If someone were to search the Old Testament Bible for the word “Church” or “Christian” they would find absolutely nothing. This is because during the times of the Old Covenant, the laws of Moses prevailed and there was no church on earth. However, if you were to look at the same time frames in the Book of Mormon, the same words are present. It doesn’t just exist in one chapter but many. Today we will look at Alma, chapter 46, where it makes mention of both “Church” and “Christian”. This is supposedly in 73 BC. The verses read, “for thus were all the true believers of Christ, who belonged to the church of God, called by those who did not belong to the church. And those who did belong to the church were faithful; yea, all those who were true believers in Christ took upon them, gladly, the name of Christ, or Christians as they were called, because of their belief in Christ who should come.” (Alma 46:14,15) Can anybody spot an issue here? This time frame is in the Old Covenant, so what happened here does not fit.
The first mention of the word “Church” comes from Jesus. He mentioned how it would be formed after the Holy Spirit comes. It is written, “and I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18) Jesus used his disciples to help usher in His church on earth. This happened when the Holy Spirit came during the day of Pentecost. These believers came “praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.” (Acts 2:47) Notice how they were added to Christ’s church. Speaking of these people, they were called Christians. “And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.” (Acts 11:26) The church was formed, and people were called Christians after Jesus’s ascension into heaven. Amen.
Let us pray:
Oh Lord, I pray that Mormons will wake up to the false teachings in their Book of Mormon. These people are so lost and don’t even realize it. I want to reach them for Your cause, Jesus, but I am afraid that most of everything I do will fall upon deaf ears. These people’s hearts, minds, and ears are closed off to anything Christians teach, but what is found in their cult. It is sad, God, that they reject even messages that come from the Bible. Speaking of their man-made Book of Mormon, it teaches many false doctrines. One being, that Your church was set apart in the times of the laws of Moses or the old covenant. The same goes with Christians being a part of it then. Lord, How is it that people in Mormonism cannot see the issues in this? I know for a fact that Your church began during the day of Pentecost. You poured out the Holy Spirit upon the earth and many people were saved that day, and added to Your church. Lord, Your teachings are clear. Thank You for opening my eyes to see the truth. I love You, Jesus. Amen.
Alright, I don’t comment on a whole lot on any form, but I just had to here. I searched Alma 46 to do my reading for the day, and saw this, and my curiosity got the better of me, so I clicked on this, and I had to read it a few times to make sure that I understood everything correctly, because wow!
This is arguably the single worst argument that I’ve ever seen for any anti-LDS issue. Do you know how languages are formed? Dude, the Bible was NOT written in English. Did you ever play the game telephone as a kid? What happens when a simply phrase goes from one person to the next? What about five people down the line? Ten? Fifty? That’s what happened with the bible. Jesus didn’t literally say church, I thought that we all knew this. The word “church” comes from the the Greek “kuriakon”, meaning “the Lord’s house”. The word “church” didn’t exist a thousand years ago.
Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon going from the script that was on the Golden Plates in a language that nobody had seen before or since, therefore the translation happened once, not the dozens of times that the bible has. I’d be willing to bet a large sum of money that the word that was on the plates wasn’t church, but some other group of words that means church, like how kuriakon means “the Lord’s house”, since as I’ve said, the word “church” wasn’t in the Bible when it was first written, and was added in a translation. If it worked for the bible, since that has been translated, then we should be giving the Book of Mormon the same pass, since it wouldn’t be fair to allow the bible to do that, but not the Book of Mormon, regardless if you think it’s authentic or not.
For another example even though I think I’ve beaten the horse so much that it’s now glue, but have you heard the word “schadenfreude”? It’s German, meaning that someone finds joy or satisfaction when something unfortunate happens to another person. Literally, the word means “harm-joy”, which doesn’t make any sense in English. But the word isn’t English in origin. The word church is not English in origin, instead (I could be wrong on this, but I’ve spent too much time typing this and cba to do any research else lol) having one of its’ first origins when the bible was translated to modern English.
The Book of Mormon is true. Try to beat the book down, and you’ll fail. The poetry and writing structures that are in the book are too much for a farm kid like Joseph Smith to write. We’re finding more patterns in the Book of Mormon to this day.
I don’t know if anyone will read this, since this site doesn’t look super active. If anyone finds this who is questioning the church, read unbiased information about it, and then read the Book of Mormon itself, rather than finding terrible arguments like whatever this is.