Mr. Bruce R. McConkie was a prolific author, and his repertoire is far too long to enumerate here, suffice it to say he was one of the Church’s top authors outside of its founder, Joe Smith himself. That said, opinions on who McConkie was, and the legacy he left, is as long and varied as the voluminous works he penned.

You can find the following talk/article Mr. McConkie authored through a number of venues, I found our reference for it at FamilySearch.org. It originally appeared in a 1963 edition of ‘Harvester’, a magazine for LDS missionaries.

Our purpose in using Mr. McConkie’s reference is twofold.

1.To provide an example of the mindset of a typical LDS missionary.

2.To compare it with the word of God to determine if it’s biblically sound.

“My Missionary Commission

by Elder Bruce R. McConkie

‘I am called of God.
My authority is above that of kings of the earth.’

Oh dear, how sad. God’s word tell us to preach and know nothing, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified 1 Corinthians 2:2. If we’re sharing God’s good news as an attempt of garnering sympathy either for us, or Him, we’ve become traitors of Jesus, as Oswald Chambers once said.

‘By revelation I have been selected as a personal representative of the Lord Jesus Christ.’

The Church refers to their procedure of calling missionaries as ‘revelation’, however, the way they do this is anything but.

When the young man has reached the appropriate age (18), their name is automatically entered into the system of potential candidates.

That name is then forwarded to their local bishop who conducts an interview so he can assess worthiness based on a predetermined list of rules, and regulations. After totaling the check marks for each qualifier, the bishop can then say yea, or nay.

McConkie continued –

‘He is my master and He has chosen me to represent Him–to stand in His place, to say and do what He Himself would say and do if He personally were ministering to the very people to whom He has sent me.’

Actually, the Mormon prophet is the master all of Mormons. They’re repeatedly told to ‘follow the prophet’, thus negating any chance that Jesus, or even their own god, is their master.

As it is today (2017), the Mormon missionary has even less ‘authority’ to say what he wants when witnessing to potential converts. As you’ll see in Melissa’s upcoming series (Mormon Missionary Discussions), the Church changed the missionary program of missionaries sharing personal thoughts in the interaction between the missionary and investigator, with a rank and file system of what they’ll say when, by utilizing a video series to guide their conversations each time they meet.

‘My voice is His voice, and my acts are His acts; my doctrine is His doctrine.’

This is actually impossible. The sinful nature of man precludes any chance that a missionary’s behavior is like that of the perfect, sinless Christ Jesus. Besides, their meetings are hashed out through the carefully scripted conversations of LDS Inc as we noted above.

Moreover, it’s rather arrogant to assume the position of God.

‘My Commission is to do what He wants done; To say what He wants said; to be a living modern witness in word and in deed of the divinity of his great and marvelous Latter-day work.’

The dictionary defines the word divinity as ‘the nature of the Godhead. who is divine’. Divine means, ‘a form of God’. If the missionary isn’t following the One True God of the Bible, their work is anything but divine.

‘How great is my calling!’”

In Amy Carmichael’s little booklet, ‘If’, is a poignant reminder of our place in this world –

 ‘…if the cup of spiritual flattery tastes sweet to me, then I know nothing of Calvary love…’

We must expose the reason why He died on the cross, and trust in the reality of redemption as Oswald Chambers has said. Mission work means everything pertaining to it must revolve around the understanding that our cause is to preach Christ crucified, and nothing else.

“My Missionary Commission

by Elder Bruce R. McConkie

I am called of God.
My authority is above that of kings of the earth.

By revelation I have been selected as a personal representative of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He is my master and He has chosen me to represent Him–to stand in His place, to say and do what He Himself would say and do if He personally were ministering to the very people to whom He has sent me.

My voice is His voice, and my acts are His acts; my doctrine is His doctrine.

My Commission is to do what He wants done; To say what He wants said; to be a living modern witness in word and in deed of the divinity of his great and marvelous Latter-day work.

How great is my calling!”