#STRask - How Can We Know Who Is Teaching the Same Gospel Paul Taught?

Episode Date: February 16, 2026

Questions about how we can know who is teaching the same gospel Paul taught, and whether or not Jeremiah 1:5 supports the idea that we pre-existed in a spiritual form.   With so many divergent traditions, how can we know who is teaching the same gospel Paul taught? If someone in our age has been taught by revelation, then we should forget traditions. Does Jeremiah 1:5 support the idea that we pre-existed in a spiritual form?

This is hashtag STR Ask, and we are so glad you found us. We're very happy to answer your questions. Make sure you said us your questions. Okay, I've said it now, so we can go on. Greg and Amy. Greg and Amy. Okay, so this question comes from Richard. How can we know who is teaching the same gospel that Paul taught?

With so many divergent traditions, how can a person know which is the correct tradition? Paul was taught his gospel by Revelation. If someone in our age has been taught by Revelation, forget traditions. Well, in this case, we know that Paul was taught by Revelation because that's what he declares in Galatians the first couple of chapters. And now he's about to correct a distortion of the gospel that the Galatians are pursuing. And he explains that the clarity he has about the nature of the gospel, he did not get from men, but he got it directly from Jesus, not just in that initial revelation, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? That's how he became a Christian. It was later that he spent time in Arabia for two years, and we don't know details of that, but he was also, you know, schooled by the resurrected Christ.

So what he says, though, in Galatians is because it is – what he's about to do is make a correction to errant teaching that is called the Judaizer heresy that the Galatians have fallen prey to. And so one of the things that he has to do is he's got to establish his authority. And so he does that right out of the gate. He not only makes this rather garish claim, what are the first couple words of? Galatians, I'm just going to find it because it's so bold. He says, Paul an apostle, not sent from men nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ, and God the Father who raised him from the dead. So it's like right out of the gate he's declaring his authority, but then why should we trust

him? That's the fair question there. And then what he says is when he received all of these things, he went back to the pillars, Peter, James, John, the leaders of the church in Jerusalem to see whether or not he had run in vain. In other words, maybe I got it wrong. And he goes back to the pillars, the ones that were personally in Jesus' ministry, earthly ministry, instructed by Jesus, and laid out the gospel for them. And he was received as a brother and as the issue. you know, being taught adequately. So in Paul's case, he went before those who were the direct

students of Jesus during his earthly ministry. And then with regards to this particular issue, we also have the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15. Now, Paul doesn't mention that in Galatians, and I think it's because the council had not happened yet, or else his appeal to the Galatians would have to the council. There's some debate about that. In any event, in Galatians 15, you have all of the leaders in Jerusalem, including Paul and Barnabas, and the main three knocking this issue around and trying to come to a conclusion as to the right theological issue.

So what you have now is you have the entire church leadership. representing what is the appropriate doctrine to be taught for the church. Now, I don't know what higher authority you can get at that particular time, because even though Paul says he did receive by revelation, he doesn't, it's not full stop. Okay, so listen to me. He said, but then I went and I checked it out. I checked it out with those people who were viewed as an authority. And by the way, it turns out then that the early church was so.

I'm trying to think of the right word here, or not impressed or taken with Paul, but they were so convinced of Paul's authority to speak for God on these issues that if there was an epistle written by Paul and it was generally accepted to be Pauline, that was the end of the discussion as far as it's canonicity. If it was Pauline, it was canon. It was Bible. Now, there was some question about some – or later on in the discussion of the canon about who wrote what, but if they thought it was Pauline, then they knew this was authoritative. So this concept of Paul's authority was very very deeply embedded in the early church for a number of reasons, and he talks about that in Galatians chapter one.

Mm-hmm. And of course, this was at the beginning of Christianity. So we shouldn't expect things to continue where God plucks someone out and gives them the revelation. We shouldn't expect that that would continue on. But your point is this is the key one. He tested his revelation by what had already been revealed. That was the test. He didn't go to the people who had talked to Jesus and said,

hey, I've got something new for you. You have to listen to me. If he had had something different, he clearly would have submitted to whatever they said. That was clear. Otherwise, why was he doing it? And when the Bible says, test everything, you know, don't despise prophecies. Perthetic, yeah, first dash five. But test everything.

