By Their Fruits, Part 1

Shawn McCraney challenges the common LDS interpretation of the phrase “By their fruits ye shall know them,” arguing that in its biblical context from Matthew 7, it refers specifically to identifying false prophets, not determining the validity of a church or religion. Throughout his teaching, McCraney asserts that the principle Jesus taught relates to discerning the genuine nature of individual leaders based on their actions, rather than using this criterion to claim organizational truth.

To discern if someone is a true or false prophet, evaluate the "fruits" or outcomes of their teachings and actions; a genuine prophet will produce consistently beneficial and morally sound results, while a false prophet's outcomes will ultimately be harmful or misleading despite any apparent goodness. This teaching emphasizes that good cannot come from a bad source, likened to how a good tree produces good fruit and a bad tree produces bad fruit, thus reinforcing the importance of aligning actions with divine truth and eternal values over mere temporal benefits.

The teaching by Shawn emphasizes that a good or true church cannot be identified by its collective works or the good it claims to do if these actions lead people away from God, as exemplified by Mormonism and its teachings attributed to Joseph Smith. Instead, the focus should be on the individual spiritual fruits of believers, as a church should be made up of followers truly aligned with the spirit, regardless of their denominational affiliation.

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