But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain. Titus 3:9
The Granite Mountain Vault is carved some 200 meters into a solid mountain in Utah, and is built to withstand a nuclear blast if necessary. Within that vault is the world’s largest database of humanity, containing vital statistics on more than two billion people, stored on billions of microfilm and microfiche documents. A government organization maybe? No! The Granite Mountain Vault belongs to the Mormon church. Members use these records to find as many of their relatives as they can, so they can be baptized ‘vicariously’, or by proxy, for those dead relatives, because Mormonism teaches that only those who are baptized as Mormons can receive their cult’s particular false concept of salvation. They also use those records as a means to entice people to join their cult, using people’s interest in genealogy as a hook. An online subscription organization run by Mormons called Ancestry.com already has almost a million members. So you can see why Paul would warn Titus against getting involved in genealogies.
No, I am not trashing any and all interest in genealogies. I find it fascinating to learn about my own family’s history, and my dad claimed to have traced seven lines of our forefathers back to Scotland. You too may have records, photographs and documents that tell of your own family’s history. Nothing wrong with that! But if we look at the context in which genealogies are mentioned in our text, we see that Paul is warning about their use to create arguments, contentions, and false doctrine like the Mormons are doing. As Paul declares, they are unprofitable and vain, as well as dangerous.
The way in which the Mormons use genealogies and baptism to practice false doctrine and to entice unsuspecting people is just one of the reasons why we as Christians must trust only one Book as our source of the truth. We do have a great treasury of good and godly writers who have been a wonderful help to the Lord’s people with their books and articles. We deeply appreciate them. Young Christians do well to check with a trusted mature Christian before buying or studying any Christian literature. But when it comes to something that we can always trust and appreciate, only the Bible is always right about everything. We can turn to it for whatever we need.
The Word of God is our trusted source today. It is always profitable, and it is never vain. – Jim MacIntosh