Why Prophets Don’t Prophesy (Usually)

Micah the prophet, Russian icon from the
first quarter of the 18th  cen.

When people hear that the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a prophet, they sometimes dismissively ask what he has prophesized. I have been asked more than once why we need to pay tithing when the prophet can just predict which stocks will rise, where oil can be found, etc. The modern definition of the word “prophecy” focuses so much on telling the future, that we have come to think of prophets as mere psychics who give us vague foretellings of things to come (which, if they are vague enough, couldn’t possibly be untrue). But that isn’t what prophecy is all about.

In his book Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, Diarmaid MacCulloch explains that the Greek form of the word, prophēteia, had nothing to do with predicting the future. Instead, the word meant the gift of interpreting the will of the gods. In ancient Israel, “[t]he prophets’ primary job was to talk about the present, not the future.”

And when we think about the kind of reception that prophets have received over the ages, it makes much more sense that they are not normally concerned with the distant future. Prophets have been “mocked” and “misused” (2 Chr. 36:16), “rejected” (1 Nephi 3:18), “reviled” (Ether 7:24), “persecuted” (Acts 7:52), and many times even “slain ... with the sword” (1 Kings 19:10). Why would someone predicting the future get such treatment?

If you remember, a few years back someone did make a bold prediction about the end of the world. Harold Camping, a pastor and evangelical radio broadcaster, predicted that the end times would commence on May 21, 2011. While Camping was derided in many circles for his prediction, there were no violent responses to it. That’s because a prediction about the future is mostly harmless. I certainly didn’t feel threatened by it. I didn’t believe it, so I had no reason to be bothered.

Real prophets, and real prophecy, is different. Prophets teach “boldly [about] repentance and remission of sins” (3 Nephi 7:16). They preach righteousness (see Moses 6:22-23). They reveal God’s secrets (see Amos 3:7). And their voice is the same as the voice of God (see D&C 1:38). Prophets don’t just tell us to expect some future event, they tell us that we need to change in the here and now. They teach us that God expects us to do things that we don't naturally want to do. They force us to confront the worst parts of ourselves and they challenge us to eradicate them. Now, as they say in so many cheesy movies, it’s getting personal.

Prophets, ancient or modern, have made it a habit of saying things that make them unpopular with the world. Their teachings are rarely, if ever, fashionable. They aren’t going to be lavished with riches, or accolades. But they will help us come closer to God. They will help us bring our lives into harmony with divine truth.

And we should want to do that, because in the rare instances in which the prophets do foresee the future, such as the Revelation of John, one theme becomes very clear: that it’s God’s side that will ultimately win. So, why not join that side now?