
  “That actually is the reason why you need a Restoration. It's why God called a prophet. And so we don't have to figure these things out on our own.”— Dr. Dirkmaat ([70:01])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Listener Mail—Francis Scott Key Myths: [06:43–21:30]
• Discussion on Scriptural Authority & the Bible: [24:48–44:36]
• Grace, Works, and Assurance of Salvation: [44:36–69:32]
• Final Wrap & Restoration Summary: [69:32–End]

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Thematic Summary

This episode blends humor and scholarship to tackle persistent mythologies and serious theological questions. Through direct answers and questions of their own, Drs. Dirkmaat and Leduc model how Latter-day Saints can both appreciate their heritage and respond robustly to doctrinal challenges—always with historical grounding, a critical eye for assumptions, and faith in ongoing prophetic leadership. Their patient breakdown of scriptural disputes highlights the complexity of Christian history and the distinctive LDS restoration claim of modern revelation as the resolution to perennial debates over grace, works, and the word of God.

Transcript

[Narrator]

Welcome to the Standard of Truth podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard Leduc explore the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the life and teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith. They examine the original historical sources and provide context for events of the past. They approach the history of the church with faith expertise and humor. Foreign.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Hi. Welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Garrett Dirkmont, and I am joined by my friend, Dr. Richard Leduc.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Hello, Garrett. Thanks for having me back. So excited to be here. I was pretty busy today. I was at the Egyptian Embassy protesting the result of the most recent soccer match with our.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I mean, that it did get disallowed. I mean, what are you going to do that.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Egypt. Egypt seemed worked up. They. They were not happy.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

The other thing you can do is not give up three goals in 12 minutes. That's the other option.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I will tell you one of the best things about our thorough whooping is I'm not left questioning what could have been. Or, oh, you know, we got hosed.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

What what could have been is that our major athletes didn't play basketball and football instead. That's what could have been.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I will say I. So two sons home from, you know, Peru and Spain on missions. And so our family's gotten into World Cup a lot more than we ever have before. The time zones also help. So this has been a lot of fun and the US's run has been great, but my Leduc pride is now coming out in full force and viva la France.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

But wait a minute, weren't you Canadian? French. They already lost.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah. Look, I've got. The one thing about being an American is that we come from all over the place, right? And so, yeah, I'm pulling a little bit of this and a little bit of that and a little bit of this. But I was always France. I was always. It was always France.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, given the fact that you've always been a Lakers fan and a Yankees fan, it makes sense that you're always France.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, my. My father. My father's father. My. My father's father's father. Well, Garrett, jumping straight in to the Phoebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag we have from Carol. We had the fourth of the fourth of first came up last. Last week.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And very exciting. You let off fireworks and I got hay fever and it was a grand old time.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You did get hay fever.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

No, no, I just. That's what I tell my wife so I don't have to do yard work.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Smart.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, sure. So we did get a friend. We get. I mean, about a third of all of the emails we receive are relating in some way to Francis Scott Key, and so we wanted to read one of them.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, we get. I mean, dozens and dozens of emails. Most are Francis Scott Key related. Some are Tangentially more Fort McHenry related, more about the fort itself, not as much about Francisco.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah. And a couple are about Ravens and how we think they'll do this season, but even that's related in some way to Francis Scott Key.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah. And then, you know, we've already talked about the O's, so. Yeah, the O's. Yeah.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It was due this year, so this is serious business. No kidding around. So straight to the query. A story was told during the Fourth of July festivals, festivities about Francis Scott Key story and writing the national anthem. Now, we've got a tour upcoming where we will be actually going to Fort McHenry.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

That's right.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And I will tell you, it's one of the most patriotic things that ever. You go there and they've got a cool video, and they open it up and you see Old Glory, and it's just like, gosh dang it.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You know, and the fort, super well preserved.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

You get over Clemson.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, you get it. Yeah. You. It's a. It's a pretty cool stop on the tour. And in fact, you know, we actually added a tour for next year.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It's true. We almost. We almost forgot to mention it again. We've had it up for, like, a month. Haven't mentioned it once.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, we told nobody. Which is the best way to get people signed up for the tour. You tell no one. You're like, well, I want to do it by word of mouth. Well, don't you have to tell at least one person first? No, no, no. They have to randomly want it.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

You'll. You'll know. So it's August 1st through August 7th of 2027. And so the. The cherry. Cherry blossoms will be in full bloom. It'll be gorgeous in. In Tokyo, Japan. No, it'll be great. It's gonna be a little bit.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Frankly, our Augusts have been better than our Junes when it comes to weather. So our last June was incredible.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Insane. It was 70s.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It was the greatest weather ever. And same thing in Missouri and Nauvoo.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Also crazy.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And then the week after Heat Dome, people are fainting everywhere, performing missionaries or becoming Catholics so they don't have to do it. I mean, it was mass hysteria.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah. Yeah. The mayflies on the Mississippi Were something out of a. Freaking. Out of Genesis or Deuteronomy. No, it did.

