THE ORGANIZATION
OF THE LDS CHURCH
In their quest to prove that they are the restoration of the true
church of Jesus Christ, the LDS maintains that they have the same
organization as did the primitive church. But their office bearers
fall far short of the biblical requirements. Other than the fact
that they use the same terms, their organization bears little, if
any, resemblance to that of the primitive church.
This article compares the qualifications required by the primitive church for deacons, elders, prophets and apostles, with those of the LDS church. An informative and well referenced article dealing with the problems involved in the LDS's claim to possess the priesthood will be found by clicking on this link: The LDS Priesthood is Unbiblical .
BIBLICAL LEADERSHIP HAD AN AGE QUALIFICATION
In biblical times no man ever held a position of leadership or served in any public office, before the age of thirty. That's why the Lord Jesus waited until He was thirty before commencing His ministry.
Regarding 1 Timothy 4:12, where Paul refers to Timothy's so-called "youth," in the Jewish culture any man under the age of forty was considered to be a mere youth. According to available evidence, although Timothy would have been under forty years of age at the time he was appointed to leadership, he would at least have been in his thirties. But even that was considered in those times to be decidedly young for so responsible an office.
DEACONS
The LDS appoints fourteen year old boys as deacons, under their Aaronic Priesthood. But firstly, only those in the bloodline of Levi, and who were over the age of 25, qualified for the priesthood (c/f Exodus 29:5, Numbers 3:10, 8:23, 17:1-3, 26:57-59, Joshua 21:10). And secondly, fourteen year olds are legally considered to be children, under the responsibility of their parents. Nowhere in the Bible (or in any other historical records) do we find anyone under the age of 30 ever holding the office of a deacon. Thirdly, contrary to LDS teachings, deacons were not part of the Aaronic Priesthood. Priests were never deacons and vice verse. The office of deacon was a church office, and the church falls under the New Covenant, not the Old. The Old Covenant with its priesthood, was between the nation of Israel and Jehovah God, and had nothing to do with the church. Both the temple and the priesthood belonged to the Old Covenant (see the link to the article on the temple, provided at the end of the page.)
Furthermore, deacons were required to be mature, married men (with one wife only). They also had to have proved themselves to be good managers of their children and of their own households (1 Timothy 3:12). In addition they needed to be wise, have a good reputation, to be Spirit filled (Acts 6:3), honest and dignified, and not interested in accumulating wealth or inclined to over indulge in the drinking of wine. However, alcohol was not forbidden. Their faith had to have been tested and they were only permitted to serve as deacons if they were beyond reproach (1 Timothy 3:8-10).
Stephen, the first martyr in the primitive church of Jesus Christ, was both a deacon and an evangelist. Deacons assisted the elders (who were not members of the priesthood either), and Stephen's duties as a deacon included overseeing the welfare of elderly widows (Acts 6:1 to 8:2).
The Mormon practice of appointing fourteen year old children as deacons would never have been considered, let alone permitted in the primitive church. Even on its own, this anomaly is sufficient proof that the LDS church's claim to having the same organization as that of the primitive church is yet another of their deceptive claims.
ELDERS
One of the mistaken concepts in the LDS church is that their elders are holders of the Melchizedek priesthood. But the biblical qualification for the Melchizedek priesthood is the power of an indestructible life (c/f Hebrews 7:13-17 KJV). Christ is the only one who qualified in this respect, as He arose from the grave. Because He was sinless, death had no power over Him. No elder in the LDS church has ever been sinless or has risen from the grave. In spite of their claims, Mormon men are merely fallen, mortal beings.
Furthermore, neither under the Old Covenant nor under the New, were elders qualified with the priesthood. They were a separate order altogether.
The truth of the matter is that Joseph Smith invented Mormonism. He took things that he liked, which applied only to the Old Covenant, mixed them in with things he liked from the New Covenant, and then added some of his own ideas, ending up with an exclusive religion that suited his own purposes.
Another problem is that although the LDS uses biblical terms with gay abandon, they have given them incorrect and exclusively LDS meanings. For instance, in the LDS church an elder isn't an older man possessing maturity and wisdom, but quite the opposite, i.e. a very young man, inexperienced in the ways of the world and therefore lacking the wisdom and maturity necessary for an office of leadership.
