Truth Magazine

By Jerry Angelo

Jamaica gets its name from an Indian word meaning “Land of Wood and Water.” Looking out of my office window, Montego Bay lies below me and I can see about 20 miles of coastline beyond. It truly is beautiful. However, when you get downtown the stench of garbage is everywhere. Vendors selling all kinds of fruits and vegetables line the sidewalks in the midst of the filth. It is nauseating at times. Poverty is ever present, with over 50 percent unemployment and the average worker making about $150 per month.

We arrived exactly one month ago (September 11, 1990). On the first Lord’s day we were here, we arrived for worship and found no one there. Eventually the local preacher arrived and, after we had dismissed two hours later, one sister and her small son came. Evening services had not been held for several weeks. On Friday evening, the regular “midweek” service, only Bev and 1, in addition to the local preacher, attended. We have now resumed the Sunday evening service and have started a Tuesday night study in our home. This week seven members were in attendance. In addition, one young man, David Smith, was baptized into Christ (October 4).

Brother Kyle Smith from El Cajon, California spent two weeks with us, arriving September 21st and leaving October 5th. He baptized David the day before he left to go home. Kyle preached in Savanna-La-Mar, Catadupa and Montego Bay.

During his stay I received word that brother Carlton Medley from Plum district, wanted to talk. Plum is about 20 miles from Montego Bay. Carlton told us that there are 21 brethren in Plum (13 members of his family and 8 others) and they want us to work with them. At this time we are unable to do so due to lack of transportation.

We are severely hampered by not having a vehicle at this time. We are in desperate need of our vehicle, located in Miami, awaiting completion of the paperwork to obtain an import license. We are also in need of about $6,500.00 for duty and fees. It is imperative that we have transportation if we are going to get around as we should. Local residents move about by taxi. Sometimes you wait an hour or more on a street corner, in the hot sun, before one with space available comes along. Then there is the problem of transferring to a different taxi to go in a different direction. That will require walking to another taxi stand in another part of town. Since you are American, they try to charge you five to ten times the going rate. On Sunday the problem gets worse. You either have to call for a “charter” taxi ($35.00 each way) or walk, hoping that a taxi will come along with space available. That doesn’t happen often.

Jamaica is currently suffering through a period of severe financial instability. Inflation is rampant. Some items have doubled in cost since we have arrived. It costs us more to live here than back in California. However, we are trying to live on $1,000.00 per month less than we were prior to coming.

Our youngest son, Tony, arrived two days ago. He will be joined later by Travis Kimball from San Jose, California. They will be living in my apartment in Catadupa, 21 miles southeast of Montego Bay. They will work with the church there. Since Catadupa and Plum are about 12 miles apart, with a larger town, Cambridge located almost midway between, we are going to try to persuade the brethren in Plum to agree to merge with the brethren in Catadupa and find a meeting place in Cambridge. Since there are about 5 or 6 brethren in Catadupa, this would be a group of almost 30, including Tony and Travis.

The church in May Pen, Clarendon, is making progress. The local evangelist there, brother Leslie K. Williams, has been hampered by transportation problems. He is a good man, experienced in the preaching of the gospel. He spent over 20 years with the institutional brethren. He is worthy of your support.

The church is Savanna-La-Mar is an example of what hard work and devotion will do. Brother J.S. Lawson and his wife Euphemia have devoted themselves to the lord and his church in Sav for the past years and it has produced good results. The church has grown, especially during the past two years, due to the Lawson’s efforts, assisted by various brethren from the States. They are in desperate need of a larger meeting place. The Lawson’s spend an unusual amount of their personal funds to provide a meeting place and transportation for the members.

I am writing this to accomplish two goals: (1) inform brethren regarding the church in Jamaica, and (2) hoping to stir up the “go ye” fever in someone who reads this. There is a great need for faithful men and women to come to Jamaica to work, not only here in Montego Bay but in many other areas. There is not one faithful church in Kingston, a city with a population of over one million people. This would be a suitable work for older couples without children or those that are unmarried. Let me hear from you.