[Narrator]

It.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It did look something similar to, you know, Moses trying to get his people freed from the pharaoh.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

If the first plague would have been the mayflies on the Mississippi, they would have been out on the first plague. It was. It's. It's a. It's insane. But. But so. So August is lovely in beautiful upstate New York and. And part of. In parts of Baltimore where we would fly into on August 1st. So we'll have the link on the. On the old description of Roo. And you can sign up.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Sign up quick. Now that we've announced it, most of these fill up within a week and a half or so. So I can't remember.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Did I. So one of my favorite nicknames of soccer teams is the Australian team that I asked you.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Oh, the Socceroos.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Socceroos. We have talked about it. I love it. Makes me. Yeah, it is great.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Now they. They perform poorly.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, they made it. They made it to the knockout stage.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So there you go.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

But I mean, they lost to us badly. And Belgium beat us like we were one of the. We like, we were one of the people Clubber Lang faced on the way to Rocky. That's what they beat us like.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

One of my favorite memes exists where, like, it has, like, Belgium today, and then it has, like, Belgium in Africa in the. Whatever. And like, the Belgium in Africa is like some scary monster. And Belgium today is like a happy person, like whistling or whatever.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, boy. I don't want to offend any Belgians that are listening.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So I actually know several because I used to work in. I had quite a bit of work in Brussels, our corporate headquarters were there.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

One of the greatest massacres of humanity that has ever taken place that nobody knows about is the Belgian colonization in giant air quotes of Congo.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, Brutal. Brutal.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It is a ridiculous number of people that are just straight murdered. I mean, just. Look, you'd have to get in a pretty big argument, and it would have to be an argument that you didn't want to be in to argue about which was the most brutal. Colonization in Africa. But the Belgians aren't in Congo for very long. They're essentially there during the scramble of Africa time, which is the late 19th century, until Belgium becomes independent, until Congo becomes independent in 1960. So they're roughly there 75 years. And it's estimated that they're the direct cause of 10 million deaths.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Million. Yeah.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So. Yeah, well, so I had A mildly funny text.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You were gonna tell a joke until I said that. Yeah.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Gosh, I don't know how to follow that well, So a friend that I have that I worked with in Brussels, his name is Guy G U Y. And I. I was texting him back and forth during the soccer match, and. And this was after the. The goalie kind of gave up that third goal. And you're like, doc got it. And I said, I can't tell if we're terrible or if you're great. It might be a little bit of both. And his response was, ask Trump to make a call, which I thought was very funny.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah. I mean, they were very worried. I like how worried the Kong. Sorry.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

The Belgian Congo's always apparently worried.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, they're worried. You know, they performed okay in the first rounds. Yeah. But it was very funny to listen to the Belgians act incredibly concerned that the deciding factor in whether or not they beat us was whether or not one of our strikers who wouldn't have made their team got to play for us. That was very. It was. You know, it would be like. It would be like having the dream team terrified that, like, I was playing for the Netherlands in a game that they were playing. He was like, oh, no. What if he. What he. You can't have him play for the Netherlands. He's an American citizen.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It was very funny. It was very funny. I was joking around with my son Rigdon about this, and so when I found out that the red card had been suspended, I jokingly said, I bet Trump made a call. And then I got, like, a news notification like, 30 minutes later that apparently he actually did.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, I mean, look, if you're FIFA, look, you want to line your pockets, and you got to keep lining them

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

anyway. It's very funny.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So back to the question.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yes, yes. It talked of him going on board the ship to negotiate the release of prisoners. That was my understanding as well. And wrote the anthem while the British bombed. And at this moment, the name of the island will not come to the forefront of my mind. She thinks about it later. Fort Bennion. It was a civilian fort, not military fort now, as I remember it being taught in school, that she lists her age, which I will omit here.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

We'll skip over the top.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah. That Francis Scott Key denounced the United States and never wanted to set foot on its shores ever again. He was sent to the boat offshore, and there he lived for the rest of his life, regretted his decision, and wrote the anthem. How correct or far off am I? This is Important stuff. And I believe my first question to you, Garrett, was what part of San Francisco did she grow up in?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, look, I don't know who told you this, Carol. Essentially the only parts that you just read that are accurate is that Francis Scott Key existed.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, Whoever told her that got that correct.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yes. Yeah, there was.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

We have verified that there was someone

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

named Francis Scott Key.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah.

[Narrator]

And.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And even. Even the part that's kind of accurate. Right. It talked of him going on board the ship to negotiate the release of prisoners and wrote the anthem while the British. I mean, that's partially accurate. In fact, he is trying to negotiate the release of prisoners and is detained while the battle is going on. But all of the rest of this, that there was a civilian fort, not a military fort. There's never been a Fort Bennion. I know she's trying to remember and doesn't know what it is. Although there was a Bennion like stockade in Salt Lake when. When the pioneers first came. So there's.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Maybe that's what she was thinking of. Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Cuz Francis Scott Key was in Salt Lake City.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, so. So yeah, it's where he ended up passing away. Yeah, that's correct.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah. Well, so the whole rest of it, that, that Francis Scott Key denounced the United States never want to set foot on his shores again and regretted his decision and wrote the anthem. I mean, look, he wrote the anthem while the battle was taking place at Fort McHenry because he was on this, you know, in this British ship where he was detained and he didn't know the outcome of the battle. And of course the British aren't coming to give this American regular updates. I just want to let you know we're going to make a quick assault here.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Probably.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Probably going to take the round of the redoubt there and we'll let you know. I mean, so a bunch of.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

A bunch of West Ham fans there.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