Well, how are you going to test revelation unless it's by what's already been revealed in scripture inspired? The problem is people getting nudges or feelings or whatever. ever anything, even visions. Let's say, let's say you could have a, you could have a demonic experience. Someone could. Maybe not, maybe not a Christian, but there could be someone out there. There could be hucksters out there. There could be somebody claiming whatever. There's, you cannot go by either somebody else's claim or your subjective experience. This is why God gave us his objective revelation. This is what we test everything by. And by the way, there's only one. one gospel. So he's asking, how do we know who's teaching the same gospel that Paul taught? Well, first of all,

we can read what he taught. And if you go to Christian churches, if they're teaching what the Bible says, and it's not as difficult as you think to get the gospel right, you're not going to have 100 different gospels. If you go around to evangelical churches who have scripture as their highest authority, They're not bringing in other revelations. That's key, by the way. Yes. You will find that they are very, very similar in the gospel. Now, here's where this gets interesting because I suspected, as I was reading this, that I could, I knew where this was coming from.

And I looked at his profile and he is LDS. Richard. So where I think there's a misunderstanding happening here is the way they, use the term gospel. So their plan of salvation is a series of works. So he might be looking at, you know, he's looking at the churches, and they have slightly do things in slightly different ways. They have different views on baptism. They have different views on marriage, heaven, hell, Jesus, the devil, whatever it is. They do things a little bit differently. So therefore, I could see that a latter-day saint would look at that and say, well, then how do I know which is the correct path?

Which is the correct plan of salvation? Because the way they look at salvation, their plan of salvation is a series of works. But here's where he's missing it. The reason why we can worship with our fellow believers who have different views on baptism is because we don't think that is what saves us. We think that we are saved by faith because of Christ's work. And that's it. That's the gospel. That is the gospel taught in the Bible. So if anyone isn't teaching that, that's like the bare minimum of a Christian church. If anyone's not teaching that, I suspect you will find when you start asking questions, they have let in other revelations.

Yeah, you know, Rebecca, one of our teammates who lives in Utah north of Salt Lake City, We get to see her six times a year at realities, which is wonderful. But she's doing amazing stuff there, a little bitty thing that's a real spark plug and talking with lots, doing Bible studies and not only with believers, but former LDS and also with LDS. And so the missionaries have come to her door and they sit down and she's talking with them and she asked them this question, what must they do to be saved? Now, that comes out of Acts chapter 16, the Philippian jailer.

And so, but they're not thinking about that. They're thinking about this list of behaviors that and practices that are important for salvation. So they list all these things down. And then they said, well, what do you think? And she takes a piece of paper and writes one word on it and turns it around and shoves it towards them. There it is. What do you think that word was? Well, hopefully it's Jesus.

Jesus. Jesus. That's it. She works for us, Amy. She's going to get it right. But just one word. It's just simple. Jesus, this is it.

This is it. Jesus saves. Jesus saves. Not us. We're not saving ourselves, but Jesus saves. And so that is the unified message of the New Testament text. It is not the message. of LDS teaching.

But it is the message of the text, and it is a bit of a mystery to me because I know they hold that the Bible is inspired insofar as it's properly translated. But, of course, I haven't gone any further to find out what do you think is mistranslated, but they certainly don't believe the gospel has been communicated intact from the first century. This is why Joseph Smith had to get his additional revelation of a restored gospel. which is LDS theology. But if you look throughout the gospel and the epistles, the New Testament record, the teaching is pretty straightforward about the gospel of grace.