In the real world, the word "elder" means a mature, older and wiser person. So naturally these were the first qualifications necessary for an elder in the primitive church. They also had to be able to preach and teach (1 Timothy 5:17), were required to be married to one wife only and their children had to be practicing Christians. (Marriage and parenthood give a depth of wisdom and understanding that is not generally attainable by a single person, hence the necessity for an elder to be a mature, married man who had reared a family.) Elders also needed to be skilled and knowledgeable in the scriptures so that they could teach sound doctrine and correct error. Furthermore, they were required to be faithful and just stewards of God, sensible, even-tempered, hospitable, devout and self-controlled, and not addicted to wine or interested in financial gain. (Titus 1:5-9).
Elders in the primitive church were responsible for the spiritual welfare of the congregations. They were pastors and shepherds of the flock (Acts 20:17, 28.) They were also responsible for managing the church's finances (see Acts 11:27-30). Because of their wisdom and maturity, the community looked to them for advice and guidance. In Acts chapter 15 the elders met together with the apostles to sort out a dispute that had arisen in the church concerning circumcision.
In spite of their assertion that their organization is the same as the primitive church, the LDS ordains as elders, immature young men who have generally only just finished their schooling, have never held down a responsible job, are unmarried, and have absolutely nothing to offer in the way of worldly wisdom. Regarding the required qualification of skill in and knowledge of the biblical scriptures mentioned above, some of the youthful Mormon missionaries who go by the peculiar title of "Elder" (and have been taught to insist on being addressed as such) readily admit that they have never even read the Bible, let alone studied it.
LDS elders don't meet any of the requirements of the primitive church as laid down in Acts, Timothy and Titus. The fact that they use the same terminology gives a deliberately false impression, as the LDS has a completely different organizational set up to that of the primitive church of Jesus Christ. Their method of selecting elders would never have been tolerated by the early church.
APOSTLES
The primitive church's qualifications for an apostle were that he had to have been called by Christ Himself to that office and that he had to have personally seen the risen Lord. Furthermore, he needed to have been spiritually anointed and this would have been verified by the gift of miracles. The primary task of an apostle was to witness to Christ:
PRESIDENTS AND PROPHETS
The President of the LDS church (an unbiblical post invented by them), is their official prophet. And prophecy is restricted to him alone. But the primitive church didn't have a president, and the LDS stance on an official prophet would not have been tolerated.
Unlike in the LDS church, biblical prophets weren't restricted to the ranks of spiritual leadership, but came from all walks in life. Furthermore, they were called by God Himself, and not by any religious hierarchy, to be His representative to the people, i.e. His mouthpiece. And they were often reluctant messengers. For instance, Amos said:
Although God's prophets foretold future events, this wasn't in order to satisfy people's curiosity, but to warn wrongdoers of coming judgment so that they could change their way of living. During hard times they also encouraged the people with God's promises of future blessings.
Unlike the Mormon prophet, whose main concern in the past seems to have been the introduction of unbiblical doctrines, and in the present to merely be the figurehead of the LDS church, God's prophet's main task was to be a spiritual watchdog. He guided, and publicly warned and rebuked the rulers and leaders, as well as the ordinary folk. Because he was a reformer, he was most active when the spiritual leadership was backslidden or corrupt. Through his prophets God exposed their sin to the people (and if necessary to the leadership), and exhorted them to repent. He prophesied judgment on them if they did not. That's why true prophets were generally very unpopular. Nobody likes to be corrected or threatened, and they frequently did both in the name of the Lord.
God's main characteristic is holiness, and His constant cry throughout the Bible is, "Be ye holy, for I am holy." So, as God's representative and mouthpiece, the people's holiness was the main concern of the true prophet. He was God's instrument of warning so that they could be saved from judgment, and his unrelenting theme was "Repent, repent!"
John the Baptist was a prophet. And his constant concern was that the people of his day should repent of their sins.
THE FALSE PROPHET
A false prophet is someone sent by Satan to lead us into spiritual error. His messages don't come from God, so his revelations are not in line with what God has already revealed to us in the Bible. Christ warned that "many false prophets would arise and mislead many" (Matthew. 24:11). The Apostle John also alerted us against false prophets (1 John 4:1).
Joseph Smith fills all the criteria of a false prophet. (A link is provided at the end of this page to an article on this subject.) Smith's prophecies have in the main, proved to be false, and his revelations contradict what God had already revealed as truth in the Bible.
