Of course God communicates with us through the Spirit, but He has always done that. Living prophets, however, serve a different purpose, now as in the past. In Old Testament times, for instance, when God wanted to communicate a specific message to all of His followers, He did so through an individual He had personally chosen and designated to be His spokesman. When Jesus Christ built His Church, He established an organization that Paul said was to exist until we all came into a unity of the faith. That organization was built upon a foundation of Prophets and Apostles. Jesus gave Peter the keys to the kingdom of Heaven, presumably choosing him because of all the Apostles, he was the only one who realized who Jesus really was -- the Son of the living God. Jesus remarked that it was through revelation from God that Peter knew this. He intended to continue to direct His Church through Peter, who would receive inspired instruction through the Spirit. Today, the Spirit speaks to me in matters regarding my own life and the lives of my family members. But the Spirit doesn't direct the affairs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by communicating with me and the other 13.5 million Latter-day Saints. The Spirit communicates directly with the Prophet who, just as in ancient times, is charged with revealing what is said to him to all of us. Each of us is then responsible to ask for confirmation of the truthfulness of his message. It is through the Spirit that we receive that confirmation.
I hope we can keep this impersonal. I don't want to tear anything down for you, but only hope to answer the question posed in the OP. Your post is thoughtful, but there are several points at which I disagree. Some of them are factual disagreements, others are differences of perspective.
Prophets, in the OT, were special religious people. But, since Israel was a theocracy, the prophets were also politically in charge. It was they who selected and anointed kings. It was they who had the direct pipeline to God. The Jews no longer have prophets. Since they have nothing to do with what Jesus "established," I have to wonder why that is? Why do the Jews not continue to have prophets? What has changed?
Government has changed. The world has changed. The world has become more politically established since the days of Moses, Elijah, Elisha, and Jeremiah. I just don't think you can make the argument for official "prophets" anymore. Just my opinion.
A second point is this: What, exactly, did Jesus "establish?" How do you know? There's nothing in either the written record or the Tradition of the
established Church (I'll use that term to describe the Church, as it has appeared in Roman/Eastern pattern) to tell us that Jesus established any sort of organization, other than to call the Twelve, and to send out 70 (who, by the way, came home and didn't keep going out, so far as we know).
What
is in the historical record is that the Twelve were seen by the early proto-Church as the leaders, because they were Jesus' chosen. When they began to die off, the Twelve appointed others to take their places. That practice has, ostensibly, continued to this present day.
Third, if we take a close look at the story of Peter receiving the keys to the kingdom, we note that the story is only available in Matthew. Therefore, we have to ask ourselves, "what did Matthew mean by including this pericope?" In the pericope, the character Peter is a symbol for the community of believers to whom the author writes. Since the whole of Matthew is concerned with the development of the community, and how they understand themselves to be in the place in which they find themselves, Matthew uses the episode to answer some important questions.
While Mormons may certainly find inspiration for themselves in the pericope (as can any Xian community), I don't think they can lay claim to it for themselves (just as Roman Catholics cannot). The keys were given to the community of believers. Peter, making the confession, did so because of
faith, not because of revelation. I don't understand where you come up with that understanding, Kat.
Faith was what was at issue for that community -- not revelation. Jesus says that "flesh-and-blood has not revealed this to you, but God." In other words, the authority to be who they were (a minority, fringe community in a foreign, urban setting, which was at odds both with the political powers and the religious powers) come from faith -- from calling themselves followers of Jesus, when it wasn't popular or advisable to do that, not from some human, authoritative source.
I totally agree that He was what you say He was, and yet I don't have a problem believing that He also visited His sheep which were not a part of the same fold as those living in the Holy Land. I don't have to lose sight of anything to believe that. Furthermore, when a second witness to the Resurrection (on the other side of the world, yet) stands up and testifies that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind, it does absolutely nothing but strengthen the testimony of the first witness.
This doesn't "fit" with the archaeology. Jesus was part and parcel of a particular culture, found in the middle-East. First of all, if we was going to appear a second time, why to a now-extinct American culture? Why not to the Africans, the Chinese, the Scandinavians, the Celts, the Pacific Islanders -- even the American Indian tribes? Why not to all of them? Why be so
specific?
And, if Jesus was going to do that, why does Matthew have Jesus tell the
community to go and make the
ethne into
laos? You'd think there would have been some clue. If Peter really
had the keys to the kingdom, and a direct pipeline to God, why wouldn't he have known that this was going to happen?
Using the Biblical passage of "other sheep" in the way you do is, I believe, mistaken. Those terms,
laos and
ethne refer to Judeans and the others in that area. To extend the term
ethne to include people they didn't know existed is ludicrous.
When Matthew has Jesus say, "Go make disciples of
all nations, he isn't referring to an ancient American culture. He's referring to the known people. (Nations is translated from
ethne). The testimony of a people halfway across the world means nothing -- they're all dead. No trace. Yet, Xy, as we have received it from the beginning, is alive and well. How do you explain that?
While I see your point, I just don't agree with it from either an historical or an exegetical standpoint.
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