Sorry, I'm just wondering if anyone had any insight to this. It's bothered me for years since I memorized (and subsequently forgot) the articles of faith.

6. We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth.

If we believed in the same organization that existed in the primitive church and God doesn't change, where are the pastors, evangelists and so forths? Just wondering if there was an apologist's response to it.

I was under the impression that the explanation for Article 6 is this: Joseph Smith created the LDS organization in order to return to the way it was [primitive church].

1. Did it ever occur to anyone what is meant by "and so forth?"
2. The use of the words "primitive church" was only extant at the time period of JS.
3. TSCC has tried to explain the term "pastors" as being "bishops" and "evangelists" as being "patriarchs". Weird.
4. There is no such real thing as "the primitive church". Christianity has changed continuously in organization but the specific term "pastor" is in current use in Christianity, as is "evangelist", "elder" ,"deacon", "disciple" and "bishop". The appellation "apostle" (outside of the general definition which can be applied to almost anyone) is scripturally only used in the New Testament to the original twelve, the replacement for Judas, Paul and, depending on translation Barnabus and a couple of others. Hence, as Christianity developed - quite early on - neither apostles nor prophets were used on the basis that the scriptures were fulfilled.

and so forth is kind of like:

Even
So called
and so forth

"And so forth" accounts for the Stephenie Meyer doctrines.
without it, it would have been too hard to force children to memorize:
"Namely Apostles, Prophets, Pastors, Teachers, Evangelists, Twinkly Vamps, Metrosexual Werewolves, Moody Impervious Teenagers, ..." etc... way too long.

Give it another 10 years and the Twilight series will be canonized (when they realize that Twil-ites outnumber the general mormon membership)

I was thinking that more people have read the Harry Potter series than the BOM.

JS wasn't the first one claiming Christianity had gotten all messed up and needed to be restored to its (imagined) original form. The restorationist believed the Reformation hadn't gone far enough.

The Articles of Faith were originally written to explain Mormonism in broad terms to outsiders, not as a list of doctrines to be embraced by the membership. That happened later.

I could never get beyond the "Primitive Church" concept. That was twoo and I still believe it.

There were also some weird explanations that came up on the offices that didn't exist, such as evangelist.

Now it would have been reasonable to call missionaries evangelists, but in Sunday School we were taught that those are patriarchs. Eh?

The idea of the primitive church needing a restoration, prophets, apostles and so forth was taken directly from a communal religious group at the time known as the Seekers. It just so happens that one of Joseph Smith's maternal uncles was the leader of a Seeker commune. Funny how all of Smith's revolutionary ideas can be so easily traced to other sources.

Melchizedek priesthood and High Priest ordinations from the Ephrata Commune and York Rite Freemasonry. Three degrees of Glory from Emanual Swedenborg and Kabbalism, polygamy and spiritual wifery from the Cockranites, and so on. Nothing original at all.

Today they are still trying to justify the pieces that Smith did not recognize or include.

For a comparison between the church of Jesus' apostles and the Mormon church, see http://packham.n4m.org/restored.htm

I became interested in the concept of the "primitive church" and tried to find out what I could about it. Basically, what I found is that there is no consensus of what made up the early church and it was so varied and diverse that it would be nearly impossible to make a clear claim as to what it was to claim someone had restored an modern organization to the primitive form. Like so much else that Joseph Smith did, this claim can be viewed as "valid" by those who only superficially look at the subject - similar to those who make claim to Meso-American cultures as proof for the BOM.

From my reading, I think the early Christian group known as the Ebionites was most likely to have been those most closely associated with any group Jesus would have formed. Their beliefs were at odds with Paul's since they were essentially a Jewish sect and if memory serves, they believed a person must first become a Jew before he could become a Christian (very much unlike what Paul taught). When the Roman destroyed Jerusalem around 70 CE, they pretty much put an end to several Jewish denominations - the Sadducees, the Essenes, and very likely the Ebionites as well. With the Ebionites out of the picture or greatly diminished, Paul's version of Jesus could flourish since he was forming churches away from where Jews traditionally lived and therefore were generally unaffected by the Roman invasion of Jerusalem.

I always thought of anyone who taught at Know Your Religion, or spoke at EFY or youth conferences as evangelists.

I think the reason this has always bothered me is because there are so many things that the church interprets literally, but then there are those like hot drinks which mean coffee, black and green tea and caffeine somehow to others. Just like how evangelists mean missionaries and pastors equal.....something.

I often reflect that a great deal of confusion could be avoided if everyone realized that Jesus never established an organized church. He said "have no thought for the morrow" because he was just like JS and a thousand others.. believing the end was nigh at hand.. right away. Here we are 2000 years later, and still the end is nigh at hand. Sort of makes me wonder if Christianity is true. (Not really... I already know it's not!)

I was told that an evangelist was actually a patriarch. Since Joseph Smith had been on the route of becoming an evangelist preacher, I find this doubtful.