One comment on “Iron Rod 001 – Searching the scriptures”

1. JJ Dec 13, 2021

   I really appreciate the scripture references as mentioned in the re-recording. I also appreciate the quotes and historical context provided in the podcasts. I have often gone back looking for a certain quote in study or in discussion with others and struggled to locate them. I understand and agree that the focus should be on the scriptures, however I feel it is also helpful to share these references as well. I imagine the thought was, as you guys mentioned, that we need to put in the work and you don’t want people to rely on you. I think that it is very helpful as a starting place though and if people want to dig in themselves it still wouldn’t take that experience from them. I often listen as I do things or drive and it’s hard to stop what I’m doing always and write down a reference. I still like to go through myself and it’d be nice to have those references listed also. Thanks for the podcast, I really appreciate the work you guys do to share your thoughts and efforts with us.

   ●Thomas Campbell
   “Where the Bible [scriptures] speaks, we speak; where the Bible [scriptures] is silent, we are silent’” 

   -(The Search for the Ancient Order: Volume 1, p. 47).
   https://plainbibleteaching.com/2017/02/15/thomas-campbell-where-the-bible-speaks-we-speak-where-the-bible-is-silent-we-are-silent/

   Extended Quote given in podcast:
   “Having opened the meeting in the usual manner and in earnest prayer specially invoked the divine guidance proceeded to rehearse the matter from the beginning and to dwell with unusual force upon the manifold evils resulting from the divisions in religious society. Divisions which he urged were as unnecessary as they were injurious, since God had provided in his sacred word an infallible standard which was all sufficient and alone sufficient as a basis of union in Christian cooperation. He showed however, that men had not been satisfied with its teachings but had gone outside of the Bible to frame for themselves religious theories, opinions, and speculations which were the real occasions of the unhappy controversies and strifes which had so long desolated the religious world. He therefore insisted with great earnestness upon a return to the simple teachings of the scriptures and upon the entire abandonment of everything in religion for which there could not be produced a divine warrant.”Extended Quote given in podcast:
   “Having opened the meeting in the usual manner and in earnest prayer specially invoked the divine guidance proceeded to rehearse the matter from the beginning and to dwell with unusual force upon the manifold evils resulting from the divisions in religious society. Divisions which he urged were as unnecessary as they were injurious, since God had provided in his sacred word an infallible standard which was all sufficient and alone sufficient as a basis of union in Christian cooperation. He showed however, that men had not been satisfied with its teachings but had gone outside of the Bible to frame for themselves religious theories, opinions, and speculations which were the real occasions of the unhappy controversies and strifes which had so long desolated the religious world. He therefore insisted with great earnestness upon a return to the simple teachings of the scriptures and upon the entire abandonment of everything in religion for which there could not be produced a divine warrant.”
   (https://www.therestorationmovement.com/_states/wv/declaration.htm)

   ●Joseph Smith
   Times and Seasons April 1844
   “If any man writes to you or preaches to you doctrines contrary to The Bible, the book of mormon, or the book of Doctrine and Covenants set him down as an impostor. Try them by the principles contained in the acknowledged word of God. If they preach or teach or practice contrary to that disfellowship them, cut them off from among you as useless, dangerous branches.”
   Times and Seasons Vol. 5 pg. 490-491
   https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/NCMP1820-1846/id/8236
   (pg. 89/283)

   ●BYU Professor William Hamblin
   “Personally, I find this new curriculum appalling.  It will result in the further decay of scriptural literacy–already a significant problem among the Saints.  Scripture study in the Church has now become nothing more than completely decontextualized proof-texting.  There is, practically speaking, no further institutional support by the Church for the actual study of scripture–as opposed to Church doctrine, devotion and daily application.”

   New BYU Religious Education Curriculum, 
   https://www.patheos.com/blogs/enigmaticmirror/2014/10/27/new-byu-religious-education-curriculum/

   William James Hamblin (1954 – 2019) was a professor of history at Brigham Young University (BYU), and a former board member of the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) at BYU. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Hamblin

   ●Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, comp. Bruce R. McConkie, 3:203–204. italics in original – 
   “STANDARD WORKS JUDGE TEACHINGS OF ALL MEN. It makes no difference what is written or what anyone has said, if what has been said is in conflict with what the Lord has revealed, we can set it aside. My words, and the teachings of any other member of the Church, high or low, if they do not square with the revelations, we need not accept them. Let us have this matter clear. We have accepted the four standard works as the measuring yardsticks, or balances, by which we measure every man’s doctrine.
   You cannot accept the books written by the authorities of the Church as standards in doctrine, only in so far as they accord with the revealed word in the standard works.
   Every man who writes is responsible, not the Church, for what he writes. If Joseph Fielding Smith writes something which is out of harmony with the revelations, then every member of the Church is duty bound to reject it.
   If he writes that which is in perfect harmony with the revealed word of the Lord, then it should be accepted.”

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