Guardian of Truth XXXIV: 24, p. 745
December 20, 1990

By Corbin T. Volluz

The Bible teaches that it is the complete and final revelation of God to mankind.

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints. As such, I believe in continuing, extra-biblical revelation from God to man. Indeed, I have been the recipient of such revelation. What I have to say will no doubt receive an unwelcome response from most of the readers of this publication. Nevertheless, the truth must be championed. And the truth is that Mr. La Coste is wrong, dead wrong, in his assertion that “the Bible teaches that it is the complete and final revelation of God to mankind.”

If the Bible teaches anything, it teaches this: That throughout history, whenever God has had a people on the earth he recognized as his, he has always revealed his will directly to them through living prophets. At no time did God require them to rely solely on the words of dead prophets. This pattern is clear and uncontroverted from Genesis to John to Patmos. Ongoing revelation is the rule. With this in mind, consider the following statement by a latter-day apostle of the Lord: “A doctrine which rejects new revelation is a new doctrine, invented by the devil and his agents during the second century after Christ; it is a doctrine in direct opposition to the one believed in and enjoyed by the saints in all ages. As the doctrine, then, of continuing revelation is one that was always believed by the saints, it ought not to be required of any man to prove the necessity of the continuation of such a doctrine. It would be the great presumption to call it in question at this late date. Instead of being required to prove the necessity of its continuance, all people have the right to call upon the new-revelation deniers of the last eighteen centuries to bring forward their strong reasoning and testimonies for breaking in upon the long-established order of heaven, and introducing a new doctrine so entirely different from the old. If they wish their new doctrine to be believed, let them demonstrate it to be of divine origin, or else all people will be justified in rejecting it and clinging to the old” (Orson Pratt, Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon).

In his preceding article, Mr. La Coste has attempted to demonstrate the divine origin of his doctrine that revelation has been done away, that the heavens are sealed, and that the Bible is the complete and final revelation of God to mankind. In this attempt, Mr. La Coste has failed miserably. My worthy opponent has cited no less than twenty-two Scriptures, not one of which supports his contention. Instead of presenting “strong reasonings” for his doctrine, he has given us three arguments, all of which are non sequiturs. A non sequitur is an argument in which the evidence does not support the conclusion, or in other words, it is an argument in which the conclusion does not follow from the premise. If an argument is a non sequitur, it is not valid. All three of Mr. La Coste’s arguments that he advances to support his cause are non sequiturs, and are therefore not valid. I will treat each of Mr. La Coste’s non sequitur arguments individually.

1. Mr. La Coste quotes a number of Scriptures to show that the first-century Christians possessed a fulness of the gospel. On this point we are in agreement. I, too, believe the first-century Christians possessed a fulness of the gospel. But that is not the issue. The issue is whether the Bible is the complete and final revelation of God to man. To argue that since first-century Christians possessed a fulness of the gospel, the Bible is therefore final and complete is to promote an argument that is a non sequitur. The conclusion does not follow from the premise. The Scriptures cited are therefore immaterial to the issues under consideration.

For the Scriptures cited to be material, Mr. La Coste must first establish a number of intermediate steps, or premises, to get from there to his conclusion that the Bible is final and complete. These intermediate steps that he must establish are: (t) that the first-century Christians, who possessed the fulness of the gospel, actually wrote it all down; (2) that all their writings were collected and put in the Bible; and (3) that God suddenly changed his mind and decided that reading the written word was superior to hearing his own voice from the heavens, the pattern which God had followed religiously since the creation of man.

Only if these three additional premises can be established can Mr. La Coste cogently argue that the Bible is final and complete. Mr. La Coste has not established these three additional premises, neither can he. Therefore his first argument fails.

2. Mr. La Coste’s second argument is based upon the third verse of the epistle of Jude. Mr. La Coste asserts that “once” as used in Jude 3 means “one time for all time.” It is ironic that Mr. La Coste should state at the beginning of his article that the Bible is complete, meaning “lacking nothing,” and then only six paragraphs later, we find him under the necessity of adding words to the third verse of Jude in order to get it to say what he wants it to say.

