July 17-23

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As I’ve spoken to people of other faiths about our beliefs in a prophet, I have only ever found one reasonable explanation as to why the Lord stopped sending prophets. One of my friends believed that prophets were simply part of the old law, and that Christ was the last great prophet. After Christ came, the prophets stopped just as much of the Law of Moses stopped. Christ rang in a new order. Though I still believe in prophets, I was impressed that my friend had an answer for me that made logical sense.

Until I read Acts more closely. In Acts, we are once again pointed to a pattern of prophets.

What is a prophet?

In order to determine whether Peter was a prophet, we should probably gather an understanding of what a prophet truly is. So what do we know of prophets from the Old Testament? What was their role?

A prophet is a man who is called to speak for God on behalf of His church on earth. First and foremost, he teaches the basic gospel of Jesus Christ in which we learn about how Christ came to earth to live, suffer, and die for us. Sometimes, the calling of a prophet means restoring truth. For example, Moses had to restore the truth of Christ to the ancient Israelites after they had lived without the gospel for hundreds of years. He received the gospel from the Lord and started from scratch. Other times, prophets help to keep that doctrine pure and unadulterated. Joshua is a good example of this. Moses had set up the church, and it was Joshua’s job to make sure that the people didn’t get confused about who the Savior was. 

Another basic job of a prophet is to guide the church in the time they have been called as prophets. Moses is yet another good example of this. Because the people had been away from the gospel for so long, they needed a much stricter law to help them draw closer to Christ. Because of this, the Lord gave Moses the Law of Moses. The people still needed this law under Joshua’s time, and so the law remained. However, if the people had been righteous and prepared, perhaps the Lord would have given them a higher law sooner through His prophet.

So two basic jobs: testify of the doctrine of Christ and to guide the church according to the needs of the people in that specific generation.

So now we have Peter. Peter was called by the Lord. Christ visited Peter again and asked him to go out and share the gospel with others. It was Peter’s job to testify of who Christ was and what He did for us. There is ample evidence that Peter did this. Our first box is checked off.

Second job: to guide the church according to the needs of that specific generation. 

A vision

Peter receives a vision from the Lord about eating unclean animals. Up until this point, Peter has stayed away from specific animals that were forbidden by the Law of Moses. In this vision from the Lord combined with experiences after the vision, Peter realizes that the gospel can now be taken to the Gentiles. This hadn’t been done before, and I believe that is because the Lord caters to the needs of individual generations.

If we observe the ancient Israelites before Christ’s time, we can see that all of their interactions with Gentiles merely led them to adopt the beliefs of Gentiles instead of sharing the gospel they had been given. The ancient Israelites couldn’t handle it, and so the Lord disallowed it through His prophets.

The time had come in which this generation, the Jews-turned-Christians, were prepared to share the gospel with Gentiles, and so the Lord acted accordingly through Peter.

After Peter has his vision and teaches Cornelius the gospel, he is approached by other men of the church, specifically men who had been Jews and had been circumcised. 

Acts 11:2-3

2 And when Peter was come up to Jerusalem, they that were of the circumcision contended with him,

3 Saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them.

Peter then rehearses the vision he had and explains the new church policy.

If the Lord had dispensed with prophets after His death, how come He didn’t tell everyone directly? Or at least the other apostles who had been with Him? Because the Lord’s house is a house of order. He used the same organizations he had used in the past. He chose one man to lead the church and worked through him.

My same friend I spoke of earlier also believes that because we have the bible, the Lord didn’t need to call prophets anymore. I suppose the Lord could have forgone picking a prophet at all. However, would the Jews-turned-Christians ever figured out that they were now supposed to take the gospel everywhere? Or would they have figured it out but also tried to change other things because they felt like they were allowed to? Besides the fact that this wasn’t the best way forward, we have proof in the bible that the Lord chose a man to lead His church and worked through him. There is evidence that prophets continued after Christ.

We see this time and time again. If the Lord could just reveal everything to everyone, why didn’t He simply choose to teach Cornelius through His angels? Why did He send Cornelius to the prophet? It is because He has an established order that continued after His death.

So if prophets weren’t merely a part of the Law of Moses, why did they cease? According to our beliefs, they didn’t.

A prophet is just a man

So we’ve discussed what prophets are and how Peter fits the description, but there is another pattern that we get to observe more directly through Peter. 

In our day, we have seen church policy change. However, how many times do we receive the story of how they changed? How often does President Nelson (or any of his delegates) share their own sacred experiences about how the Lord directed them in a new path? Not often.

But we get to read about it with Peter. We get to read a bit about what he felt and how he changed, and though we don’t necessarily have much to compare it to, I believe it is likely indicative of how many prophets have felt as they have tried to follow the Lord’s will.

Our circumstances greatly influence how we feel and think. How we are raised builds paradigms that are not just intellectual but physical within our brains. We build connections about things in our early observations, and we often use those early paradigms to see the rest of the world as we age. Peter may have been a prophet, but he was still just a man. The fact that the gospel needed to be preached to the world may seem so obvious to us who have been raised in a missionary-centered church, but to Peter, this was a big and scary step. Peter received the vision three times and then we read this:

Acts 10:17 Now while Peter doubted in himself what this vision which he had seen should mean…

Though Peter had heard the Lord three times, he still struggled to grasp the new concept. Holding the mantle of a prophet isn’t something that just descends, and the man is totally ready for the job. In my mind, I believe that these men are still being coached and led along. They feel a tremendous amount of pressure to try and follow the will of the Lord. What if they get something wrong? They know they’re imperfect, and they know the Lord allows us to make mistakes sometimes. Whose faith will it affect? What if their weakness gets in the way?

I think Peter had a hard time grasping this new policy because he was a little afraid. The Law of Moses had been so intense about the Israelites keeping to themselves. Was Peter afraid that he had received the wrong message and would lead the church astray? I think I’d be a little scared. In fact, in my small little corner of blogging and YouTube, I am often worried. I worry about teaching something doctrinally false even if I have felt the Spirit. I worry about overemphasizing too much in one direction at the expense of another gospel principle. And if I do make a mistake, which I have, it’s just up there on the internet to be viewed forever. I can only imagine how that would feel on a prophet’s shoulders. 

These men are prophets, but they are also men. I believe that if we could understand the feelings they experience as they try to do right, we would never judge them again. 

I am grateful for a Savior who gave a pattern through the bible and continued that pattern so I could recognize it. I’m grateful He called a prophet so that I could exercise my own faith about what the Lord wants me to do. I’m grateful for the compassion the Lord extends to me, and I pray that He helps me extend it to others.

The Lord patiently teaching Peter. It seems so silly to us; of course he should preach to everyone. However, we can’t fault him for having a hard time switching paradigms. 

Peter was prepared before the men came. 

Doctrine is black and white, but people are not black and white which is why we make concessions as they grow. 

Story of two men. One had the gospel but had to change. The other didn’t have the gospel but had to change. 

Seeing channels of revelation. Peter can change things. He’s the prophet. Our job is to receive a witness of the Lord regarding it. Lord would not have sent it to the other men; that’s not how He works. So what is our job in relation to the prophet?

What was I that I could withstand God?  11:17

Scared of breaking the law of Moses. It was so ingrained. 

If things change, does that mean they were wrong?