Through his false prophets Satan attempts to mislead us by spreading false information both about God and about His purposes for us. Because he bases all his schemes on spiritual deception, our human wisdom is no match against his wiles. So God has given us the Bible as a spiritual weapon with which to protect ourselves. And it's Satan-proof (see Ephesians 6:10-18). The Bible is capable of exposing all spiritual deception, including false doctrine, provided we use it as our standard of truth.
The LDS prophet and founder, Joseph Smith, knew full well that his many "revelations" and "prophecies" would never be able to stand up against the scrutiny of God's standard of truth, so he rendered this powerful and reliable spiritual weapon absolutely useless to Mormons, by telling them that God had revealed to him that the Bible was full of errors and omissions. This deceptive claim enabled him to bring into being an unbiblical religion that bypassed God's chosen way of salvation and fitted in with his own personal agenda. In direct opposition to Ephesians 6, which teaches us to use the Bible as a spiritual sword as part of our armour to protect ourselves against deception, the LDS teaches its followers to use their own scriptures and revelations as the standard against which to measure the accuracy of the Bible.
THE PRIESTHOOD
The subject of the LDS priesthood is discussed in an article at this link: The LDS Priesthood is Unbiblical .
SUMMARY
It is quite obvious that the LDS church does not have the same organization as did the primitive church, in spite of their claim that they do. They also have a God, a Saviour, an atonement, a salvation and a gospel that are unbiblical and exclusive to Mormonism alone. But they are entitled to their own beliefs. So why do they pretend to be a restoration of the primitive Christian church?
The following are links leading to the articles mentioned above:
Joseph Smith, the Latter-day False Prophet
LDS Temples Compared with those of Biblical Times
NOTE
To access a comprehensive index of articles comparing various aspects of Mormonism with what the Bible teaches, click on the "home" button at the bottom of this page.
Copyright 2007 by Mormonism and Biblical Truth. All rights reserved.
This article compares the qualifications required by the primitive church for deacons, elders, prophets and apostles, with those of the LDS church. An informative and well referenced article dealing with the problems involved in the LDS's claim to possess the priesthood will be found by clicking on this link: The LDS Priesthood is Unbiblical .
BIBLICAL LEADERSHIP HAD AN AGE QUALIFICATION
In biblical times no man ever held a position of leadership or served in any public office, before the age of thirty. That's why the Lord Jesus waited until He was thirty before commencing His ministry.
Regarding 1 Timothy 4:12, where Paul refers to Timothy's so-called "youth," in the Jewish culture any man under the age of forty was considered to be a mere youth. According to available evidence, although Timothy would have been under forty years of age at the time he was appointed to leadership, he would at least have been in his thirties. But even that was considered in those times to be decidedly young for so responsible an office.
DEACONS
The LDS appoints fourteen year old boys as deacons, under their Aaronic Priesthood. But firstly, only those in the bloodline of Levi, and who were over the age of 25, qualified for the priesthood (c/f Exodus 29:5, Numbers 3:10, 8:23, 17:1-3, 26:57-59, Joshua 21:10). And secondly, fourteen year olds are legally considered to be children, under the responsibility of their parents. Nowhere in the Bible (or in any other historical records) do we find anyone under the age of 30 ever holding the office of a deacon. Thirdly, contrary to LDS teachings, deacons were not part of the Aaronic Priesthood. Priests were never deacons and vice verse. The office of deacon was a church office, and the church falls under the New Covenant, not the Old. The Old Covenant with its priesthood, was between the nation of Israel and Jehovah God, and had nothing to do with the church. Both the temple and the priesthood belonged to the Old Covenant (see the link to the article on the temple, provided at the end of the page.)
Furthermore, deacons were required to be mature, married men (with one wife only). They also had to have proved themselves to be good managers of their children and of their own households (1 Timothy 3:12). In addition they needed to be wise, have a good reputation, to be Spirit filled (Acts 6:3), honest and dignified, and not interested in accumulating wealth or inclined to over indulge in the drinking of wine. However, alcohol was not forbidden. Their faith had to have been tested and they were only permitted to serve as deacons if they were beyond reproach (1 Timothy 3:8-10).
Stephen, the first martyr in the primitive church of Jesus Christ, was both a deacon and an evangelist. Deacons assisted the elders (who were not members of the priesthood either), and Stephen's duties as a deacon included overseeing the welfare of elderly widows (Acts 6:1 to 8:2).