That's funny. Well, for sure. Well, there are probably a lot of Liverpudlians actually at this stage of the War of 1812, Napoleonic Wars. So manpower is scarce. That's what causes the war in the first place. So they're grabbing whoever. But Francis Scott Key is sometimes considered controversial because he's a slave owner. So the controversy surrounding Francis Scott Key is that he's a slave owner. Now he does speak out against slavery and he's actually a member of the American Colonization Society. This was this early emancipation movement that was trying to deal with the fact that one of the things that was preventing the ending of Slavery in the United States was the fear that white Americans had over what would happen with all these freed slaves. Would they just start to terrorize everyone? Or for, you know, the. The immigrants who were trying to work in. In factories up north, would they just come and take all of their jobs and stuff like that? And so the American Colonization Society planned to purchase slaves and then to send them back to Africa. Now, you. You can see that, you know, somebody in a. In a think tank, in a boardroom came up with this idea without ever actually talking to any of the slaves. So it comes from a place of trying to mitigate slavery, trying to end slavery, finding a practical way to do it. That seems like a compromise to us today. It seems ridiculous. I mean, frankly, it seemed ridiculous to many of the slaves at this point. Some of them are third, fourth, fifth generation, living in the colonies. You're sending them back. You're sending that. It'd be like sending Richard back to Quebec for his one acre. I mean, but it would be far worse, obviously, because we live in a. In a modern society where, you know, you'd be able to figure that out, to negotiate your way through it. But. So he's controversial because he's a slave owner and in fact, you know, will defend slave owners and will pursue runaways. I mean, so that's the reason why it's controversial for his time. He would have been controversial among many Southerners because he was supporting this repatriation, you know, the ending of slavery, and spoke out against slavery. But that's the controversy surrounding him. But he loves America. He is a nationalist through and through. And that's the reason why he wrote the anthem.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, it's tough to. I mean, we sang it in church on Sunday and it's, you know, it's rousing, get you all fired up.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, I mean, I always wish that.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And not to sing.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I wish we sang the first two verses. I hate the fact we don't sing the second verse because, you know, you go to every ball game, they sing the first verse, and it just ends on a question. Does the Star Spangled Banner still wave? And I guess

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

so. My favorite is the third verse.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, the third verse is great because it's the moral of the story.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Right.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

But the second verse is where he has this exhilaration because what is that? There's a flag up there But I can't see what it is. Half conceals, half discloses, half now it catches the gleam of the first morning beam and it's the Star Spangled Banner I mean, he captured so well in that poem the anxiety for his country without any knowledge, not knowing what's going on. And when he can finally see that there is a flag. Now, of course, you get for the first verse that he can see throughout the night that it's our flag still because of the bombs bursting in air and the concrete rockets that are being launched. And so when he sees the flag, then he can see, oh, it's a star spangled banner, okay. But when the guns go silent, this is when the anxiety sets in. There's no longer explosions that help him see what it is. And Francis Scott Key knows there's only one reason why the British stopped shelling. Well, I guess there's two possibilities. The most likely is that they've taken the fort. So why do you stop shooting cannonballs at it? Because it's our guys now. So we took it, so we stopped shooting. And then the less likely scenario is that the British, having bombarded it all night, having tried to figure out a way that they could land and it not being a slaughter, realized they weren't going to be able to take the fort. And so they stopped shooting. And so really he got this. This incredible anxiety for hours that we're no longer shooting, which means the battle's over. Either the British own that fort, which means Baltimore's about to fall, or they're giving up because they couldn't take it.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It's a beautiful sentiment, but the reason that the second verse always is a disaster. It's a disaster. Is toward the end of it, in full glory reflected. In full glory reflected. Now, no one, everyone's. I stumbled over just reading it, just reading it. But the. The way that.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

That has no indication of anything.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, that's true. But the way that in full is squeezed in.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yep.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Nobody gets it right.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

In full glory. Yeah, you have to, because you have to say in full glory, like super fast.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

But no one does. And then. And so the whole thing falls apart. It's actually. It's one of the reasons why I love. The second is because I know it's coming. It comes every time. It's gonna. We're gonna step on our. Our. On our own feet here. But then the third verse, man, you just like, you're ready to play ball, you know?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah. The third verse is the moral, you know, Thus be it ever. Right. So as long as free men are willing to stand between their loved homes and the war's desolation, I mean, that is pretty, pretty powerful. So, yeah, Carol, I don't know who taught you that, or if it was a speaker that you heard, I can tell you that, no, Francis Scott Key did not become a recluse living on a boat outside of an island. He's Howard Hughes.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah. He's walking around in Kleenex boxes. He's bottling his urine.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Maybe this speaker confused him with, you know, the Count of Monte Cristo or something. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what's going on, but yeah, Francis Scott Key. The controversy surrounding him is that he was a slave owner. And because he belonged to a gradual emancipation society that was going to return slaves to Africa rather than just immediate abolition, which is what an American today would say, then there's controversy surrounding that.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, so thank you very much, Carol. This next email comes to us from Elder Gur. My name is Elder Gur. I am serving in the Arizona Phoenix East Mission, and I am from Layton, Utah. My companion is Elder Staley. He's from Colville.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I think you need to read the way he addressed us.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Dear Doctors Garrett Dirk Mott, D, I, R, K, M, O, T, capital M, capital M. And Sir King Richard Leduc, which is spelled correctly with the sir also correct.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah. So he spelled your name correctly. Mine, I mean, most of my first name and half of my second name. Yeah. It's all wrong.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, he's getting it red, isn't he?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It works.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Elder Staley is from Colville. He's actually deaf, which is probably why he allows me to listen to your podcast in the car. Anywho, very nice. I had had a lot of mixed feelings just reading this first part here. It's a very long email with lots of questions, but he talks about the podcast, and sometimes we'll talk very soft, very quiet, and then all of a sudden, it builds and it's very loud and, you know, enthusiastic. And that will meander for 10 minutes. And entertaining, but bantering for, you know, 10 or 15 minutes or whatever. And I don't understand that. I'm not familiar with it. We're 22 minutes into this episode. I don't find any example of that. Oh, there was one thing I did want to mention. Garrett, I feel this is on topic. Is there anything that is worse? Other than, obviously, what Belgium apparently did to Congo, but other than that, is there anything worse than one of your kids leaving the Fat Boy Sam's Club ice cream carton in the freezer so that when I open the freezer, I'm filled with excitement and I go reach in, and it's empty and it's completely empty. Is there anything. Is that the second worst thing? I can't think of a few things make me more that happened to me tonight, by the way.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You know what? What doesn't happen enough is where the studies that demonstrate the psychology of people who A, leave empty ice cream boxes in the freezer rather than throwing it away monsters and B, have a gallon of milk with literally nothing left in it but put it back in the fridge.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

The milk boy. Those are, those are, those are 1 and 1.

