Joseph Smith Contradicted Jesus [Matthew 13 vs. D&C 86]

What do we do when Joseph Smith and Jesus disagree? Matthew 13 teaches that there will never be a Great Apostasy in the history of Christ’s church, yet Joseph Smith rewrote and reinterpreted this teaching in Doctrines and Covenants 86. The specific teaching in question? The Parable of the Wheat and Tares.

In Matthew 13, Jesus gave several parables that told people about the growth of the Kingdom of Heaven. He wrote that His Church would start out small, but would grow consistently until the harvest (which is Christ’s return). The Parable of the Wheat and Weeds reveals that there will never be a time where the weeds win out! The wheat and the weeds will both be present until the harvest.

The LDS Church, however, teaches that the Christian church went into Apostasy shortly after the time of the Apostles. Joseph Smith restored Christ’s true church to the earth, and modern Mormons are the true “Latter-day Saints.” All of the Mormon church’s claims hinge on this fact: there must have been a Great Apostasy and a Restoration. If there was no such Christian apostasy, then there could be no restoration, and the LDS Church would be false. Mormonism’s problem: Scripture teaches that there will never be a Great Apostasy.

Yet, in D&C 86, Joseph Smith wrote that the weeds choke out the wheat and drive the church into the wilderness. This claim is wholly contrary to the POINT Jesus was making in the Matthew 13 parables. In this video, we explain why Joseph Smith’s rewriting of the parable is problematic, and whether or not we should understand Jesus to be teaching that there would come a Great Apostasy.

Relevant Texts:

“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, ‘Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’” (Matthew 13:24-30).
“Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you my servants, concerning the parable of the wheat and of the tares: Behold, verily I say, the field was the world, and the apostles were the sowers of the seed; And after they have fallen asleep the great persecutor of the church, the apostate, the whore, even Babylon, that maketh all nations to drink of her cup, in whose hearts the enemy, even Satan, sitteth to reign—behold he soweth the tares; wherefore, the tares choke the wheat and drive the church into the wilderness. But behold, in the last days, even now while the Lord is beginning to bring forth the word, and the blade is springing up and is yet tender—Behold, verily I say unto you, the angels are crying unto the Lord day and night, who are ready and waiting to be sent forth to reap down the fields; But the Lord saith unto them, pluck not up the tares while the blade is yet tender (for verily your faith is weak), lest you destroy the wheat also. Therefore, let the wheat and the tares grow together until the harvest is fully ripe; then ye shall first gather out the wheat from among the tares, and after the gathering of the wheat, behold and lo, the tares are bound in bundles, and the field remaineth to be burned.” (D&C 86:1-7)