I will not, however, waste valuable space refuting Mr. La Coste’s interpretation of Jude 3, though it is a temptation. The reason? Even if I were to concede to Mr. La Coste’s interpretation of this verse – that the gospel was once and for all delivered to the saints – his argument amounts to nothing more than another non sequitur. The conclusion does not follow from the premise. The three intermediary steps, or premises, that would need to be established in Mr. La Coste’s first argument to make it valid would similarly need to be established here to make his second argument valid. Without those intermediary premises, Mr. La Coste’s assertion that the gospel was “one time for all time” delivered to first-century Christians is logicalfy distinct and rationally unconnected from his conclusion that the Bible is final and complete.

Further, to adopt Mr. La Coste’s interpretation of Jude 3 creates an internal inconsistency within that Scripture. Mr. La Coste argues that once the gospel was delivered, no more revelation was necessary. The Bible was then complete and final. Now, Jude 3 says the gospel was once “delivered. Note that the past tense of the word is used: “Delivered. It is clear from this that the epistle of Jude was written sometime after the faith was delivered. So, what is the inconsistency? Simply this: If Mr. La Coste’s interpretation of Jude 3 is correct, that once the faith was delivered there was no more need of revelation and the Bible was final and complete, then the epistle of Jude could not be revelation, since it was written after the faith was delivered, and therefore could not be in the Bible! But such is not the case. The epistle of Jude is in the Bible. The fact that Jude’s epistle was written after the faith was once delivered to the saints and is yet still found within the Bible completely refutes Mr. La Coste’s interpretation of Jude 3.

3. The final non sequitur argument advanced by Mr. La Coste is based on Matthew 24:35 and 1 Peter 1:22-25. Mr. La Coste argues that if the word of God “lives and abides forever,” the Bible is the complete and final revelation of God. Once again, the conclusion does not follow from the premise. To demonstrate this, let us apply Mr. La Coste’s reasoning to the book of Genesis. Is the Book of Genesis the word of God? Yes, surely. Does it therefore, “live and abide forever”? Yes, it does. Then, according to Mr. La Coste’s argument, the Book of Genesis is the final and complete revelation of God! Everything else from Exodus to Revelation is not really revelation at all, but merely a gross imposture! When viewed in this light, the speciousness of Mr. LaCoste’s third argument becomes self-evident.

In conclusion, Mr. La Coste has presented three arguments to support his theory. None of his arguments, however, are able to withstand scrutiny. Mr. La Coste has in reality not advanced one scintilla of evidence that supports his position. In the words of Orson Pratt, since Mr. La Coste has not been able to demonstrate his new doctrine of no-revelation to be of divine origin, all people are justified in rejecting it and clinging to the old, biblical doctrine of continuing revelation.

To claim that the Bible is the complete and final revelati on of God to mankind is to claim something for the Bible w hich the Bible does not claim for itself. No, Mr. La Coste, try as you might to prove otherwise, the fact is that your proposition is wrong. The Bible does not teach that it is the complete and final revelation of Go6 to mankind.

It might be well at this point to briefly examine why Mr. La Coste, as a Church of Christ minister, maintains that the Bible is the complete and final revelation of God, in spite of the Bible’s silence on the matter. The answer is that the Bible is all he has. He receives no revelation from God. This is the true reason Mr. La Coste asserts that the Bible is complete and final. If it is not, and if he himself receives no revelation, it is because he is not a true minister of Jesus Christ.

As a minister of the Church of Christ, Mr. La Coste has a difficult position to defend. We might ask Mr. La Coste, “Do you claim to be the same church as that established by Christ two-thousand years ago?” “Why, yes, of course I do.” “Do we not read in the Bible that the church Christ established received ongoing revelation?” “Yes, that is true.” “Does the Church of Christ receive ongoing revelation too, then?” “No.” “Why doesn’t it?” “Because all revelation was done away with. The Bible is now the complete and final revelation of God.” “Oh. Does the Bible say that?” “Well, no, it doesn’t. But you must believe it anyway. “

We, as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, believe that the Bible is not the complete and final revelation of God. We do not worship the Bible, but rather the God who gave it. We believe that God is loving enough to want to continue to speak to us today, that he is powerful enough to continue to speak to us today in the same manner he has always spoken to his people throughout the ages: By direct revelation through living prophets and apostles. For surely, “The Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7).

