Missionaries vs. Prophets: An Interesting Comparison

[Anonymous]

There are elements of the following post by Brad on By Common Consent that I know won’t resonate with everyone here, but I really liked the way he talked about missionaries and how we already have a mechanism in the Church to address the issue of prophetic infallibility – or even jerkiness at the local leadership level.

The link is:

“Earthly Failings, Heavenly Success” (http://bycommonconsent.com/2013/01/30/earthlyfailingsheavenlysucces/)

My favorite quote:

Quote:

And yet every single one of us has wondered, privately or aloud, in amazement at the fact that God manages to perform such a work despite the obvious and plentiful and sometimes embarrassing weakness, inexperience, foolishness, lacking wisdom, and general unimpressiveness of the barely post-adolescent kids we entrust it to. Indeed, it is the manifestly lacking qualifications and ubiquitous foibles of our missionary force that underscores for us the miraculous, divinely-directed nature of missionary work . . . I also think that shifting a bit away from “Never Lead The Church Astray/Follow The Prophet” and applying our already well-worn framework of “God clearly must be running things notwithstanding the shortcomings of His servants” to general Church leadership would serve us well as we navigate together.

[Anonymous]

I read that post and thought it was a very good point of view. I’d take that comparison even further to point out that one place I’ve seen problems is where peoples expectations of missionaries are too high. I was that way before I entered the MTC and I saw it in many areas where I served. It is definitely healthy to keep our expectations low. Then we can be pleasantly surprised when they are exceeded. :shifty:

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