The regularly scheduled Melchizadek Priesthood meeting of the Mormon Church, which was ordained by Joseph Smith, the founding Mormon prophet, in, or around, 1835, has, since then, been an essential element of the Sunday services in all Mormon (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint) congregations, called wards, around the world. In fact, according to Smith, the only two meetings essential to the exaltation of Mormon elders, and their families, are the priesthood meeting and the sacrament meeting. The other Sunday meetings conducted in Mormon wards are the Relief Society and Sunday school meetings, which are regarded by the Mormon Church as auxiliaries that merely assist in the education of the Latter-day Saints. So, early on, Joseph Smith proclaimed that whatever was studied in the Sunday Melchizadek Priesthood meetings should be the meat of the doctrines of Mormonism, which Smith referred to as the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The presiding Mormon elders (those holders of Melchizadek Priesthood leadership positions), from 1830 until 1844, regarded whatever emerged ex cathedra from the mouth of Joseph Smith, when followed by “thus says the Lord” as holy revelation, doctrine, and Mormon scripture. This practice was based upon the scripture that Joseph Smith placed into the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, found in D&C 68:4:

“And whatsoever they shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost shall be scripture, shall be the will of the Lord, shall be the mind of the Lord, shall be the word of the Lord, shall be the voice of the Lord, and the power of God unto salvation.”

This strict pronouncements of ex cathedra Mormon doctrine, which were regarded as officially canonized Mormon scripture and revelation, followed after the lynching and death of Joseph Smith, in 1844, to the ex cathedra declarations of the next Mormon Prophet, Brigham Young. From 1848 (when Brigham Young was leading the Mormon Church westward from Nauvoo, Illinois to the Salt Lake, Utah Valley as the presiding Mormon Apostle) until 1877, when he died (after being officially proclaimed the second Mormon prophet and successor of Joseph Smith in 1849), Young’s verbal pronouncements were both Mormon doctrine and theocratic law. After 1877, for political reasons based upon the attitude of the U.S. government toward the “unusual and un-Christian” practices of Mormonism, the rituals associated with the ex cathedra pronouncements of Mormon doctrine were, somewhat, supplanted by what became known as common consent. This process involved the voting of the rank-and-file members of the Mormon Church to create the appearance that all Mormon doctrine is approved by the composite membership. Yet, the basic doctrines and revelations that were given by Joseph Smith, from 1830 through 1844, were still regarded as fundamental doctrine and scripture of the Mormon Church, even though they were not written word-for-word in the four standard scriptural works of the Mormon Church. These comprised the Doctrine and Covenants. the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and the Pearl of Great Price, which were canonized by “common consent” during a particular LDS General Conference that occurred shortly after 1900.

The basic teachings of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young during their lifetimes, especially those of Joseph Smith, were vitally essential to the Mormon Temple rite that had been established by Smith in 1842, in Nauvoo, Illinois. The teachings and revelations of Joseph Smith were also particularly vital to the basic Mormon theology of the god that they worshiped. This was why the men of the Melchizadek Priesthood were ordained by Smith to regularly meet together to preserve, protect, and defend the essential doctrines that comprised the meat of Mormon theology. This is why Melchizadek Priesthood study materials were prepared as early as 1835, by the presiding Mormon apostles, such as the early Mormon convert and Apostle Parley P. Pratt, who conducted a Melchizadek Priesthood study session know as the “School of the Prophets,” over which Joseph Smith presided in Kirtland, Ohio, from 1833 through 1835. During this School of the Prophets, the fundamental doctrines of Mormonism, to that particular time, were written and formulated into what became known as the “Lectures on Faith” and placed into the first Doctrine and Covenants as the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints. Strangely, it later seemed that the Mormon god had changed his mind about the correctness of the “Lectures of Faith” in, or around, 1925, when these doctrines, which had been around since 1835, were suddenly de-canonized as Mormon scripture.

Hence, to date, the fundamental ex cathedra pronouncements of Mormon theology, by Joseph Smith, have been preserved, protected, and defended through the regularly scheduled meetings of the Mormon Melchizadek Priesthood in accordance with the approved doctrinal study materials provided to all Mormon wards throughout the world by the Mormon General Authorities in Salt Lake City, Utah. If I was told once, I was told the same thing over five hundred times, from 1970 until 2011, by the Mormon elders, high priests, and seventies (elders who were ordained to do only missionary work), who presided over the Sunday Melchizadek Priesthood meetings in the wards where I participated. I was emphatically told that the Melchizadek Priesthood study guides, studied by the Mormon elders, were as much canonized scripture as the four standard works of the Mormon Church, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and the Pearl of Great Price (the Book of Abraham). In fact, a Mormon General Authority once told me that the study guides were better than the four standard works. Why did he say this? He said that they required no interpretation. Everything you needed to know was spelled-out in black and white.

