Why do so many non-LDS Christians tell us Mormons that if we would just read the Bible...?

It's not just reading the Bible that is required. You have to accept what it says, despite other writings that disagree. For example, the Bible states that Jesus is uncreated - He is the eternal Word of God who was with God in the beginning, who was God, and who created everything. John 1:1-3. Does Joseph Smith's notations to the KJV at that verse suggest that He was actually 'a god', one of many? Who will you believe? The polytheistic view, or the monotheistic statements of the Bible?

God states in the Bible time and again that He is the only true God. He recognizes no other gods, who are the imaginations of sinners' minds. (Isaiah 45:5-6 & 21) God says He will not share His glory with another - but Jesus shares that glory! (Isaiah 44:6-9 & 24 plus ch 42:8 God says we are to worship no other than Him, but He also commands the angels to worship Jesus (Hebrews 1:6). That's because to worship Christ is to worship God. The same one God who created everything!

The point I'm making is that the Jesus of the LDSs is not the Jesus of the Bible. You have a creature - one who was birthed by a father god and a mother goddess in heaven, before becoming the man Jesus. The Bible has the uncreated Word of God, who is God, and the third person in the Godhead, adding human nature to His divine nature in order to pay the price of sin.

For as long as you speak of a created Jesus, you do not believe what you read in the Bible, because you explain it away to mean something else, according to the teachings of Joseph Smith.

They just write mormonism off in their minds. Because when two men walk up to their house willing to talk about God and Jesus, they wonder why would they carry or quote from any other book than the Bible. It doesn't make sense to them.

I'm not a believer in any religion, and it's incredible when I think of the amount of time that even I have spent combing through religions like Mormonism and Islam and the Jehova's Witnesses, etc...it's no wonder other denominations and religions are just completely writing each other off. Because to those guys that are very biblical, that aren't LDS, they would honestly rather just continue to re-read what they consider scriptures, going through them with a new perspective, allowing the Holy Spirit to reveal new ways for a particular scripture to influence their lives. They would rather do this over and over again than spending the time required to read the BoM, D&C, and PoGP to become less ignorant about mormonism. And the more that they study their own scriptures, the more they realize that nothing in the world that is written is more effective at explaining a principle of god than the Bible. And it is hard to combat that biased behavior, but we all do it in our own little ways, somehow finding ways to write off the beliefs of other people so we don't waste years and years reading what our bias has already determined as irrelevance.

They've got the Bible, which explains the beginning, the middle, the end. It explains the law, and it explains the sacrifice, and it explains salvation. And they will continue to read it until death, continuing to learn more of Christ and God the entire time. Even if the Book of Mormon isn't contradictory at all, their bias convinces them that nothing is comparable to the Bible.

Before I joined the Mormon church 38 years ago, I was an active, bible reading protestant. One of the things that drew me to the LDS church is that the LDS church miraculously matches the bible much better then, but different then, mainstream Christianity. Once a person understands Mormonism, many of the doctrines in the bible that appear contradictory (such as the teaching that the Father and Son are one yet they talk to each other) fall away. We have to assume that the many authors in the bible understood the gospel the same and once a person understands what the authors intended to express, there is no longer any conflict. To find a complete doctrine that reconciles all the apparent bible discrepancies is amazing.

There are many things in the bible that do not apply to mainstream Christianity so they are discarded with the assumption that they are no longer valid. These kinds of idea's are embraced by the Mormon church. They include such concepts as sacrifice of self, obedience to commandments, covenants, temples, revelation to church leaders, spiritual gifts, etc. The epistles which are letters to branches of the church all strive to correct false doctrines and important issues that mainstream Christians do not even care about. The early Christian church lived communally and gave all that they had to the church (see Acts 4:32 thru Acts 5:10). Mormons understand the spirit of what they were trying to do. If a group had the same practice today, they would be called a cult. Mormons can identify with the missions of Paul and Peter because we have the same outlook on life and experience the same kinds of things. The kinds of things spoken over the pulpit are the same kinds of things taught by the apostles.

The Pew center did research and found that on average Mormons knew more about the bible than any other religion included in the study.

The Barna group found that on average Mormons spend more time studying the bible than any other religion in their study.

so why do they say it? Because they aren't studied but that's what somebody told them to say.

EDIT - it's sad to see the lack of understanding that some people have. If you have a degree in theology you shouldn't be so ignorant or a large religion.

@seachery - the majority of the LDS church no longer speaks English, and it's only recently that Spanish became the second language to have an LDS translation. Growing up as a son of one of those brethren we read the NT together as a family, but we didn't read out of our personal scriptures, rather non-denominational KJV bibles. Personally I'm fond of the Jerusalem Bible as well.

It's sad that in your attempt to always provide a negative spin to any LDS question that you so frequently veer from the truth and exaggerate minutia and represent it as fact.

You know that the LDS church encourages personal bible study, would it kill you to speak anything positive about the church or would that damage your personal justification?

Speaking as a christian, but not a hardline "your going to hell if you disagree with me" holyer than thou christian.. which seems to be the majority when it comes to the outspoken church functioners..

Mormonism doesnt seem that bad a style for christianity, im not a mormon, i know a few and their nice people, just as any christian, OR NON christian can be. its more about what one does with the knowledge they get and how they use it in their daily lives, than how many bible verses they have memorized to use in an argument with someone else to prove themselves right.

when jesus was asked what of the commandments were the most important, the second most after being faithful to god alone, was to understand and USE and LIVE by the fundamental "do unto others as thou would have done unto you". so its really what you do and what you say and how you treat people, rather than how well youve memorized the bible and how many "non believers" youve beaten in an argument... because if they understood the fundamentals about the bible, they would realize that god doesnt keep score on arguments won with an athiest/different sect of the religion. other than he probably frowns on the arrogant behavior.

