Importance of Defense

Since the soccer world cup is coming soon, I gonna share a bit about my second favorite national soccer team: Italia. It's a team that many people dislike because they don't play pretty (entertaining) soccer, they rely on their borderline physical play, they tend to exaggerate in front of the referee to the point of simulating fouls (which I think many teams do it nowadays). But I like them. Besides that fact that I like the blue color of the Italian jersey, I like their defense. There was a time when they had an all-star line of this line of defenders: Paolo Maldini, Fabio Cannavaro, and Alessandro Nesta. Their defense is so focused and strong, that it is their foundation to achieve victory by not letting the opposing team score.

Recently, two brothers and I were meeting frequently with a some mormon missionaries. It is funny because they saw me at Philip one day, and on the next day another brother found the same mormon missionaries at Lester, and we just decided to meet together (instead of separately). Another brother joined us too, and we met up 6 times during 2 weeks. During the last meeting, they gave up on us, saying that they had shared all their "truth", that it was up to us to decide, and that they need to spend time with other people.

It was a challenging experience for me because it was my first time that I have to defend my faith against false teachings. The mormon missionaries are well trained, they speak very well, they take control of the conversation, and the message they spoke was like 90% similar to what I believe. I am sure that they purposely hid some aspects of their "sketchy" beliefs. That is why it is so important for every Christian to know the truth, to know how to express it, and to know how to defend it. The importance of defense is to not let the opposing team score, and to eventually overwhelm them by our firmness.

During these 2 weeks, I spent time researching about the mormons and preparing to defend the truth that I stand for, and it was a very rewarding learning experience. In terms of biblical, archeological and historical facts, there is an overwhelming number of ways to defend the truth of Christianity against the mormons. Whenever we point out a biblical truth that contradicts the mormon doctrine, the mormon missionaries (they say they believe in the bible) will just tactfully comment on it, change subjects or go in circles, so it was a bit disappointing. Most of the things that they talked to us about don't even come from the book of mormons, but from other sources such as the words of their prophets and another document they have about covenants. In the end, I found it very hard to convince them that Christianity is true by arguing, but that my role is to let the Word speak with the hope that the Spirit will convict them about the truth from Scripture. I told them to read Galatians 1 on their own as my last words =P

Summary of the things I learned in interacting with mormon missionaries:

• Love and compassion: I felt anger because they are preaching a false gospel, blaspheming the Word of God, and they are very active on campus. I was all pumped to enter into arguments and debates with them. But I realized that will not go anywhere, and that preaching the gospel has to be done with love.
• Let the Word of God speak: I could use many biblical facts to bash their teachings, but a better approach to minister to them by showing them what the bible says and let them read it themselves.
• Don't go alone: Go with someone who can help you with prayer while you talk and support you, there is a spiritual warfare.
• Grace vs. works: the mormons believe that they need to do works to earn salvation. I was thinking, why is salvation by works so attractive? And I realized that there can be boasting in such teaching, while we as Christians only boast on the cross because it is not because of what I do, but of what Jesus did.
• Heart is deceitful: the mormon tells you to rely on your feelings while discerning the validity of the book of mormons, but we ought not do that because feelings are deceiving but we use wisdom.
• Pray constantly.