Paul says it's grace or it's works. If it's by works, it's not by grace. If it's by grace, it's not by works. These are mutually exclusive. And this was the thing that really caught my attention when genuine Christianity was being reflected to be 52 years ago and what draw me into the body of Christ. So, and just quickly, I'll try to do this as quickly as I can, but they have a parable in their gospel principles book, which they teach out of, and the parable is a man is in debt

and he falls before his debtor and he says, no, is he the deadee or the dead? He falls before the person he owes money. And he says, please just forgive my debt. I can't pay this. And he goes, no, you're going to prison. And then Jesus comes and he says, well, the character of Jesus in the parable. He comes and he says, I will pay. I will pay his debt. And the man is so thankful. He says, oh, thank you so much. Thank you. And now if it were a Christian church, that's where it would end. But then Jesus turns to the man and he says, now you will pay me back. And and I will tell you how you can pay me back, and it won't be easy, but you can do it. And there's, so now he's paying him back. It's not an improvement. So you can see why it matters. If you're paying Jesus back, it matters how you do it.

You have to do it the way he wants you to do it. And if you're not doing it that way, how do you know if you're doing it the right way? So in the Christian version, that's not how it is. And you can see how there can be more fellowship if we are trusting. in Jesus who is paying our debt. So in answer to your question, how do we know who's teaching the same gospel? We evaluate people's traditions by what God has objectively revealed in Scripture. We don't evaluate traditions by subjective new traditions.

That doesn't even – that doesn't make sense. Richard, please pick up a Bible, any Bible, and read Galatians. from top to bottom. That is the entire issue of the book of Galatians. And, of course, Amy would say read Romans, but that's longer. Galatians is really zeroed in on this particular issue, everything that we've talked about here. And there be some things in there that you don't understand. I get that.

But what I want to just notice one thing out of Galatians 5. Paul said, if you are seeking to be justified by law, and the example he's using there is circumcision, if you're getting circumcised, that is, and this is clear in the context, because he makes this comment, seeking to be justified by some kind of action, some work of the law, Jesus will be of no use to you. You are severed from Christ, because now you're obliged to keep the entire law. You can go to God based on grace through Jesus or based on law. If you go by grace, you experience forgiveness. If you go by law, you have the entire law to keep. And even if you want to characterize it, you're paying Jesus back. You still have to keep the entire law,

according to Paul, to pay Jesus back. But I mean, Paul, this, Paul would anathematize that notion. In fact, he does. I mean, that's what the whole book is about. Yeah, yeah. But just read Galatians. And also there's a short book by Greg Gilbert called What is the Gospel? It's not long, and that's a good place to start also. If you want to understand, because there's a lot of misunderstandings between LDS people and Christians about what we believe. And because we assume they're thinking things the same way. We assume they're using the same terms. And we're really not. way. Yeah.

So I encourage you to read this book to understand where we're coming from so you can understand the differences a little better. Grace is absolutely central. If you don't get grace, you do not get Christianity. You do not get Jesus. And grace in the sense, and this is, again, this is the problem because if you define that word differently, you'll hear something different. So you've got to be really.

careful as whenever you're having a conversation with somebody from, you know, wherever Christians and LDS people are having a conversation, the terms can be very confusing. So make sure you really ask what do you mean by that term you're using. So you can make sure you're communicating. All right. Here's a question from Parker. The question I have is about preexisting in a spiritual form before the human form. Advocates of this view point to Jeremiah 1.5 and a couple of

others. I don't believe scripture supports this view, however, and I think there are many places that indicate otherwise. Well, this would be more in your area. There is no teaching in scripture to this effect. I'm looking to Jeremiah right now to see what verse is construed in this way. But that is a LDS belief, the pre-existence of the soul. And I'm trying to, I think maybe origin might have held this view as a church father, but it is not, certainly not Orthodox. Jeremiah won, what three? Five. Five. Okay, almost there. Lots of pages in Jeremiah. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you. I have appointed you, a prophet to the nations. Now, many people know that I take notes in my Bible when something occurs to me, and I do it in pencil,

but the word I wrote next to this is election. All right. The point that's being made here is not the pre-existence of Jeremiah, but the pre-existence of God's purpose for Jeremiah. And by the way, this is where I think people get confused in the New Testament. they look at foreknowledge and they think foreknowledge as a single prognosco, as a single word, well, that means God knows in advance what we're going to do. Well, God does know in advance what we're going to do, but that's not foreknowledge, not the way the writers are using it.