[Narrator]

A.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

That's what I'm saying is, is if we studied this, if we got some psychiatrists together, we would determine how serial killers are made.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, so I don't know what Elder Gur is talking about. We never do that. So he had a bunch of questions

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

he had from someone that they ran into, someone who they were teaching.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So they had eight questions and we're going to. So he felt satisfied answers on five of them. But we're going to answer question seven, question eight, then question six in that order. Which makes sense.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It makes as much sense as what we've done so far.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Pretty much authority of Scripture. That's question seven, the eighth article of faith qualifies the Bible as far as it is translated correctly. Who holds the authority to determine which parts are correct? Which is the great question, by the way. My guess would be that we all do through personal revelation. But that is a great question.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, so I mean, these questions are coming from this. So he tells the story that there's a woman who remarried a non member in their ward apart member family, and that this guy's interested in learning, but he came and presented all these questions. Now these questions are clearly not one. So here's the most important part. To start with Elder Gur is you need to recognize that these questions are not naturally occurring questions in nature.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

These are not.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Just what I mean is when I read a book, as I'm reading through the book, I will go, you know what, that's interesting. I wonder, you know, at what point Chiang Kai Shek, you know, launched a southern invasion of Burma during World War II. I'm gonna have to go look that up, right?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Why are you laughing at that? From my real life.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

When did he, by the way?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Oh, it's not. It was in, in 1944. But yeah, pretty late. There were Chinese Nationalist troops in India helping defend India basically, actually during World War II.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

There you go.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, yeah, that wasn't. But. But the point being when you read something and, and you Learn, you're going to have all kinds of questions. The problem with people who present you questions about our church is they are not naturally occurring questions. Right? So I'm not saying anything is bad about this guy. What I'm saying is in order to answer a question effectively, you'll see us do it on this podcast all the time, where we try to create context.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Why?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Because the context helps you understand why the question's even being asked. These questions, this list of questions, they are not questions that come to people naturally. For instance, one of the questions is about the comparison of the Isaiah chapters in the Book of Mormon to the Isaiah chapters in the Bible and why the Book of Mormon uses some of the King James translations that were just simply choices by.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Are you suggesting that he was reading Isaiah and reading the Book of Mormon and happened upon the differences? You're saying that that didn't happen?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, not only because it's not that there's differences, because anyone who's got Isaiah memorized is going to see that there's a few differences as well as similarities. It's that he then, on his own, read multiple studies demonstrating the way that King James authors could have chosen one Hebrew word but chose a different one, and that one that they chose was represented in the Book of Mormon rather than the other possible choice. You see what I'm saying, Right? So look, it is a natural question. You could have a natural question that when you're reading the Book of Mormon and you read the Isaiah chapters, it's a natural question to go, holy cow, that's pretty similar. And to pull Isaiah down and to compare them. That's a natural question that comes with study. What's an unnatural question? And also, I went and pulled up the way that the King James scholars examined the Hebrew words and which one would have fit in that place? And why does the Book of Mormon use the one that they used when other scholars would have used different ones? That's not a naturally occurring question. What does that mean? It means that someone told him this is a problem. It means that whether it's verbal, but in this case it certainly looks like it's not, since he presented these to you, even if it's innocently. Again, I'm not throwing any shade at this guy. He is repeating talking points of anti Mormons. Now, that doesn't mean that they aren't questions for him. But if you want to effectively address his concerns, one of the first things that both he and you need to understand is that he has these questions because someone told him hey, you're thinking about meeting with those Mormons. You better have these questions. That's not a naturally occurring question. It's a question of someone who is trying to inhibit the growth of faith, trying to stop you from having faith. And I think if he really is, as you said, he's earnest, that he'll recognize that. Why does that matter? Because there's no end to these questions. You think that there's eight questions, there's 80 million questions. There are more questions than there are people faking injuries in a single World cup game.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

That.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Now, Garrett, it's so. It's. It's the density of a neutron star,

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

which is still less than the number of people faking injuries in a.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Right. So. So you. That needs to be clear because he needs to understand that he went to a source for these arguments. That source is dealing disingenuously with the idea of having faith in the Book of Mormon. And that is some. Look, that doesn't mean that you can't still have the questions, but it means that you're not dealing with an honest broker here. Okay, so the question about Scripture. Let's, let's talk about that. The eighth article.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So one of the reasons that I said that I love that question is, and I don't necessarily know where you're going with it, but the reason that I love it is, it's when we say, as far as it is translated correctly, there's a lot of ways in which that word translation can be. Can be met. How is. I mean, I view it, and maybe you're going to tell me that I'm. I'm wrong, but I view it as well as how it's interpreted. Right. As well. Right. Like, how am I reading this and interpreting it? And that's kind of the point. The point is that with Protestantism as it exists, they're interpreting it however their particular sect wants to look at it. And that's actually part of the issue. There's also actual translation issues that you have through the Joseph Smith translation. But there's. I've always viewed that as multiple ways. Maybe I'm up in the night on that, though.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