Guardian of Truth XXXIV: 23, pp. 714-715
December 6, 1990

By Clarence W. Fell

Cards are valuable tools for the personal worker. Anyone can use them; busy people can use them; the elderly who suffer physical limitations can use them; just about everyone can enhance his personal work efforts with cards. A card says, “I care,” “I’m thinking of you,” “I’m concerned,” “I love you,” etc. A card is practically a smile and a hug in an envelope.

Romans 12:15 instructs, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.” Cards are one way we can share our joy and sorrows. Sometimes cards speak where our own words fail.

There are many occasions for expressing our love with cards. A short list would be: birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, other special days, just for fun days, times of sickness, bereavement, etc. Cards are also a great way to encourage visitors, teachers, preachers, deacons, elders and the spiritually weak (1 Thess. 5:11). A card can really say a lot.

If you take card sending seriously you may want to try the following system.

1. Get a box that will hold 81/2″ x 11″ file folders.

2. Label 12 folders for January thru December – one for each month of the year.

3. Label other folders for special occasions (i.e. birthdays, births, weddings, visitors, sickness . . . etc.). Label as many special folders as you want to send cards for.

4. Now for the fun part. Go card shopping! Take a couple of friends and make a morning of it. After your initial buying spree get in the habit of picking up a few cards here and there to keep your folders stocked. Now, when you need a card you can go straight to it.

5. On your next lazy Saturday plan your card sending for a few months ahead (i.e. birthdays, anniversaries, graduations . . . etc.). If you want to, you can go ahead and sign the card and address the envelope. Then, in the upper right hand corner where the stamp will go write the date the card is to be mailed and then put it in the appropriate monthly folder. Now you’re all set. When the date rolls around place a stamp over the date and put it out for the postman to pick up.

This system, or your own variation, will make card sending easier and more enjoyable. Have fun with it! Enjoy it! Let card sending be one of the many ways you share your love with other people.

Guardian of Truth XXXIV: 23, p. 708
December 6, 1990

By Corbin T. Volluz

The Bible teaches that it is the complete and final revelation of God to mankind.

In my response to Mr. La Coste’s first installment of this debate, I thought I had made my meaning so clear that a wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein (Isa. 35:8). Obviously I was mistaken. I have demonstrated as plainly as language permits that none of the three arguments advanced by Mr. La Coste in support of his proposition are valid. (In fact, Mr. La Coste now admits that his third argument dealt not with “finality” after all, but with “incorruptibility.” Incorruptibility, however, is not the issue here. Finality and completeness are.)

In spite of this, Mr, La Coste either refuses to acknowledge, or is incapable of understanding, why his arguments do not support his contention. Instead, he has decided to engage in a number of somewhat deceptive rhetorical techniques designed to cloud the issue for the unwary reader.

In his first paragraph, Mr. La Coste intimates that since he employed more passages of Scripture than I, he must be right. Is this the argument of a thinking man? Perhaps Mr. La Coste had forgotten that it is his task to prove that the Bible teaches it is the complete and final revelation of God. To do this, it is only natural he should quote from the Bible. My task, on the other hand, is to show that his arguments are unfounded. To do this requires no Scripture, but only a modicum of common sense.

In paragraph two, Mr. La Coste goes so far as to quote words I did not write and attributes ideas to me that are not mine. In responding to Mr. La Coste’s arguments, I used no “sugar-stick.” Mr. La Coste’s arguments concerning the Bible’s being complete and final aren’t valid simply because they are not valid. I need no “sugar-stick” to make that point. (Incidentally, I do not love the term non sequitur half so much as Mr. La Coste loves to use them in his arguments.)