The Mormon practice of appointing fourteen year old children as deacons would never have been considered, let alone permitted in the primitive church. Even on its own, this anomaly is sufficient proof that the LDS church's claim to having the same organization as that of the primitive church is yet another of their deceptive claims.
ELDERS
One of the mistaken concepts in the LDS church is that their elders are holders of the Melchizedek priesthood. But the biblical qualification for the Melchizedek priesthood is the power of an indestructible life (c/f Hebrews 7:13-17 KJV). Christ is the only one who qualified in this respect, as He arose from the grave. Because He was sinless, death had no power over Him. No elder in the LDS church has ever been sinless or has risen from the grave. In spite of their claims, Mormon men are merely fallen, mortal beings.
Furthermore, neither under the Old Covenant nor under the New, were elders qualified with the priesthood. They were a separate order altogether.
The truth of the matter is that Joseph Smith invented Mormonism. He took things that he liked, which applied only to the Old Covenant, mixed them in with things he liked from the New Covenant, and then added some of his own ideas, ending up with an exclusive religion that suited his own purposes.
Another problem is that although the LDS uses biblical terms with gay abandon, they have given them incorrect and exclusively LDS meanings. For instance, in the LDS church an elder isn't an older man possessing maturity and wisdom, but quite the opposite, i.e. a very young man, inexperienced in the ways of the world and therefore lacking the wisdom and maturity necessary for an office of leadership.
In the real world, the word "elder" means a mature, older and wiser person. So naturally these were the first qualifications necessary for an elder in the primitive church. They also had to be able to preach and teach (1 Timothy 5:17), were required to be married to one wife only and their children had to be practicing Christians. (Marriage and parenthood give a depth of wisdom and understanding that is not generally attainable by a single person, hence the necessity for an elder to be a mature, married man who had reared a family.) Elders also needed to be skilled and knowledgeable in the scriptures so that they could teach sound doctrine and correct error. Furthermore, they were required to be faithful and just stewards of God, sensible, even-tempered, hospitable, devout and self-controlled, and not addicted to wine or interested in financial gain. (Titus 1:5-9).
Elders in the primitive church were responsible for the spiritual welfare of the congregations. They were pastors and shepherds of the flock (Acts 20:17, 28.) They were also responsible for managing the church's finances (see Acts 11:27-30). Because of their wisdom and maturity, the community looked to them for advice and guidance. In Acts chapter 15 the elders met together with the apostles to sort out a dispute that had arisen in the church concerning circumcision.
In spite of their assertion that their organization is the same as the primitive church, the LDS ordains as elders, immature young men who have generally only just finished their schooling, have never held down a responsible job, are unmarried, and have absolutely nothing to offer in the way of worldly wisdom. Regarding the required qualification of skill in and knowledge of the biblical scriptures mentioned above, some of the youthful Mormon missionaries who go by the peculiar title of "Elder" (and have been taught to insist on being addressed as such) readily admit that they have never even read the Bible, let alone studied it.
LDS elders don't meet any of the requirements of the primitive church as laid down in Acts, Timothy and Titus. The fact that they use the same terminology gives a deliberately false impression, as the LDS has a completely different organizational set up to that of the primitive church of Jesus Christ. Their method of selecting elders would never have been tolerated by the early church.
APOSTLES
The primitive church's qualifications for an apostle were that he had to have been called by Christ Himself to that office and that he had to have personally seen the risen Lord. Furthermore, he needed to have been spiritually anointed and this would have been verified by the gift of miracles. The primary task of an apostle was to witness to Christ:
And when it was day, he [Jesus] called unto him his disciples: and of them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles (Luke 6:13, KJV)LDS apostles do not fulfil any of the requirements of the primitive church. None of their apostles would not have been accepted as such, by the early church of Jesus Christ.
And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. (Acts 2:1-4, KJV)
Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead) (Galations 1:1, KJV)
[Paul said, concerning the risen Christ confronting him on the road to Damascus] Am I not an apostle? ..... Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? (1 Corinthians 9:1, KJV)
[Paul said] Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds (2 Corinthians 12:12, KJV)
And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. (Acts 2:43, KJV)
PRESIDENTS AND PROPHETS
The President of the LDS church (an unbiblical post invented by them), is their official prophet. And prophecy is restricted to him alone. But the primitive church didn't have a president, and the LDS stance on an official prophet would not have been tolerated.
