Saturday night, as I was talking with my daughter about this question, we put our heads together and came up with a great idea to answer the question without actually bothering to answer it—it would be self-evident. I thought it was a brilliant idea (I'm a blonde ex-athlete, so it doesn't take much to impress me), and it's been aeons since I've had a class big enough to make it a worthwhile exercise, so I was anxious to get to it: a good ol'-fashioned game of telephone.

In class, I started with the closest student on my left. I knelt down next to him and whispered a very precise set of instructions into his ear which he was then to pass along to the next student and so on around the room. The instructions were:

1. Go to the whiteboard

2. Write your name backwards while singing "Happy Birthday," then

3. Sit on the floor and bark like a dog.

It took a few minutes for the message to make its way through over twenty students, but it was well worth the wait. The last student thought he was going to get away with simply spewing forth the message he heard, but the whole point of instructions is that the instruction-giver expects them to be carried out! So, I had the student come to the front of the class and follow the instructions he'd received.

Here's what he did:

1. Wrote his name on the board

2. Sang a fragment of "Jesus Loves Me"

3. Stood there

I found out later that this particular student was, to put it mildly, not fond of public speaking opportunities, but despite his reservations, he soldiered on and did a fine job. Bravo, young man, you have earned my respect for stepping outside of your comfort zone!

So let me get this straight...we can't manage to pass three simple instructions through twenty-something students in the same classroom, and you want to know why God uses the written word to communicate to us today? Ha!

Exposing Assumptions

I ran the kids through my usual exercise of spotting and exposing the assumptions baked into the question. The two big ones, of course, are that God stopped using the prophets to speak to us, and that God switched to the written word (the Bible).

So, did God stop using the prophets? Well, who put pen to vellum and papyrus in the first place? The prophets! So, did God stop using the prophets to speak to us? Not in the least! He is still using the prophets today through their written words...and that far more efficiently and reliably than if we had to rely upon oral tradition or a continual stream of living prophets.

When we look through the Scriptures, I think the plain and simple message implied is that having a written record was the whole point from the very get-go. Time and time again, the books that follow the Pentateuch refer back to the writings of Moses..."It is written in the law of Moses..." (see Joshua 8:31; 2 Kings 23:21; 2 Chronicles 25:4; Ezra 3:2, 6:18; Daniel 9:13 to name a few). Jesus referred to what was written when He was tempted in the desert (Matthew 4). The Gospel writers, particularly Matthew, repeatedly pointed the reader back to the written Word of God as they made their case for Jesus being the long-awaited Messiah. If memory serves, Jesus actually quoted Isaiah more than any other prophet...Isaiah clearly lived after Moses, and he was a prophet. So, what's the question again?

But how 'bout we let God speak for Himself and let Him tell us why He chose to have His words written down:

1. That we may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing we might have life in His name (John 20:31)

2. For our instructions, particularly to learn from the mistakes of our predecessors (1 Corinthians 10:6-11) that we may not sin (1 John 2)

3. That we may be equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16,17)

4. To bring conviction and judgment upon the thoughts and intentions of our hearts (Hebrews 4:12)

5. To encourage one another (1 Thessalonians 5:11)

6. To discern good teaching from lies (Acts 17:11; Galatians 1:8,9)

I'd like to call particular attention to Acts 17:11. Note very carefully that although God trusted Paul (1 Corinthians 7:25; Galatians 2:7; 1 Thessalonians 2:4; 1 Timothy 1:11) to take the gospel to the gentile nations (Romans 11:13; Galatians 2:8), and to write nearly 2/3rds of the New Testament, what did he say about the Bereans?

...they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. — Acts 17:11b

He overtly praised the Bereans for not taking him at face value, but rather checking everything Paul said against the Scriptures!

Modern-day Prophets?

With this as our backdrop, let's say that we had actual prophets today as the Mormons proclaim...what does God say we should do with their words? Yep—be Bereans and run everything they say through the filter of both the Old and New Testament; and if their words do not line up with Scripture then they should first be gently corrected (i.e., don't assume someone's a heretic if he misspeaks or gets something wrong—Acts 18:26), reprove and correct them with the Word of God (2 Timothy 3:16) with respect and due honor (1 Timothy 5:1). If the one speaking falsehood is in a position of influence to lead others astray from the Word of God, or if he persists in his sin, then we are to issue our rebuke in public (Galatians 2:14ff; 1 Timothy 5:20). And again, when it comes to the purity of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Scripture is so crystal clear that Paul says it twice in a row:

But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed! — Galatians 1:8,9

You don't mess with the gospel, period. Getting it right means the difference between an eternity with Christ and eternity separated from Him in hell (Matthew 7:21-23).