No, I think that's great. I also think that this is a great time to ask him a question. Right. Who holds the authority to determine which parts are correct? Let's take the question back a step further. How did the Bible come to be the Bible? Who held the authority to determine what books are canonized and what books aren't? And, you know, the standard response to this is, well, you know, God just made sure that it came together that way. Yeah, except this person that you're talking to is obviously a Protestant. And the books of the Apocrypha were in every single printed Bible in Christendom until the 1820s when Protestants decided that they needed to take the books of the Apocrypha out of the Bible. Well, what, what prophet told them to do that? What, what, what body of people got together and had the authority to decide that books that were in the Bible for more than a thousand years, for 1400 years shouldn't be in the Bible anymore? Now I understand why they took him out. I get it. I understand going, wait a minute, these aren't part of the original Hebrew Bible. And by the way, that darn Catholic Church seems to quote from these a lot. And we've got a real problem with the Catholic Church, so let's get rid of it. But by that same rationale, you could also get rid of the Council of Nicaea. If the argument you're making is we're not going to hold on to something just because for 1400 years the Catholics taught it, why are you holding on to some of the Church Councils then that aren't there? So, I mean, look, for a Latter Day Saint, it's the easiest thing in the world. Who holds the authority to determine which parts are correct? Well, we believe in prophets, so we don't have to get together and have a conclave to figure out whether or not we think John 3:16 means that God's only going to save certain people, whosoever God chooses will be saved, or that if that means that God intends to save everyone, we don't have to have that argument. But you know who does? Calvinists and Arminians in Protestantism, Methodists and Presbyterians. They have all kinds of arguments about what that verse actually means, to Richard's point, about, you know, seeing it in terms of interpretation. So I would say the most important part is we believe God has prophets on earth today, specifically because Christians can't agree on the interpretation of the Bible. But the further question is who decided what books are in the Bible? And if you simply say, well, Christians always have had it that way, well, that's not true. Or the King James Bible that he has in his hand right now would have the books of the Apocrypha in it. And it doesn't. Even the earliest lists of authoritative Scripture that we have don't include some of the New Testament books that we have in our canon and include some of the books that are not in our canon. Things like the shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas. Right. Those things were considered canon by some early Christian groups. They were left out when the final decision about canon was made. But you are well into 300 years after Jesus before you have the first list of the New Testament canon, the way that it looks right now. And so who made those decisions? I was one time talking to a Protestant pastor, and he's like, well, the Book of Mormon can't be the word of God. Absolutely can't be the word of God. And I said, why not? Well, because it's not in the Bible. Only the Bible is the word of God. That's it. Only the Bible. And I asked him this question. I said, well, we know, scholars know, even Protestant scholars know that there are letters that Paul wrote that are referenced in the New Testament. So we know they existed because they're referenced, but that aren't in the New Testament. This is especially the case when it comes to Corinthians, right? You have a first and second Corinthians, but in fact, there's another Corinthians that preceded that. And that's why Paul can say, this is the third time I'm coming to you. Right.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Isn't Thessalonians is another one? Or was that. That's. I thought it was Thessalonians.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I think that's what it is, Thessalonians.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

The third time I'm coming to you.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

But you don't understand.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Garrett is. He came to them twice in the first one. That's what he meant.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, well, but the whole point is. Sorry, I said Corinthians, I think, but I meant Thessalonians that you have this statement that Paul wrote a letter. Now, much of the New Testament are letters that Paul wrote that we consider Scripture because Paul was an apostle of Jesus Christ. So I asked him, if scholars were to find that other letter, they find it, would that be authoritative and scriptural? So the only difference between this letter and the other letters that are in the New Testament is that we have them. So if we found it now, of course, he started off the denying the premise. Well, yeah, but you wouldn't have any idea whether or not it was actually from Paul. Let's say it's obvious that it's original. It's obvious that it's not a forgery, that every biblical scholar agrees that it's actually the letter from Paul. Would it be authoritative scripture? And his response was, no, it wouldn't be that.

[Narrator]

That's great.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And I Said, so what you're saying, I love that.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I said, so what you're saying is if an apostle of Jesus Christ writes a letter to someone, it stops being the word of God if it doesn't get published, that's what you're saying. And he responded, well, I mean, obviously if God wanted it to be published, then God would have had it put into the Bible. And I said, well, couldn't we say that about all kinds of things? Do you go around saying if God didn't want the Catholic Church to exist, God would have stopped it from existing? Well, that's different. Well, I mean, look, I mean, there's a lot. I mean, for a Protestant, you are claiming that there are currently a billion Christians on earth that are preaching, teaching and living absolute, false heretical doctrine. That's what you believe if you're a Protestant. God allowed that, didn't he? Didn't, didn't seem to do any stopping of that. And in fact, as he pressed me a little harder on, I said, well, you think the Book of Mormon is just made up? Why didn't God stop that? I mean, if your argument is the one place, the one time that God is never going to intervene is the formation of the biblical canon. Except, oops, by the way, didn't intervene to keep the apocrypha out for 1800 years. It was only off by a millennia and a half. I mean, frankly, it's only 1400 years because you don't really have a canon together until the four hundreds, right? And it's taken out in the early eighteen hundreds. But the point being, why didn't God stop the Apocrypha from being in the canon? Because the argument he would make is, well, God wouldn't allow false things to be in the Bible because it circulated all over the world. And I was like, well, here's something we can agree on. The Jehovah's Witnesses have their own Bible, right? And there's a lot of changes in it. Changes that I think most scholars would argue are not actually supported by the earliest manuscripts that we have, right? They are changes based upon interpretation. Now, look, I respect the heck out of that idea because that's exactly what Joseph Smith does. Joseph Smith's not pulling down, you know, a bunch of Greek and Latin manuscripts and going, oh, it says homoi usion, not homo usion, it's hamui usion. You can see that here. He's not doing that, right? By revelation as a prophet, he's making changes to the Scriptures. Well, that's not what Jehovah's Witnesses are claiming, because they're not claiming that there's a prophet. They're just making changes on the basis of what they believe the Bible should say. Right? Well, there are people who, the first time they will ever read the Bible will be when Jehovah's Witness missionaries bring it to them. And what they'll read will be that Jehovah's Witness Bible. So why didn't God stop them from making changes to the Bible when they would be the primary means of someone learning about Jesus? I mean, the argument of Sola Scriptura, first and foremost, the worst part about the argument is that, let me get this straight, all truth is in the Bible and if it's not in the Bible, it is not a truth. And nowhere in the Bible does it say what we are claiming that that means. So nowhere in the Bible does it say Sola Scriptura. Nowhere does it say only by the Scriptures can you know the truth. Nowhere. So that's a, that's a pretty big miss there, right? Because apparently believing that only the Bible is the word of God is the most important thing that you could possibly believe. And yet the Bible, that is the word of God, the only thing that is the word of God never expressly says A, that the only truth is in this book or Bible, be that there could never be any other prophets or any other scripture. Now, now look, if you're dealing with someone who's just doing, you know, B grade level anti Mormonism, you might find someone who, who says, you know, well, it says in Revelation, if any man add to or to take away from the words of this book. Well, so yeah, I mean, but no scholar actually thinks that's what's going on in the book of Revelation. So that, that's just a hack, you know, just attempt to give an answer without giving an answer. So I know we've said a lot on this, but you know, really this is a great point to have a real discussion. I mean, you're right, there isn't any. There isn't a good way of determining it unless it's just a bunch of people got together. But here's the thing, it actually doesn't matter how many Protestants he gets together to say, yeah, this is what the correct truth of the Bible is. There's a billion Catholics that outnumber him that would say that's not what the Bible is. So if we're just going off of numbers, you're still going to lose. Right. Similar to this is his question 8,

