The Mormon Apocrypha

31 What Are Pastors and Evangelists? Question:  " Why do we not have pastors and evangelists in the Church as mentioned in the Prophet Joseph Smith's thirteenth Article of Faith? If they are names for bishops and missionaries, why then don't we call them such? " The dictionary definition of a pastor is a correct one even from our understanding of this term; it is "a Christian minister who has a church or congregation under his official charge." The term pastor does not refer to an order in the priesthood, like deacon, priest, elder, seventy, and so on, but is a general term applied to an officer who presides over a ward, branch in a mission or a stake, and it could even be applied to a president of a stake. There are several references to pastors in the Old Testament, particularly in the Book of Jeremiah. I quote one or two of these showing that this is a general term applied to the priests and teachers in Israel, and not to an order of the priesthood: And I...

One interesting book I started reading since this blog was Answers to Gospel Questions by Joseph Fielding Smith. I posted some entries from the book along with the foreword of the book with contains a history of the book and an introduction explaining the books purpose. I hope you gleam something from this reading. Foreword Since May 1953, President Joseph Fielding Smith has been answering the questions of readers, in a monthly page in  The Improvement Era , under the continuing title—"Your Question." In his mail comes a multiplicity of questions of all kinds, pertaining to scripture, to doctrine, to history, and to the interpretation of many points and problems. He cannot, of course, answer all the questions that come. The mail is too voluminous, the questions too repetitious, and time and strength too limited, with all the other official obligations. But with all these limitations, President Smith has given an earnest and eminently able service in selecting from among the m...