{"id":69020,"date":"2024-07-26T10:10:27","date_gmt":"2024-07-26T15:10:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=69020"},"modified":"2024-07-26T10:11:15","modified_gmt":"2024-07-26T15:11:15","slug":"the-whole-counsel-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-whole-counsel-of-god\/","title":{"rendered":"The Whole Counsel of God"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t<p>by Terry Wane Benton<\/p>\n<p>Paul said he had preached &#8220;<em>the whole counsel of God<\/em>&#8221; (Acts 20:27) but never the Quran or the Book of Mormon. Therefore, neither of those is part of God&#8217;s counsel, and we need not pretend or believe they are.<\/p>\n<p>Jesus promised that His eye-witnessing apostles would be guided into <strong>all truth<\/strong>\u00a0by the Helper, the Holy Spirit (John 16:13). But the Spirit did not guide them to write or preach the Book of Mormon or the Quran in their lives.\u00a0Therefore, neither of those is part of\u00a0<strong>the truth<\/strong>.\u00a0All truth was delivered in the time of Jesus&#8217; apostles. It was not that they were guided into <b>some <\/b>truth and then later men would deliver some more, but <b>all <\/b>truth would come through the first apostles, who were actual eye-witnesses and Ambassadors for Jesus.<\/p>\n<p>They preached the gospel for <strong>all nations<\/strong> (Matthew 28:19), meaning there would not be &#8220;another testament of Jesus Christ&#8221; for the American nations and another gospel for the other nations. One gospel contained the <b>whole <\/b>counsel of God for all nations. Therefore, &#8220;if any man or even an angel from heaven preaches any <b>other <\/b>gospel than what we have preached, <strong>let him be accursed<\/strong>&#8221; (Galatians 1:6-10). The Book of Mormon purports to be <strong>&#8220;another<\/strong> Testament of Jesus Christ.&#8221; Therefore, the Holy Spirit instructs us to &#8220;<em>let them be accursed<\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If all nations could be saved by the gospel Paul preached, and Paul did not preach the Quran or the Book of Mormon, and Mormons themselves say their book is <b>another <\/b>testament, then it is not the same counsel given by the apostles of Jesus, and therefore, we have no choice but to &#8220;<em>let them be accursed<\/em>.&#8221; If people were saved by the whole counsel of God from the first century to the seventh century without the Quran, then we do not need the Quran to be saved or to give us any enlightenment about God. The <b>whole <\/b>counsel about what we need to know about God and His will was already fully revealed. The Scriptures &#8220;<em>completely furnished<\/em>&#8221; the man of God in the first century (II Timothy 3:16-17). Therefore, the Quran does not furnish the man of God with anything needed.<\/p>\n<p>If people were saved by the gospel of the New Testament of Jesus Christ from the first century to the 19th century, before the Book of Mormon was produced through Joseph Smith, we could be saved without the Book of Mormon.\u00a0We will be accursed if we accept the Book of Mormon, <strong>another <\/strong>gospel and testament. When God gave the <b>whole <\/b>counsel in the first century, nothing can be added to it later. Jude said the faith was &#8220;<em>once for all delivered to the saints<\/em>&#8221; (Jude 3-4). John closes the book of Revelation with a warning of curses being added to those who add to this book (Revelation 22:18). Paul said that even if an <b>angel <\/b>from heaven taught something the apostles did not already teach, let even the angel be accursed.<\/p>\n<p>So, God was serious about giving <b>all <\/b>truth through His eye-witness apostles, serious about giving the <b>whole <\/b>counsel through them, serious about us not accepting <b>another <\/b>piece of counsel later on, and serious about tampering with His completed Scriptures by adding additional things He did not reveal and confirm through those original apostles. Everything is to be checked by the Scriptures available in the first century. Anything later is fraudulent and to be rejected as <em>accursed<\/em> of God. Check everything, even claims of God talking directly to people today apart from the scriptures. They are deceived; we must not be gullible and accept their deception as truth from God. The <b>whole <\/b>counsel was delivered in the first century through Jesus&#8217; specially chosen apostles, whom He fully equipped with miraculous signs to confirm their message was from God (Mark 16:20; Hebrews 2:1-4). The Bible alone is God&#8217;s full and final revelation, and it gives us the words that will judge us on the last day (John 12:48). No one will be judged by the Quran or the Book of Mormon. So, stay with the whole counsel that will be the source from which our lives will be judged.<\/p>\n<p>The whole counsel of God is in the Bible alone. Take heed to read it diligently and act on the &#8220;<em>perfect<\/em> (compete) <em>law of liberty<\/em>&#8221; (James 1:21f). The truth and nothing but the truth can set you free from the many errors peddled by men today!<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Terry Wane Benton Paul said he had preached &#8220;the whole counsel of God&#8221; (Acts 20:27) but never the Quran or the Book of Mormon. Therefore, neither of those is part of God&#8217;s counsel, and we need not pretend or believe they are. Jesus promised that His eye-witnessing apostles would be guided into all truth\u00a0by&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[219,1700,361,687,362],"class_list":["post-69020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-bible","tag-complete","tag-islam","tag-mormons","tag-muslims"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":43238,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/quran-and-book-of-mormon\/","url_meta":{"origin":69020,"position":0},"title":"Quran and Book of Mormon","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 17, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton These books or the people peddling them as books of God are way too late to be considered as equal to the Bible as inspired books of God. Jesus told His apostles that they would be guided by the Spirit into all truth (John 16:13). All\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":69051,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/here-is-what-the-spirit-told-me\/","url_meta":{"origin":69020,"position":1},"title":"Here Is What the Spirit Told Me","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 27, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton Mormons have told me that if I pray for Spirit guidance, the Spirit will make it clear that the Book of Mormon is from God. Well, I prayed that God would make it clear to me whether the Bible is His complete revelation or if the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":67245,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-gospel-perverted\/","url_meta":{"origin":69020,"position":2},"title":"The Gospel Perverted","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 29, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton It wasn't that the Judaizing teachers did not believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. They did. So, how were they \"perverting the gospel\" (Galatians1:6-10)? They were adding to what the apostles preached. They demanded that circumcision and old law typology be brought in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":89864,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-bible-alone-is-the-word-of-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":69020,"position":3},"title":"The Bible Alone Is the Word of God","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 29, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton No other book is equal to the Bible. Neither the Quran nor the Book of Mormon equals the Bible in the marks or proofs of divine origin. What convinces me that the Bible alone is God's Word? In summary, I would appeal to three areas: It\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":62263,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/once-for-all-delivered\/","url_meta":{"origin":69020,"position":4},"title":"Once for All Delivered","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 22, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton \"Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints\" (Jude 1:3). This last phrase means the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":95274,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-versus-other-religious-writings\/","url_meta":{"origin":69020,"position":5},"title":"Bible versus Other Religious Writings","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 26, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton There are two ways to test the validity of a book's claims about itself. There is the external test, which considers the historical accuracy and archeological evidence in its favor.\u00a0Then there is the internal test, which considers prophetic accuracy, unity, harmony, and unusual marks of foreknowledge\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69020\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}