In paragraph three, Mr. La Coste accuses me of using a non sequitur argument. He then challenges me to “produce from the Bible where God ever spoke to those in the garden” or “Abraham through prophets,” Apparently Mr. La Coste is not aware that a prophet is one to whom God reveals his will personally (Amos 3:7). Apparently Mr. La Coste is also not aware that God revealed his will personally to Adam in the garden and to Abraham (Gen. 2:16,17; 3:17; 12:1-3; 13:14-17). Therefore, Adam and Abraham were both prophets themselves, to whom and through whom God revealed his will. Instead of weakening my position that God has always spoken to his people through living prophets, Mr. La Coste’s challenge has served only to strengthen it.

It is interesting that later on in his response, in another context, Mr. La Coste quotes Hebrews 1:1,2 which specifically states that God did indeed “speak in times past unto the father by the prophets, “thus proving false his claim that “God has not always spoken through prophets.”

In all fairness to La Coste, though, it must be admitted that the Bible does speak of a group of people who, like himself, believed all the true prophets were dead, that God no longer speaks through living prophets, and that everything God ever said was written down and contained between the covers of a sacred book. Unfortunately for Mr. La Coste, however, that group of people who shared his beliefs was none other than the Pharisees. In fact, it was precisely because they “built the tombs of the [dead] prophets” but rejected the living bearers of God’s word that Christ excoriated them in Matthew 23.

So we see that not only does Mr. La Coste’s position put him out of step with every prophet of the Bible (Adam and Abraham included), it also lands Mr. La Coste squarely in the rank and file of the group primarily responsible for the crucifixion of the Savior.

Mr. La Coste next quotes Hebrews 1:1,2, to the effect that, since God spoke by prophets “in time past,” this must mean he ceased using that modus operandi once Jesus came in the flesh. Such a conclusion is not only unwarranted by the Scripture cited, it is also at complete variance with the words of Christ himself, who stated he would send prophets subsequent to his death (Matt. 23:34).

Now to the fourth paragraph of Mr. La Coste’s second installment. No, Mr. La Coste, you did not establish any of the three (not two, as you say) intermediary steps outlined in my first response, without which your arguments are non sequiturs. Nor do any of the nine Scriptures you quote establish them, as a cursory examination of each will reveal. And no, Mr. La Coste, it is not that I am “observing the passover” on your “strong” arguments. It is simply that one is under no obligation to seriously discuss nonsense. None of the Scriptures you have quoted in either of your two installments even begins to establish that (1) the leadership of the early church wrote all the truth they had down; (2) that all the books they wrote it all down in were compiled into the Bible; or (3) that for some reason God decided to suddenly change his pattern of revealing his will to men by ceasing to speak from heaven and letting an inanimate book do the work for him.

In fact, the very first of these elements of Mr. La Coste’s argument that he has failed to establish, that “the leadership of the early church wrote all the truth they had down,” is controverted by such passages as the following: John 16:12; “1 have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now.” Acts 10:41: “Not unto all the people, but unto witness chosen.” Acts 15:28: “For it seemed good . . . to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things.” Clementine Recognitions 1, 21, in PG 1:1218: “Which things were plainly spoken but not plainly written.” Clementine Recognitions 1, 23, 52, in PG 1: 1236; 111, 1: “I [Peter] . . . endeavor to avoid publishing the chief knowledge concerning the Supreme Divinity to unworthy ears.” Innumberable passages on this head might be cited, but I most move on to other matters.

In his fifth paragraph, Mr. La Coste informs us, by means of two wrested verses and a scriptural railsplit, that the dead prophets are not really dead, but are alive and well due to the fact that they wrote books! This line of thought falls short of being persuasive, or even coherent for that matter. It is hard for me to believe that the members of Mr.La Coste’s congregation actually are willing to trust someone with so great a dearth of mental ability to lead them in the path of salvation. I wouldn’t trust him to mow my lawn. If Mr. La Coste’s arguments are considered logical, then I am led to exclaim with Shakespeare’s Marc Anthony, “O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason.”

