Equipping Saints • Engaging Culture • Examining Claims
Joseph Smith’s Golden Plates, and the Anatomy of a Repackaged Prophecy ❦ ❦ ❦ A Critical Theological Examination INTRODUCTION: A PROPHECY IN SEARCH OF A FULFILLMENT In the centuries since the Latter-day Saint movement first appropriated the twenty-ninth chapter of Isaiah as a foretelling of the Book of Mormon, no LDS apologist has felt obligated…
The Doctrinal Architecture That Keeps the LDS Church Alone Introduction: A Quiet Standoff in the World’s Religious Landscape Few religious phenomena of the modern era are as instructive — or as misunderstood — as the relationship between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the LDS Church, sometimes still called the Mormon Church) and…
A Theological Examination of Eternal Progression, Premortal Life, and the Eternal Presence of Heavenly Father I. Two Promises, One Soul: The Knot at the Center A faithful Latter-day Saint who has knelt at a sealing altar in a temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been given two promises that, on…
Bibliographic Context The pamphlet, No. 231 in the Herald Publishing House series (Lamoni, Iowa — then the RLDS headquarters), was written by Elder A. B. Phillips and printed in 1912. Phillips’s central thesis is that forty “eminent archaeologists and authors” had, by the early twentieth century, unwittingly confirmed the Book of Mormon’s narrative of ancient…
Image: A digitally enhanced photo by this author of the Gilbert, Arizona LDS Temple. A Historical and Theological Examination of the Most Sacred Mormon Rituals ❦ ❦ ❦ Introduction: A Cathedral Built in Seven Weeks On the second floor of a modest mercantile building in Nauvoo, Illinois, on the warm morning of May 4, 1842,…
A powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck offshore Sarangani province in Mindanao, Philippines, on Monday, June 8, 2026, at 7:37 AM Philippine Standard Time (PST). The epicenter was located approximately 32 km west of Maasim, Sarangani (or roughly 8–26 km southwest/west-southwest of General Santos City), at a depth of about 33 km according to PHIVOLCS (USGS reported…
Delivered by Pastor Joey | East Valley International Church | Gilbert, Arizona Text: Luke 13:22-30 (ESV) Summary of Expository Sermon: Luke 13:22–30 Strive to Enter the Narrow Door Opening Review and the Growth of the Kingdom Pastor Joey begins with a review of the prior week’s text (Luke 13:10–21): Jesus heals a woman bent over…
A Christian Examination of the Latter-day Saint Doctrine that the Atonement Was Accomplished in the Garden of Gethsemane ✦ ✦ ✦ Introduction: A Tale of Two Gardens Ask a hundred traditional Christians where the atonement of Jesus Christ was accomplished, and ninety-nine will point to a hill outside Jerusalem’s wall called Golgotha, the Place of…
Why the Entire Mormon Restoration Stands or Falls on One Man, Joseph Smith ❦ ❦ ❦ Introduction: The Hinge on Which Everything Else Turns There is a particular kind of theological conversation that, no matter where it begins, ends up in the same place. It may begin with the Book of Mormon. It may begin…
The Ancient Fragment Called 4Q246 and What It Reveals About the Jewish World That Awaited the Messiah Imagine a young Bedouin shepherd tossing a stone into a forgotten cave on the cliffs above the Dead Sea—and hearing the crack of ancient pottery instead of bleating sheep. With that single throw in 1947, the most electrifying…