I never implied that some new prophesy from President Hinckley would not be useful to us in general. I simply said that his getting a prophesy does not improve my personal dialogue with God. The point of this post is that it is our personal relationship and dialogue with God is the paramount of this probation. So yes I do think there is plenty of time (and plenty to spare) for us to get to know God through a rich and meaningful dialogic revelatory relationship. Further, yes, I am totally comfortable with the way the Church is being run today with the 12 and FP not revealing any strikingly new prophesies or revelations for decades on end. I think that is God’s doing and I think part of his reasoning is to provide the opportunity for all of us to get our own revelation and thus get to know Him.

I understand that you may not agree with me on this and that is ok too.

You are mistaken on many levels.

1) I would pray to find out if its true.
2) He wouldn’t give us a “big new prophecy” in order for us to know God, but in order for us to know the information he had to convey in the prophecy.
3) How would him doing that NOT help me come closer to God? How would it keep me from God?
4) Surely we don’t have time to receive revelation on everything in our lives. How does sharing the load with the church leaders not help?
5) Are you really comfortable with the idea that the church doesn’t have to give us any revelation? This is against everything which Mormons preach.

Not all have the spirit of prophecy. What are they supposed to do? I apparently don’t have that gift. What am I to do? Where are the words which I am supposed to believe on? Why is nobody prophecying in order to benefit the church as a whole?

This is an excellent point and set of questions. I suspect lots of saints ask themselves these same things. One thing we all are commanded to do is follow Paul’s instructions and seek earnestly the best gifts. I don’t think one needs to prophesy of future events to receive mighty revelations of the truths and mysteries of God. The scriptures make it pretty clear that those are available to all of us if we learn how to get them. That is why I focus so much attention on the subject of personal revelation.

But what if President Hinckley did make some big new prophecy tomorrow — What would you do? You could study it out in your mind and then ask God if it was right. And God could reveal to you a clear “yes” or “no” as a result. Ok great. How does that help you really know God? It is well and good to know that God is close with someone else but in the end it does not mean you are close with God. Knowing about God is not knowing God. Knowing God requires personal revelation. There are no shortcuts in the eternities. No one else can know God for us — we must know him personally.

Your position makes me ask, why should I be a part of the church at all, if it is all upon myself to receive revelation? Why do I need leaders at all?

When it comes to your exaltation I don’t think you do need them all that much. The do serve to nourish us with the good word of God and to keep us in the right way; to keep us continually watchful unto prayer; to keep us relying wholly on the merits of Christ who is the author and the finisher of our faith. And you do need the authority they hold and the covenants and ordinances they preside over. Plus the church community is an invaluable help in our process of getting to know God through service and whatnot. But in the end it is our responsibility to truly know God and Jesus Christ who He has sent.

I said current church leaders claim the gift of prophesy because they ask us to sustain them as prophets, seers, and revelators. Now this idea you propose that there is a difference between the office of “prophet, seer, and revelator” and the gifts of prophesy, seership, and revelation is an interesting one. I have never heard anyone try to make that distinction before. Do you have any sources to back you on that? It seems to me that in the absence of any prophets saying that the office does not automatically entail access to the gifts we must assume that it does. I do assume that all who we sustain in those offices have the gifts; therefore I conclude that God is giving the church all the revelation that he wishes the church to have today.

BTW — I forgot about another post I put up some time ago about what the voice the Lord sounds like. (Though I see you commented on it so this link is mostly a footnote to anyone who sees this exchange.)

Let’s not kid ourselves. These posts are all given in an attempt to respond to my paper. If you don’t want to address that anymore that’s fine by me, but let’s not think that these posts come as some sort of “refutation” of any kind. If they don’t address the issue at hand then they certainly don’t refute it.

“they are still claiming to have the gift of prophesy,”

Where? Where has anybody claimed that a statement that they themselves were making was actually a revelation of anykind? I’ve been waiting for this for a while now. They certainly claim each other to be prophets and the like, but such claims are loaded with equivocation on the word “prophet”. When has anybody prophecied? Seen anything? Revealed anything? If we have no answers to this then we must be working with some esoteric definition of prophet, seer and revelator which should be properly defined.

“They claim to have all the keys and authority that were restored to Joseph.”

I don’t deny this, so let’s not mention it any more.

“those claims”

What claims? They certainly claim to hold the priesthood and be PSR’s in terms of authority, but this doens’t change the fact that the gifts aren’t being claimed. There is a difference which you seem to insist on ignoring between gifts and offices. They certainly hold the offices of PSR’s, but there is simply no evidence of the gifts being excercized.

So regarding current church leaders, they are still claiming to have the gift of prophesy, they are also claiming to be seers and revelators to the world. They claim to have all the keys and authority that were restored to Joseph.

We have only one way to know if those claims are true or not — we must receive revelation from God on the subject. One could complain that President Hinckley has not brought forth any new scriptures (or whatever) to pray about but that is moot — we can ask God if President Hinckley is a prophet, seer, and revelator and if he has all the keys that Joseph had or not regardless of that.