“We’re Christians too!” It’s a line you may have heard time and again when sharing the gospel with a Mormon friend. Reasoning with a Mormon about his faith can be incredibly difficult. How should you go about it?
I’d discourage you from beginning by telling your friend, “Your Jesus isn’t the Jesus of the Bible.” As a former Mormon, I can tell you that hearing that line from Christian street evangelists hurt far more than it helped. Each time, my defense mechanisms shot up, and I stopped listening to what the evangelist had to say. Instead, I’d encourage you to begin with a point of agreement—Christ’s perfection.
Mormons’ Diminished Jesus
Mormons unequivocally consider themselves Christians, but they have many false beliefs about Jesus. They believe Jesus was God’s Son, but they don’t believe in the Trinity. Instead, they believe Jesus was a created being, a separate person from the Father and the Holy Spirit; this belief diminishes Christ’s divinity.
Mormons also believe salvation comes through Christ, but that for someone to have a more comfortable eternity, Christ’s saving work must be assisted by her good works.
Despite these false beliefs about Jesus, Mormons believe Christ is perfect. When I look back on my conversion to Christianity, I see this simple conviction was a reliable path that moved me from the Jesus of Mormonism to the Jesus of the Bible.
Reason from Christ’s Perfection
God’s Word shows us Christ was sinless in every way. Paul tells the Corinthian believers that Jesus knew no sin (2 Cor. 5:21), and the author of Hebrews reveals how the Messiah was holy and innocent, distinct from sinners (Heb. 7:26–27). The Mormon scriptures affirm this truth as well, saying Jesus never surrendered to temptation (Doctrine and Covenants 20:22). From my earliest days in Mormon primary school, I was taught Jesus was the only perfect human to ever live. Not even Joseph Smith held this distinction.
Because Christ’s perfection is foundational for both faiths, an evangelist who begins with this doctrine meets a Mormon on common ground. If you’re talking with a Mormon, ask him what he believes about Jesus’s perfection. Let him express his understanding until you hear his differences from Christianity emerge. When that moment arrives, ask simple questions that reveal how other Mormon beliefs are inconsistent with this conviction.
Because Christ’s perfection is foundational for both faiths, an evangelist who begins with this doctrine meets a Mormon on common ground.
For example, a Mormon friend may say, “God restored the gospel through Joseph Smith because there was a great apostasy after Jesus’s apostles died.” You can ask how this belief about Christian apostasy squares with the Mormons’ assumption that Jesus is perfect. You might ask how your friend understands the perfect Jesus’s words in Matthew 24:35: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” If the perfect Jesus established his gospel forever, why would it need to be restored at a later time?
If your Mormon friends says, “God needs new prophets to bring new revelation,” you can turn to Hebrews 1:1–2: “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” Whatever arguments your Mormon friend raises against the Christian faith, continually establish your logic in Christ’s person and perfection.
Reason to Christ’s Sufficiency
When Paul addresses the false teaching about Jesus in Colossae, he doesn’t break down the specifics of their false doctrines. He’s vague enough that scholars have trouble reconstructing the Colossian problem today. Instead, Paul paints a picture of Christ’s fullness, showing how the Christian is complete through Christ’s sufficient work (Col. 2:10).
The author of Hebrews builds a similar argument, showing that by his single sufficient offering, Christ “perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Heb. 10:14).
As these New Testament passages model, you want to move your Mormon friends from Christ’s perfection to his sufficiency. As you unfold for them what Christ’s sufficiency looks like, it’ll challenge their entire conception of religion, opening a door for you to ask questions that challenge the essential doctrines of their Mormon faith specifically.
Challenge Mormons’ Conception of the Priesthood
For example, Mormons are rooted to the doctrine of their priesthood, but their understanding of priesthood is fundamentally different from a Christian’s.
Mormons believe there are different levels of priesthood and that at each level God gives spiritual power to worthy males as they come of age in the church. Mormons believe all priesthood was lost after Christ’s apostles died until John the Baptist, Peter, James, and John appeared to Joseph Smith and gave him the keys to priestly authority. This, they believe, is what enabled Joseph Smith to restore the true church.
Drawing from passages like Matthew 16:18–19, you can ground your questions and arguments in Christ’s sufficiency and can confront a Mormon friend’s understanding of the priesthood. In this passage, our sufficient Jesus left his authority to Peter with these words: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” In Greek, Peter’s name is petros, which means “rock” or “stone.”
Later, Peter extends this title to all believers, referring to Christ’s followers as “living stones [who] are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:5).
After reading these passages, you might ask your friend how it’s possible, when the sufficient Savior established his priesthood by his eternal authority, that there could be a great apostasy. How can the priesthood be lost when Christ himself says the church will remain and even hell will not prevail against it?
Challenge Mormons’ Conception of Temple Work
Temple work is another practice that’s necessary to the Mormon faith, but it grinds against the doctrine of Christ’s sufficiency. In their temples, Mormons perform sacred ordinances so they can gain greater comfort in eternity. Many Mormons can’t imagine eternity without their families, and so they cling to the work they do in their temples to ensure the exaltation of their earthly families in heaven.
But this flies in the face of the sufficient Savior who tells us the fullness of our joy is founded in him (John 17:13), not in our works. Jesus tells us our true family, the church, is established by faith in him (and his work), not in what we do or have done (Mark 3:31–35; Rom. 8:15; Gal. 3:26–29).
Point your Mormon friends to these Scripture passages and help them see that Mormon doctrine inevitably centers on the self, whereas the Bible centers on the King. Be an evangelist who points away from self to the sufficient King. In this way, you’ll confront the false Mormon religion not merely by arguing each doctrine but by unfolding for your Mormon friends the reality of who Jesus is. Help them to lean into the Bible’s Christ-centered logic, and then by God’s grace, they’ll see the weakness of their own religious system.
By God’s Grace
“How can imperfect people add to what a perfect Christ has done?” Questions like that haunted me even at a time when I was still struggling both intellectually and emotionally to understand orthodox doctrines like the Trinity.
Be an evangelist who points away from self to the sufficient King.
But the more I fell in love with the all-sufficient Savior—the more I saw him and the power of his gospel—the more beautiful his truth became.
When I met the perfect Savior whose sufficiency confronted all I thought I knew about religion, it convicted me to let go of what I’d found convincing before and instead cling to Christ alone.