That's omniscience. Foreknowledge is to know someone before. Jesus said, you know, or Peter writes for those whom he foreknew, Romans 8. Paul. Paul. Those whom he foreknew. Peter also uses chapter one or chapter two to refer to the God foreknew Jesus as this one who would die and save us from our sins, et cetera. So these foreknowledge in this sense identifies an active, sovereign purpose of God, not a knowing.

the individual in a personal way in the sense of like, yeah, I know what he's going to do or what he's going to say or I know him because he was preexisting and, you know, I knew that. That's not what's being talked about here. What's being talked about is God's election of Jeremiah, if you want to use that word. You can use another one if you want. But it's his choice of Jeremiah for a purpose and the choice was made before he was even born. He was set aside for a purpose by God. That's what's going on here at Jeremiah.

Now, on bare minimum, that's a reasonable take on this. Somebody might say, no, I think it means this other thing. Okay, fine, but you're not going to find any other scriptural support for such a thing. That's the problem here. And I think this is just a general principle of how to read the Bible. When you come across a verse, you cannot read it just by itself. So if it seems to teach something and you're like, oh, well, maybe it's teaching this whole big doctrine. But nowhere else is it ever addressed or hinted at or referenced in any way.

It's kind of surprising that in the entire Bible, if there was a pre-existence, nothing is ever said about it. Right. Nothing. Right. There's no hint of it. All we know is that in the beginning, there was God. Mm-hmm. That's all we know.

Nothing else has said. Then he creates man. It really seems like what the text is communicating is that God created man after he created the universe. And human beings made other human beings, right? Yes. And so, and let me add on to the point that you're making. If you have a verse that seems to indicate it could be understood in one way that isn't supported by any other passages, or it can be understood in a different way, which is the way I just suggested, that is consistent with a whole bunch of other passages,

then according to the so-called analogy of faith, you interpret the unclear in light of the clear. If it can go left or it goes right, and all the rest of the verses are going right, then that's the way you go with this verse. You don't take this strained or odd. Maybe it's not so strained, but it's just odd to read it that way, and that's just going to get into trouble. And it's not even just that it's never addressed. We actually get glimpses of God's throne room. We get different characterizations of it and never – I mean, it talks about the angels around him, but never does it say there are spirits of human beings there with him. So we actually do – like in Job, you see that?

Where else? In Revelation, of course, that's the end. I don't know how many spirits would be left. I'm not sure how that works. They're martyrs. The spirits are martyrs. But they're already after death. That's not before. So in every case where we are given a glimpse of God, he is with angels. He has never been with any human spirits. So I think you put this all together and it's not a reasonable conclusion unless you have other reasons, say someone has a revelation that you want to believe. And we're right back to what do you do when someone has a revelation of something.

and it doesn't match what has already been revealed. It's interesting, too, in the Jeremiah passage, it doesn't just simply say, I knew you before I formed you. It describes what he's getting at. And so let me read it again. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you.

Oh, consecrated. See, he's adding more. That's in parallel with new, by the way. I knew you, I consecrated you. That means there's a kinship. I have appointed you a prophet to the nation. So there you've got three verses in parallel. They use different words to, I knew you, I consecrated you, I appointed you to be a prophet.

This is about God's sovereign choice of Jeremiah as a prophet to the nations. It is not telling us anything about its pre-existence. So you have a great article called Never Read a Bible Verse on our website. Because that was great. That, I mean, to me, that seems slam dunk right there. Yeah. You look at the parallel terms, and that explains what he means by them. So thank you for that great question, Parker.

And thank you for your question, too, Richard. These were really interesting topics. So we'd love to hear from you. Just go to X. Use the hashtag STR Ask, or you can go to our website at STR.org. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kokel for Stand to Reason.