Unlike in the LDS church, biblical prophets weren't restricted to the ranks of spiritual leadership, but came from all walks in life. Furthermore, they were called by God Himself, and not by any religious hierarchy, to be His representative to the people, i.e. His mouthpiece. And they were often reluctant messengers. For instance, Amos said:
I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycomore fruit: And the Lord took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel. (Amos 7:14-15, KJV).Jeremiah had never held any spiritual office either and was also very reluctant to be a prophet, but nevertheless God called him out for that purpose and equipped him for the task.
Although God's prophets foretold future events, this wasn't in order to satisfy people's curiosity, but to warn wrongdoers of coming judgment so that they could change their way of living. During hard times they also encouraged the people with God's promises of future blessings.
Unlike the Mormon prophet, whose main concern in the past seems to have been the introduction of unbiblical doctrines, and in the present to merely be the figurehead of the LDS church, God's prophet's main task was to be a spiritual watchdog. He guided, and publicly warned and rebuked the rulers and leaders, as well as the ordinary folk. Because he was a reformer, he was most active when the spiritual leadership was backslidden or corrupt. Through his prophets God exposed their sin to the people (and if necessary to the leadership), and exhorted them to repent. He prophesied judgment on them if they did not. That's why true prophets were generally very unpopular. Nobody likes to be corrected or threatened, and they frequently did both in the name of the Lord.
God's main characteristic is holiness, and His constant cry throughout the Bible is, "Be ye holy, for I am holy." So, as God's representative and mouthpiece, the people's holiness was the main concern of the true prophet. He was God's instrument of warning so that they could be saved from judgment, and his unrelenting theme was "Repent, repent!"
John the Baptist was a prophet. And his constant concern was that the people of his day should repent of their sins.
THE FALSE PROPHET
A false prophet is someone sent by Satan to lead us into spiritual error. His messages don't come from God, so his revelations are not in line with what God has already revealed to us in the Bible. Christ warned that "many false prophets would arise and mislead many" (Matthew. 24:11). The Apostle John also alerted us against false prophets (1 John 4:1).
Joseph Smith fills all the criteria of a false prophet. (A link is provided at the end of this page to an article on this subject.) Smith's prophecies have in the main, proved to be false, and his revelations contradict what God had already revealed as truth in the Bible.
Through his false prophets Satan attempts to mislead us by spreading false information both about God and about His purposes for us. Because he bases all his schemes on spiritual deception, our human wisdom is no match against his wiles. So God has given us the Bible as a spiritual weapon with which to protect ourselves. And it's Satan-proof (see Ephesians 6:10-18). The Bible is capable of exposing all spiritual deception, including false doctrine, provided we use it as our standard of truth.
The LDS prophet and founder, Joseph Smith, knew full well that his many "revelations" and "prophecies" would never be able to stand up against the scrutiny of God's standard of truth, so he rendered this powerful and reliable spiritual weapon absolutely useless to Mormons, by telling them that God had revealed to him that the Bible was full of errors and omissions. This deceptive claim enabled him to bring into being an unbiblical religion that bypassed God's chosen way of salvation and fitted in with his own personal agenda. In direct opposition to Ephesians 6, which teaches us to use the Bible as a spiritual sword as part of our armour to protect ourselves against deception, the LDS teaches its followers to use their own scriptures and revelations as the standard against which to measure the accuracy of the Bible.
"The most reliable way to measure the accuracy of any biblical passage is not by comparing different texts, but by comparison with the Book of Mormon and modern-day revelations." (Church News, June 20, 1992, page 3, quoting a letter from the First Presidency [Presidents Benson, Hinckley and Monson] dated May 22, 1992, to all of the Church)
THE PRIESTHOOD
The subject of the LDS priesthood is discussed in an article at this link: The LDS Priesthood is Unbiblical .
SUMMARY
It is quite obvious that the LDS church does not have the same organization as did the primitive church, in spite of their claim that they do. They also have a God, a Saviour, an atonement, a salvation and a gospel that are unbiblical and exclusive to Mormonism alone. But they are entitled to their own beliefs. So why do they pretend to be a restoration of the primitive Christian church?
The following are links leading to the articles mentioned above:
Joseph Smith, the Latter-day False Prophet
LDS Temples Compared with those of Biblical Times
NOTE
To access a comprehensive index of articles comparing various aspects of Mormonism with what the Bible teaches, click on the "home" button at the bottom of this page.
Copyright 2007 by Mormonism and Biblical Truth. All rights reserved.