So, one day, a question came to my mind about the King Follett Discourse, which Joseph had proclaimed during a general conference of the Mormon Church in 1844, in Nauvoo, Illinois. The essential doctrines expressed by Joseph Smith, about the Mormon father god being an exalted man who born upon an earth somewhere in the cosmos and became a god, with a capital G, after dying and being resurrected in accordance with the Mormon plan for godhood, were printed in every Melchizadek Priesthood study guide published by the LDS Church for study by elders of the Mormon Church. The following are the words of Joseph Smith, given in 1844 in the King Follett Discourse:

“God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by His power, was to make himself visible,-I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with Him, as one man talks and communes with another.”

Through study, prayer, and reflection, I came to understand why, after 1844, the King Follett Discourse, though scripture and doctrine, was not “officially” canonized by common consent and placed into the 1844 “Doctrine and Covenants.” It was for the same reason that, from 1835 until 1844, the Mormon Doctrine and Covenants declared in writing that “the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints condemns, and does not practice polygamy. This caveat was published to thw world at the same time when Joseph Smith and his elect elders had taken more than 150 Mormon women, some as young as 16, as plural polygamous wives. This blatant contradiction was intended to deceive the world about the Mormon evil, polygamy. Likewise, even if the King Follett Discourse was regarded as official ex cathedra Mormon doctrine, Mormon missionaries could say to investigators of Mormonism, “such a doctrine is nowhere in our four officially canonized standard works, even though it is mentioned in Melchizadek Priesthood study guides. I guess you could have called it an early form of plausible deniability.

The same practice applies today when, after baptism into the Mormon Church, new converts to Mormonism discover, in what is known as the “Gospel Essentials” class (a part of the Mormon Sunday school program), that the Mormon father god, to whom they pray, is a changeable exalted man who was born on an earth somewhere in the cosmos, lived the rules of Mormonism, was ordained to the Melchizadek Priesthood, married in the Mormon temple, died, was resurrected, and made into a god, with a Capital G. Later they discover, to their chagrin, that the Jesus Christ that they worship was not born to a virgin mother, Mary, but to a woman who was impregnated on the earth by the resurrected, flesh and bone, Mormon father god, with a capital G, who is not all powerful and omnipotent, but limited according to the physical laws of nature. They discover that Jesus Christ, Jehovah and the Word, was not capable of making the heavens and the earth out of nothing, but was constrained by preexisting rules to use pre-existing matter to organize, instead of create, the heavens and the earth. When new converts learn about these ex cathedra doctrines of Mormonism, proclaimed by Joseph Smith, they go to their bishops and ask pointedly, “Why wasn’t I told of these things by the missionaries before I was baptized?” The bishops respond as they have been instructed to do. They say, “The standard works of the Church don’t mention such things, so why worry about them? You surely weren’t ready to receive the meat of the doctrines.”

These new converts are especially concerned about these ex cathedra doctrines, sacred to Mormonism, when they find them propounded in Melchizadek Priesthood study guides and read the following contradictory scriptures from the “Book of Mormon:”

Moroni 8:18 “For I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; but he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity.

Mormon 9:9-10 “For do we not read that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and in him there is no variableness neither shadow of changing? And now, if ye have imagined up unto yourself a god who doth vary, and in whom there is shadow of changing, then have ye imagined up unto yourselves a god who is not a God of miracles?”

They go again to their bishops and ask, “Why does the “Book of Mormon,” which is supposedly the most correct book on the face of the earth, contradict, in 1830, what Joseph Smith proclaimed about God in 1844, just fourteen years later?” To this question, bishops don’t have an answer that will reconcile the contradictory scriptures. Most of them will tell the convert to simply “pray about it,” and will say no more. The convert then goes home feeling cheated, and will read the Bible very closely to discover that the real Jesus Christ is the same today, yesterday, and forever, and that the real God of heaven and earth does not change. Then the Holy Spirit will invariably descend upon that person to reveal that the doctrines of Mormonism are doctrines of devils and Christian heresy. Pretty soon, within a week, that new convert will, either, disregard the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and continue with Mormonism, or will promptly call the Mormon bishop and tell him that he, or she, wants to have his, or her, Mormon membership promptly annulled.

God has given every normal human being the means of knowing and realizing the truth, through the Holy Bible and prayer. So I hope and pray that every person who is currently affiliated, in some way, with the Mormon Church, as members or investigators, will be more noble, as the writer Luke said, in Acts 17:10-11, “And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were nobler than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.”

These Jews, to whom Paul and Silas taught the true Gospel Jesus Christ, did not merely hear, receive, and pray about the words that Paul and Silas preached to them in order to receive a burning in their bosom to reveal their truth. They did much more, that made them nobler. They received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily to determine whether the things that Paul and Silas taught were in accordance with the revealed word of God. The Holy Bible is God’s revealed word, and is as powerful and as sharp as a razor-sharp sword, to clearly divide truth from error. The word is Spirit, and by reading it, a Christian will be spiritually edified and strengthened to every good thing that he, or she, does in this mortal life.