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

you know, about grace versus works. The Bible emphasizes salvation by grace alone. Ephesians 2:8 9, while the book of Mormon adds the condition, after all we can do. How do you balance these and can a person have assurance of their salvation?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah. So this is how you know that the person you're talking to is frankly coming at this from a non denominational evangelical Christian position. Because the idea of assurance of salvation is not found in Arminian Christianity and it's only found in Calvinistic Christianity because you don't have a choice. So Calvin taught that once you're saved, you're always saved. That's because you didn't do anything. Now, now of course all Protestants will say, well of course you didn't do anything. You're saved by grace. No, no, no, no, no, no. Your average Protestant today believes that they are saved because they accepted Jesus Christ, that's why they're saved, that they read the Bible, they heard someone speak, and they might even have said the sinner's prayer. I accept Jesus as my Savior and that's why they're saved. That is not what John Calvin is teaching. John Calvin is teaching that God chose to save you before you were ever created. The whole reason why you feel like you have faith in Jesus is because God chose to save you before you were ever created. You didn't have a choice in your salvation and so therefore you can't fall from your salvation. But what you have in the modern Christian world is essentially a mock up of Arminianism and Calvinism where the best part of Arminianism is that you get to choose to accept Jesus. It's a choice you make, but because you're the one making the choice, you can fall from grace. And in Calvinism, the best part of Calvinism is you can't fall from grace. But the reason why you can't fall from grace is God made the choice and God doesn't make any mistakes. And what you find in non denominational Christianity today is taking the best parts of both worlds that you get to choose. And also once you've made the choice that you can't fall. And so the question can a person have an assurance of their salvation? Yeah, if they maintain their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and follow the commandments that he's given till the end of their life. There is an assurance of salvation if you continue on the path of, of following the Savior and having faith in Him. But if you proclaim faith in Jesus and then turn around and you know, kill someone in a road rage incident because you were so mad that he cut you off. Well, no, I don't think you have an assurance of salvation anymore. Right. Because you're not living that. So this again, you know, the Bible emphasizes salvation by grace alone. No, the, the verse you quoted, Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, emphasizes salvation by grace alone. But again, there's a billion Catholics who would say, no, it doesn't. And it goes back to our question six all over again. Our question seven all over again. You can't simply make a statement. The Bible says you're saved by grace alone. There are many, many, many hundreds of thousands of Catholic priests and Orthodox priests and scholars who absolutely believe the Bible is the word of God, who do not believe that Ephesians 2:8,9 trumps the remainder of the Bible. So even in the question, he is making an assumption that is not accepted by the majority of Christianity. So if it's not accepted by the majority of Christianity, why should we act like it is?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I think that's actually one of the best points on this, is you're asking a question of me in an attempt to claim that my religion is false. But all that the question does is highlight just how unaligned all of Christianity,

