(August 4, 2014)
I have
noticed a pattern among the prophets of the Lord. There seems to be a habit of performing the
miracles of the past in order to confirm their prophetic mantles. Moses parted the Red Sea, and Joshua parted
the River Jordan .
Elijah parted the River Jordan, and
Elisha did likewise on the way back. Elijah
multiplied the widow’s oil, and raised her son from the dead. So too did Elisha.
Sometimes
there is a criticism of our modern Prophets and Apostles that they don’t
perform the miracles that we read about from the lives of the early Christian
fathers (or even Joseph Smith and others). This is fallacious for a pair of reasons. First of all, I am not at all confident that
these miracles are not taking place. I
have seen enough miracles in my life to have little doubt that they are
occurring on a regular basis to others, and yet there is no reason to think
that these miracles are known to the Church at large. Why should we think that any time a Prophet or
an Apostle experiences something miraculous, they would instantly set it out
for the whole world to see (most of the most sacred experiences of my life I
have been instructed to hold close, and even then there have been some
experiences that I have been able to share).
Secondly,
I think the difference is between public and private miracles. In the Old Testament times, miracles
had to be public because that was the mechanism for confirming the prophetic
mantle. Now, however, we have a
different order of things where the prophetic mantle passes and everyone within
the Church has an understanding of their obligations to accept the new
leadership. President Monson had no need
to perform a public miracle in order to have the people of the Church follow
him, so no public miracle was performed.
No comments:
Post a Comment