Very racists question. Why are you calling Christians non-lds? Because Mormons misinterpret the bible and let the prophets, the presidents interpret it for them. Mormons practised a pagen ritual like baptism for the dead which was practiced OUTSIDE the church and NO the first Church never practiced it.

Mormons believe in the apostasy, they have to or they would not have this religion, John the Apostle, St. John died of old age in 100 A.D. The Church was given a universal name in 100 A.D. The apostasy never happened. They don't believe when Jesus said the gates of hell will not prevail his church, Jesus Church, is comprise of people, Jesus said he will ALWAYS protect his Church! So in all retrospect, Mormons call Jesus a liar because they believe the apostasy happened around 80 ad and 90 ad, and are pretty much saying Jesus never protected his church, his people, his followers. Church is not a building, it is PEOPLE! The Buildings are places where his people come together to worship God together in fellowship and to celebrate the Eucharist because Jesus said to celebrate Communion his body and blood till he comes again. They don't believe in the Church Fathers, which are the Apostles and the Apostles Disciples as well. They ignore the Apostles followers, their Apostles and so forth. Which are the Church Fathers of Jesus Church, which is almost 2000 years old.

They believe God has appointed so many prophets to their religion since joseph smith. Really? Jesus said there will be no prophets after him and there is NO need to have prophets after him.

The Bible said beware of false prophets and false books.

God said the Bible, you will NOT ADD or Take Away from the Bible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

God said in the Bible all these things, Mormons ignore all of this

Mormons have many secrets, and they ignore the whole polygamy thing now because their presidents tells them too.

Mormons have temples, Jesus never built temples, he built a Church.

Jews built temples and Jews don't believe in Jesus.

Mormons temples, no one who is not a Mormons can go in, they can only stand outside of it, and only the highest degree of Mormons can enter the temples, sounds cultish and nothing like Jesus or his church, Jesus Church OPENS his doors to EVERYONE!

There is a break in the Mormon Religion, a few dominations, that the mainstream Mormon temple does not and will not recognize. This can be look as an Apostasy too. Mormons say the people were apostised during the apostasy they believe in, so they have to believe their religion to be apostasied because there is separation in their religion.

They believe Jesus and satan are brothers. satan was angel, Jesus was a man and God.

Christians, Catholics Christians, believe GOD is OUR Heavenly Father. Mormons do not know this for some reason.

Mormons are not taught to question their beliefs, Christians do, because Jesus asks us to. Jesus rose from the dead and taught for 50 days in only the Holy Lands and Christians believe in the Resurrection of the Dead, Mormons don't.

Mormons ask if the book of Mormon is true and that is it and get a feeling and think that is an answer. What they should be asking is SHOW AND TELL me( Heavenly Father ABBA) God if the book of Mormon is true, show us, proof it to us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And trust me you will get your answer, since you are a Mormon, you might not like the answer.

The bishops in the Mormon religion will say hush hush when you try to question anything in the Mormon religion.

This is all answered through prayer, our Heavenly Father helped me.

Prayers for you and may God Bless You.

Jesus Christ the Messiah is just not simplest the Son of God but he is also God in the Flesh. All the fullness of the Godhead deity dwells in Him. He who denies the Son denies the daddy also. He is the one intercessor between God and man. He was once born of the virgin Mary and grew to be man and dwelt among us. Except the Christ you have got is the one who created the world you could have the improper Jesus Christ. We additionally usually are not and might certainly not be gods. That is a lie from hell it self. We didn't are living before we were born in spirit. That is also a lie from satan who is the deceiver. A individual can also be born once more and saved immediately and endlessly. Whosoever shall name upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Believe for your heart the God raised Him from the useless and Confess along with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord (of and over you) and you can be saved. It's a free gift of God even supposing you murdered. His blood covers all sins besides the sin of unbelief and no longer coming to Him.

It is interesting how some people think the Book of Mormon teaches something contrary to the Bible, but they cannot correctly quote the Book of Mormon to prove their point. Evidently they have just been told that the Book of Mormon contradicts the Bible, and they have been too lazy to check it out for themselves. But why should they bother, when they have been told to distrust everything the Mormons say, and everything possible is done to discourage an honest comparison of teachings?

Another interesting tidbit is the realization that even if one compared the Bible with what is taught in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints you wouldn't necessarily see the difference. You have to compare what the LDS church teaches with what their leaders tell them is the "correct" way to interpret the Bible! In other words, compare what the Mormons teach with what is taught by those who mingle the philosophies of men with scripture, and they want you to believe the philosophies of men!

Thanks for asking the question.

I know, my grandma has this argument with me all the time... She actually said once "Mormons just pick and choose which parts of the bible they want to follow.."

Then just minutes later, told me how Jesus Christ "did away" with all the commandments! She referred to it as "freed from 'the law'"... I tried to explain to her that would be the Mosaic Law... but she thinks it's the actual 10 commandments.

Hmm.

We read the bible. We actually study the bible. Not a verse here or there, as I have found some other Christians do.

Well the biggest reason most of them think LDS Christianity is weird is because they don't read their own Bible.

Mormons are more Biblically fluent than almost all generic Christian sects, which for the most part rely heavily upon their Pastors, and their Pastors interpretation. Their Pastors conveniently pick and choose scriptures out of context that keep people in the pews. If these Christians would actually crack open a Bible and personally study from it 30 minutes a day (which is what a lot of Mormons do), I have a feeling they wouldn't be members of their current church long.

@Annsan: We actually believe the Bible verses in your post, you just don't understand "how" we believe it. Certainly there are no other God's in which we rely upon for our Salvation other than Jesus Christ, He is the ONE.