Prophets, Prophecy, and the Challenge of Living Authority

Dr. Ross Baron opens this final "Thoughts to Keep in Mind" episode by confronting a tension that many Latter-day Saint readers feel: the ancient prophets of the Old Testament—Ezekiel, Hosea, Amos—can sound foreign and distant compared to a modern general conference address. The manual itself acknowledges this, and Baron's response is practical. Rather than attempting a technical Hebrew exegesis with a family, he advises readers to search for "eternal truths that are relevant across time"—the character of God, the mission of Christ, the patterns of covenant faithfulness. Babylon becomes a symbol for pride and sin, not just an ancient city; Zion becomes the latter-day cause, not just Jerusalem. The goal is to find what is timeless, not what is time-bound.

The Prophetic Office and the Problem of Fallibility

Baron's central argument is that the true church must always have living prophets—and that this is precisely what makes the restored gospel difficult for the world to accept. He quotes Hugh Nibley: "A dead prophet the world dearly desires and warmly cherishes... But woe to a living prophet." The pattern of rejecting living prophets while venerating dead ones runs through the entire history of Israel, and it did not cease with Christ.