I saw on the pew in the Methodist church in Howard County, Maryland during in a hot afternoon in July. I was maybe ten years old, visiting my cousin's week-day children's Bible lesson. While I was scratching a mosquito bite and not paying much attention, looking around at the stained glass windows and the white painted walls, I heard a story that I had heard many times, of a man who saw God, and Jesus, standing on the right hand of God, and he was killed.
I thought he was talking about Joseph Smith, but he was talking about the disciple Stephen, from the Book of Acts.
Since then, I've met a lot of people who don't seem to see the simplicity of Stephen's vision. I was on a Mormon chat room, and some guy came in with this ant-Mormon stuff and that it was against God's law to add to the Bible, and I asked him about Stephen's vision. He came back with cut-and-paste three pages of some philosopher's take on some other philosopher's thoughts, and that's what he believed.
Wow, talk about adding to the Bible. Three pages of philosophy, with no discernible prophet or apostle's word included, from St. Augustine and afterwards, it seemed. I am unaware of any book in the Bible that was written by St. Augustine.
Stephen and Joseph both saw the same two beings. It was simple to me when I was a child; it's simple to me now.
New Testament, Acts 7:55, 56
But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.
Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith--History, Chapter 1:17
....When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!
Stephen was a man "full of faith and of the Holy Ghost" (Acts 6:5). Joseph Smith was a boy of 14, who read the Bible and decided to follow the admonition of James 1:5
Joseph Smith had faith to obey the teaching of the New Testament, and went out into the woods to pray, where he would not be disturb.If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
Stephen died in a hail of stones and Joseph died in a hail of bullets.
I find it interesting, too that the first person the boy told was a Methodist preacher:
And compare with this, of the founder of the Methodist church, John Wesley, Journal entry of August 15, 1750:Some few days after I had this vision, I happened to be in company with one of the Methodist preachers, who was very active in the before mentioned religious excitement; and, conversing with him on the subject of religion, I took occasion to give him an account of the vision which I had had. I was greatly surprised at his behavior; he treated my communication not only lightly, but with great contempt, saying it was all of the devil, that there were no such things as visions or revelations in these days; that all such things had ceased with the apostles, and that there would never be any more of them.
I was fully convinced of what I had long suspected, 1. That the Montanists, in the second and third centuries, were real, scriptural Christians; and, 2. that the grand reason why the miraculous gifts were so soon withdrawn, was not only that faith and holiness were well nigh lost; but that dry, formal, orthodox men began even then to ridicule whatever gifts they had not themselves, and to decry them all as either madness or imposture." (Journal entry August 15, 1750)
But then, I've always lived in a world that decries visions and other miraculous gifts as either madness or fake. It's just really weird to me that so often it's not so much the faithless, but the fervent who do the decrying, the mocking, the stoning, and the shooting.
