Following Non-Prophetic Prophetic Counsel

I don't think it's a coincidence that the day after I blogged about modern prophets, one of the church's youtube channel published a video or two about modern prophets, and the next General Conference talk I'm supposed to blog about is about prophets as well. In his talk, Elder Neil L. Andersen relayed some fairly solid advice about listening to prophets.

Some will try to overly dissect the prophet’s words, struggling to determine what is his prophetic voice and what is his personal opinion.

In 1982, two years before being called as a General Authority, Brother Russell M. Nelson said: “I never ask myself, ‘When does the prophet speak as a prophet and when does he not?’ My interest has been, ‘How can I be more like him?’” And he added, “My [philosophy is to] stop putting question marks behind the prophet’s statements and put exclamation points instead.” This is how a humble and spiritual man chose to order his life. Now, 36 years later, he is the Lord’s prophet.

It may be a tad extreme to put an exclamation point behind everything the prophet says, and it is important to ask questions so we can gain confirmation and understanding, but I agree that it's probably not terribly important to differentiate between when a prophet is speaking as a prophet and when he's not. If he's giving counsel and advice, it's probably a good idea to follow that advice, whether or not it was divinely inspired. It's at least as good advice as you're likely to hear elsewhere, and if we follow in faith, the Lord will probably bless us for our faith and faithfulness, even if the path we're following isn't directly inspired by God. Listening to the prophet and heeding his counsel (after receiving confirmation through the Spirit that this is a good path) will always win us brownie points with God, whether the man was speaking as a prophet then or not.

So, we should listen to the prophets and heed their counsel. It's entirely possible that the Lord was using the prophet to deliver inspired counsel that God Himself is asking you to follow. But even if it isn't, it's very likely to be at least half-way decent advice. Either way, God will appreciate the faith we put into following the prophets, and He will bless that faith, whether or not the advice we're following was actually prophetic.