Prophetic Teachings -- How Modern Prophets Illuminate Ancient Scripture

One of the distinctive claims of Latter-day Saint theology is that revelation did not end with the biblical canon. Modern prophets receive direction from the same God who spoke to Isaiah and Paul, and their teachings frequently reach back into the ancient text to draw out meaning that the original audience could not have fully grasped. This continuity between ancient and modern is not incidental -- it is the defining feature of a dispensational faith.

Consider how President Ezra Taft Benson connected the Book of Mormon to modern life by quoting Mormon 8:35: "Behold, I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing." President Benson taught that Mormon wrote with full knowledge of the conditions the book's future readers would face. This reframing transforms the Book of Mormon from a historical document into a letter written specifically to us, and it changes how every passage is read.

The pattern extends to the Old Testament. When President Russell M. Nelson taught about the Abrahamic covenant, he drew on Genesis 17:7 -- "I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant" -- and connected it directly to temple ordinances performed today. The ancient promise to Abraham is not merely fulfilled in Christ; it is actively being administered through living prophets and a functioning priesthood. Without prophetic commentary, a modern reader might treat Genesis 17 as ancient history. With it, the chapter becomes a blueprint for covenant life in the present.

Prophetic Teachings organizes these connections by topic, allowing you to find what modern prophets have said about any scriptural subject. If you are studying Malachi 3 and tithing, you can see how successive prophets from Lorenzo Snow to the present have taught that principle. If you are studying the Sermon on the Mount, you can read how prophetic voices have applied the Beatitudes to contemporary challenges. The result is a layered study experience where the ancient text is read through the lens of continuing revelation.

This approach reflects a core Latter-day Saint conviction: scripture is not a closed system. It is a living conversation between God, His ancient prophets, His modern prophets, and the individual reader. The Prophetic Teachings tool makes that conversation visible and searchable, so that no connection between past and present is lost to the reader who is willing to look.