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

how badly we need a restoration.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It actually, it's one of the funniest things. And which thing, I never previously supposed I had never thought about it in the way that you're describing it here, because I was always so quick to be defensive of the particular thing. But the rejection of the premise is the better point. The rejection of, look, all right, let's take me out of it. You've got the vast majority of Christians don't accept your premise. And in fact, there's confusion around all of it, which actually points to the need for the restoration.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, and what would they say if you brought that up? They're going to say, well, they're not interpreting the Bible. Right. Okay, back to question seven. Who determines who decided that they're not interpreting it? Right. Again, it's easy to just simply say the billion Catholics and Orthodox who live on Earth are all just wrong and don't really have the right faith in Jesus, or you have a very fundamental disagreement about what the Scriptures mean. And look, I know Catholic scholars who love the Bible, they can't get enough of the Bible. They read the Bible constantly. They love the Bible. They can quote every verse of the Bible, and they don't think that that's what the Bible means. So you can either make a pejorative attack on this Catholic scholar. Well, it's because he's a sinner and doesn't you know? Or you have to accept the fact that two very earnest Christians who absolutely love the Lord Jesus Christ, who have dedicated their lives to the Lord Jesus Christ, who believe the Bible is absolutely the word of God, don't agree on what it means when it comes to salvation. And frankly, Protestants don't agree on what it means either. Because either God already chose who he was going to save before he ever created the world, or he didn't. Both of those things cannot be true. Okay? God didn't simultaneously make it about free will, where every single person who has ever existed has the opportunity to accept Jesus and at the same time make it not about free will and predetermine who would be given the gift of faith and therefore salvation before he ever created the world, you can sweep that difference under the rug. And in fact, that's what many Protestants do. Well, that really matters though, is we have faith in Jesus. Okay, well, that's a pretty big difference because you're either asking me to have faith in a Jesus that it created a system knowing that almost no one would be saved, or faith in a Jesus that desperately wants to save everyone but is going to end up saving almost no one. Those aren't the same Jesus. Actually, Latter Day Saints are constantly accused of worshiping the wrong Jesus. You guys believe in a different Jesus? Of course. Latter Day Saints think that's ridiculous. No, we believe in the Jesus that was born in the manger in Bethlehem that that that be became, you know, the risen Lord who came out of the tomb. You know, we believe that Jesus was divine from before he was born. We believe he's Jehovah of the Old Testament. We believe in that Jesus and we're constantly told that we're not proper Christians because we don't agree on his nature, whether or not he has the same essence as God the Father or a similar essence as God the Father. And on those words hinge every person who's ever told you that Mormons are going to burn in hell for believing in the wrong Jesus. Now, I submit to you, Protestants themselves believe in a different Jesus. If you believe in a Jesus who knows everything and is all powerful and created this world knowing exactly who he would save and exactly who he would not save. That is not the same as a Jesus who desperately wants to save everyone. But isn't saving everyone the one Jesus does exactly what Jesus wants to do, that other Jesus wants to do something but can't do it without our free will. Those are not the same Jesus Now, I'm not arguing that Calvinists and Arminians are not Christians, but they have a radically different interpretation of the nature of Jesus. One of them is a nature of attempting to save everyone, but lacking the power to do so. The other is a nature of having all of the power, but only choosing to save those whom he chooses to save. They are not the same. And pretending that they're the same is only to minimize the hundreds of years of Protestant theology that has been written and published and argued about. But we just decide we're going to focus on the one that affects Mormons, essentially. So I would say, yeah, completely deny the premise. In fact, I would ask this guy if he just wants to stay in the Bible. I want you to read the Gospels alone. Just the Gospels, just the words of Jesus Christ. Does Christ anywhere give the impression that what you do doesn't actually matter in your salvation? There's only one place that they will come up with that, and that will be the thief on the cross. They'll say, whoa, well, the thief on the cross is. The thief on the cross is.

[Narrator]

Is.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You know, he confesses Jesus. And Jesus says, today he'll be with me in paradise. Okay, so. So this is the way that salvation works. But there's only a single instance there in the Bible.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So I muted myself. You were trying to tell me that I was muted, and I'm very sorry. I knew that I would get worked up, and so I muted myself so that I wouldn't have all of the rage and the yelling, but I just

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

assumed that you were.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I fought my way off a mute. What's that?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, you fought your way off a hold. I had him on hold. I just busted off a hold. And I've got something to say.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

But so I will say, in fairness to Christians on that one I've watched a lot of. My algorithm is mostly barbecue related foods. It's now World cup and Christian arguments back and forth between. It's very interesting. I love the debate. I think it's fascinating. But that idea of the thief on the cross is one that is very difficult for them to understand in any other way. Which. Right. Which you've talked about. Then what the heck is the resurrection? And which then also creates all kinds of potential problems and issues, but they can't work themselves around that thief on the cross piece. And then they go back to all of the other things that have been said and they're like, well, but must not have the impact we think it does because of this.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Right. Even to the point where it Is Jesus in Mark? Jesus? It's not Judas slipping it in there