In his sixth paragraph, Mr. La Coste returns to harp on his non sequitur argument based on Jude 3. He clearly fails to understand why I don’t care what hapax means or how it is used in other Scriptures, even though I plainly stated my reasons in my first response. Look, Mr. La Coste, I’ll talk slow. Read my lips. Even if hapax means “one time for all time,” it doesn’t prove the Bible is the complete and final word of God. The only way it can be logically interpreted to mean what Mr. La Coste claims is if one makes the mistake of equating the “faith/gospel,” which was delivered “one time for all time,” with the Bible. But the gospel is not the Bible, contrary to what Mr. La Coste seems to believe. The Bible is a collection of sacred books. The gospel, on the other hand, is the “good news” of Christ’s resurrection and atonement, which was indeed delivered “one time for all time,” even as Jude declares. The only way Mr. La Coste can use this Scripture to support his position is by ignoring what it says.

Also, I argued in my first response that if we follow Mr. La Coste’s interpretation of Jude 3, then the epistle of Jude cannot be part of the Bible since it was written after the gospel had been “delivered.” Mr. La Coste attempts to weasel out of his predicament by saying, “Though the gospel had been orally preached in its fulness, inspired men as Jude were still writing it down,” Of course, Mr. La Coste’s excuse in no way explains why John the Beloved should be receiving a cartload of brand new revelation on Patmos many years after Jude wrote his epistle. I suppose this means that not only Jude, but also the Revelation cannot be part of the Bible, according to Mr. La Coste’s interpretation of Jude 3.

Mr. La Coste would have been wise to leave Jude alone. Mr. La Coste says, “Jude writes of the ‘common salvation. “‘ Is that a fact? And just where does Jude write about this important subject? You will not find it in the Bible, for Jude says he wrote about the “common salvation” in an epistle prior to the one we have in the Bible (Jude 3). Can the Bible really be complete without this important missing epistle of Jude? Obviously not. Later, Jude refers to a story about Moses not found anywhere in the Old Testament (Jude 9). Why is that? Because the book from which Jude quotes is call “The Assumption of Moses,” and is not contained in the Old Testament. Evidently Jude thought it good enough Scripture to quote in his epistle. So why is it not in the Bible? Because the Bible is not complete. Still later, Jude quotes from another ancient source, this one involving a prophecy of Enoch (Jude 14-16). This quote comes from the Book of Enoch. Both the Book of Enoch and the Assumption of Moses were clearly considered good Scripture by Jude, one of the original disciples. Being a disciple, we can only assume his missing epistle in which he talked about the “common salvation” was good Scripture as well. Since these books of Scripture are not in the Bible, it can mean only one thing: The Bible is not complete, and Mr. La Coste is wrong in contending that it is.

Nor are these three books alluded to by Jude the only books of Scripture mentioned in the Bible but not found in the Bible. Other such missing books of Scripture include the Book of the Covenant (Exod. 24:7); the Book of the Wars of the Lord (Num. 21:14); the Book of Jasher (Josh. 10:13; 2 Sam. 1:18); the Book of the Acts of Solomon (1 Kgs. 11:41); the book of Samuel the Seer (1 Chron. 29:29); the Book of Nathan the Prophet (2 Chron. 12:15); the Acts of Abijah in the Story of the Prophet Iddo (2 Chron. 13:22); the Book of Jehu (2 Chr. 20:34); the Sayings of the Seers (2 Chron. 33:19); another Epsitle to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 5:9); another Epistle to the Ephesians (Eph. 3:3); and an Epistle to the Church of Laodicea (Col. 4;16).

With no fewer than sixteen books of Scripture referred to by the Bible yet not included within its pages, thefact that the Bible is not complete becomes incontrovertible. Mr. La Coste is simply mistaken in his assertion that the Bible is the complete word of God, and his error by none other than the Bible itself.

Guardian of Truth XXXIV: 23, pp. 717-719
December 6, 1990