What’s the Difference Between Revelation and Inspiration?
Hey guys, so in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we believe in what we call modern revelation. Just like in ancient times, we believe that today God can speak not only to prophets but to each of His children individually, through the Holy Spirit. This principle of personal modern revelation is hugely important. But it can also be frustrating if you don’t know how the Spirit communicates with you — if you don’t know what to expect. For example, the scriptures are chock-full of miraculous manifestations of the Spirit. Pillars of fire, angelic appearances, prophetic dreams, etc. These kinds of miracles can happen today just as they did anciently, but if this is what you’re expecting from the Spirit day after day in your personal life, you’re probably going to be disappointed.
I sort of view the scriptures as the prophets Greatest Hits albums. We see the highlights from their lives, but not much of the day-to-day stuff. It’s like how on the radio we’ll hear Sweet Caroline and Forever in Blue Jeans — but the hits are relatively few and far between, and Neil has a ton of other music that you just don’t hear as often, like that classic tune, “You’re so sweet, horseflies keep hangin’ round your face.” This metaphor is getting weird. The goal in today’s episode is to help you understand some of the different ways the Spirit can communicate with you. Specifically, we’re going to be looking at the difference between revelation and inspiration. Let’s do it.
Alright, so to help us understand the difference between revelation and inspiration we’re calling in some help from the late apostle Elder Richard G. Scott. In 2012 he gave a talk aptly titled, “How to Obtain Revelation and Inspiration for Your Personal Life.” Latter-day Saints often use the term “revelation” as an umbrella term referring to any kind of communication from the Spirit. And that’s not necessarily wrong, but what Elder Scott does is he breaks things down a bit more. He gets more specific and differentiates between revelation and inspiration. He says,
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