To the Christian who’s trying to understand the LDS faith for the first time, witnessing to your LDS friend or neighbor is intimidating. It feels at first like everything you thought you knew was wrong, and your friend’s grasp of the Bible is so solid that you’ve got no hope in ever making a difference for him. Allow me to make a discouraging observation: you’re right. You’ll never be able to argue with an LDS church member toward the truth of the Gospel. But here’s the good news: you don’t have to. Let me explain.
A false premise
A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to a fellow pastor who was getting ready to lead a mission trip into “Mormon Country.” If you’re not from the West, that’s how a lot of people out here refer to Idaho, Utah, and Nevada. In our conversation, he wanted to know how I share the gospel.
He didn’t realize it at first, but he was asking for my “stumper” arguments that would prove that Joseph Smith is a false prophet, the Book of Mormon isn’t true, and that the LDS church is corrupt.
My answer was as follows. Many LDS young people attend “seminary” while they’re in high school. It’s a place where they’re taught the basics of LDS doctrine and apologetics against Christians (especially Baptists). There, they’ll learn a lot of the common “Mormon bashing” arguments, and there they are trained in how to respond to them. The unfortunate news is that your one weekend of googling is probably insufficient to answer his arguments.
A trusted method for evangelism
But here’s the good news (sound familiar?). The Bible is God’s Word, it’s alive, it’s powerful, and it is able to divide in sunder joints and marrow and soul and spirit, and it can understand the thoughts and intents of the heart.
My witnessing approach can be followed by anybody and can be summed up in a single sentence. Use the Bible to make them curious. You don’t know LDS doctrine. That’s fine. You aren’t an eloquent debater. All the better! You have the Holy Spirit and you have the Bible. Use those to pique their interest in the truth. I learned this method from my grandfather, who pastored in the Salt Lake City area for about 40 years. Broach the subject of theology by asking them open-ended questions. Grandpa’s favorite was “according to your understanding of the Christian faith, what was the purpose of the death of Christ on the cross?” I like asking, “what do you think I mean when I talk about ‘the trinity’?”
When you ask questions like this, you make people curious. It’s offensive when someone tells you what you think. It’s intriguing when they ask you what you think. The conversations I’ve had after asking questions like this have always been long and productive. They spur follow-up questions, discussions of specific Bible texts, and don’t devolve into arguing about which of the 18 first visions is the true one, DNA questions about lost tribes of Israel, and other technical and hot-button subjects.
Conclusion
My silent prayer the entire time I witness is “Lord, please help us get into Scripture,” because I know that the Holy Spirit can break up the fallow ground. I know that, no matter my failings, the Spirit uses the infallible Word to convince the person I’m witnessing to of sin, righteousness, and judgment.