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

or even Thomas, Peter, nobody.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, no, it's actually the risen Lord. So not even prior to his resurrection. Jesus. It is the Savior, Jesus Christ, who says that. That go ye into all the world and preach the gospel unto every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned. Now that is actually just as clear as thief on the cross saying, today thou. Thou shalt be with Jesus saying to the thief, today thou shalt be with me in paradise. Okay, I don't think you get to take verses 15 and 16 of Mark and pretend they don't exist because the thief on the cross exists rather. Well, maybe we don't exactly understand what Jesus means by paradise. Or maybe there's some other way that that thief could still be baptized even though he wasn't baptized in this life. I mean, when you have two polar opposite contradictions, one of the. One of the things you should do is say maybe, maybe I don't know everything that's going on here. Maybe the reason why it appears in Paul's letters that literally nothing is needed for salvation, no works at all, but that Jesus is constantly talking about works. And by the way, the Book of Acts also constantly talking about works. Repent and be baptized. Right. The Book of Acts clearly filled with it. But Ephesians 2, 8, 9 and Romans seem to say that it's not. So how do you reconcile them? Now, I can tell you, the majority of times I've had these discussions, it just becomes a tautological conversation. That's a very fancy word.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It's fancy.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It's just simply. It just becomes. Well, because I said so essentially. Right. Well, the Bible says, it says, it says that you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead and it's by grace that you're saved through faith and that not of yourselves, not of works, lest any man should boast. So that I'm going to hang my hat on and I'm just going to keep repeating it and repeating it and repeating it. Yes, but the problem is there are other verses in the Bible. I mean, we don't even have to talk about the Book of James where he says that your faith is worthless. So your faith, it doesn't save you if you have no works associated with it. Well, well, yeah, but it doesn't mean that. Well, that's what it says. I mean, because I could say the same thing about the thief on the cross. No, it doesn't mean that he'll be in paradise. Yeah, but it doesn't mean that. No, it's a. The problem is people often use the Bible like they are trying to win an argument in a bar over whether or not LeBron James or Michael Jordan is the greatest player ever.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Right.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And so what do they do? Well, if you're, if you're making arguments for Michael Jordan, well, you go to his elite defense and raising people around him and the undefeated in the finals. Right, you go to the undefeated finals as your evidence. But if you're a LeBron James fan, you go to longevity. You go to for how great, for how long. You go to how many finals appearances. You go, you go to a different place, but it's still the same game of basketball. And who's the great authority that gets to decide which one of those stats is better? I mean, I personally think it's Michael Jordan, but anyway. But the point being it's an opinion. And then people use those stats to back up what other opinion they already have. And that's exactly what happens with the Bible. People read it to prove the point that they want to prove. Otherwise, the question this guy would have asked would have been, I know that Jesus makes it very clear that you need to be baptized and that you need to live a certain way in order to be saved, but Paul makes it sound like that there aren't any works necessary for salvation. Which is it? That's the real question. Because the Bible is in and of itself contradictory. And again, he will likely deny that premise. He will likely say, no, it's not. The Bible is very clear. Except for the billion people who don't agree with you. And I for one don't think that you should go to the next step, which is what people usually go to. And that is they're all stupid or they all don't actually have faith. That's a pretty broad brush to paint with. There are Catholics and Orthodox people who know the Bible far better than many Protestants do. So it's not just about reading the Bible. There are problems in the Bible. And this is exactly what Joseph Smith said. This is what he said that I was told all the answers are in the Bible. But when I go to these different churches, they're quoting the same verse, but saying it means something entirely opposite. John 3:16 is being used by Calvinists to say God's only going to save a few people. And John 3:16 is being used by Methodists to say God wants to save everybody. Well, this is same verse. So how can I just go to the Bible and get my answer? I did go to the Bible and these scholars who Joseph never argued that these people weren't being genuine. Now, he certainly does believe that there's some sectarian priests who are not being genuine, who are not attempting to find the truth, but these people really believe it. And I mean, here's an example. I know we're over time. Richard's going to mute himself again. So there's nothing he can do about it. Matthew 25. There's no way to read Matthew 25 and think that salvation isn't in some way based upon your works. Look, Latter Day Saints absolutely believe you cannot be saved without the grace of Christ, without the atonement of Jesus Christ. We absolutely believe we're saved by grace. But we believe that grace is applied to us as we apply it to ourselves. And someone can say they have faith in Jesus all they want, but it's not saying that you have faith in Jesus that proves you have faith in Jesus. Verse 31 Matthew 25. When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he shall sit upon the throne of his glory. And before him shall be gathered all nations, and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats, and he shall set the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left. Then shall the king say unto those on his right hand, come ye, blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Now the next words should be, because you confessed with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believed in your heart that God had raised him from the dead. That's what the next words should be, right? But that's not what the next words are. For I was an hungered, and you gave me meat. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you took me in naked, and ye clothed me. I was sick, and ye visited me. I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, lord, when saw we thee an hungered and fed thee, or thirsty and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in, or naked and clothed thee? When saw we thee sick or in prison, and came unto thee. And the King shall answer and say unto them, verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Now that is describing a salvation that is based upon whether or not people acted like Christians. And the contrary is given as well. The people that are going to, you know, depart from him. Why? Because they didn't do any of these things. And they will say, lord, when saw we thee an hungered or athirst or a stranger, or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister unto thee, and then he shall answer them. Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as you did it, did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. This is the Lord Jesus Christ describing what judgment day is going to be like. Why did the Lord decide to omit all of those who've already confessed my name? Those are the ones who are righteous. Instead, he goes on for 20 verses that it's about how you act. Again, I'm not saying that you're saved by works. As a Latter Day Saint, I believe that salvation can only come through the atonement of Jesus Christ. But the atonement of Jesus Christ saves everyone from death. Everyone will be resurrected. And because of Joseph Smith's Revelation doctrine coming section 76, we also know that the atonement of Jesus Christ was. Will eventually save everyone from hellfire. So one of the main differences between us and a Protestant or a Christian generally is we already believe that everyone's going to be saved from hellfire. We are teaching the gospel of exaltation. We are teaching the gospel not just escaping the pangs of hell, but of becoming like our heavenly Father. And that is something more than just achieving heaven. It is becoming exalted. The church does not exist to keep people out of hellfire. Jesus already won that battle. The church exists because in order to become exalted, not saved, you're already saved, exalted. There are covenants that you need to make. Just like Abraham made. Just like other prophets made, they made covenants with God. And they were in a different position because of the covenants they made. We are way out of time. And so we're going to have to punt, I guess, on the last question.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, the last question was great. We can come back to it. And it gets us back to now I see him like, what was the. What was the line? Damien.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I call him as Lym.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, it was very good. Damien's a marketing genius. And that's what we should have called the episode.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, we. The problem is he only finds out about the episodes after we drop them.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

That's true.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And because we do it only seconds before they're supposed to drop.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, no, we're recording this at 5:30 in the morning on Thursday morning.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Anyway, Elder Gur, I mean, I mean, hopefully these things are helpful, but it is. I think Latter Day Saints need to understand where their fellow Christians are coming from. A Protestant Christian is coming from the place of being told that literally only truth is in the Bible. And also that the Bible says that you are saved only by faith and through nothing else. But there are many, many, many other Christians in the world who believe something exactly the opposite. And they absolutely believe in the Bible. And so that's actually the reason why you need a restoration. It's why God called the prophet. And so we don't have to figure these things out on our own. I don't have to wrestle with Matthew 25 and Ephesians 2, 8, 9 because we have prophets and God did that so that we didn't have to wander in the darkness. So thank you so much for joining us. Best of luck.

[Narrator]

Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Garrett Dirkmot and Dr. Richard Leduc. If you know of anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. Until next time,