.

[jimmyjimmy]

Thinking quickly....He spoke as not one of the scribes.
God is love. He is our Friend - closer than a brother.

You haven't answered my question. That's OK. You don't have to.; however, for this, you had to think "quickly", as if there is no time, but then you wrote a long details post about your experiences, does that not demonstrate that you value your experiences as more important and authoritative than His word?

 

[jimmyjimmy]

Am I understanding this aright?? :

ANYTHING written ABOUT the Bible is an ADDITION to the Bible...

Therefore...

Your comments will never have any value...

Including your comment above...

Did you really mean to say this??

I mean, IF you really mean what you say, you can ONLY speak Bible in order to say anything of value...

Seems oxymoronic, yes?

Arsenios

People writing *about* God's word are not very often saying that *God* spoke to them, and almost none are saying that their words are actually God's words.

 

[vinsight4u]

/

 

[Peter J Barban]

thatbrian, in my case, the internal voice of God is not due to self-talk. I don't like self-talk and rarely do it.

It is also not merely my imagination, as I have written a novel with lots of dialog that came from my imagination. There is a clear difference between hearing the voice of God and somehow creating a voice that appears to be God's.

On the other hand, I understand your skepticism on this issue. I feel skeptical when others talk about hearing from God. I don't just assume that they really have heard from God. If it is not an important issue, I say, "That's great" and move on. But if the message/issue is important, then I take steps to test if the message is from God or not.
A few years ago, my pastor, claimed, from the pulpit, that God told him that our church needs to support a new ministry plan.
However, in the past, he was a cessationist. So, after the sermon, I asked him, in private, if God had really spoken to him. The pastor admitted that he had not heard from God, rather he just said that to get people to agree with his plan. The plan itself was fine, so I didn't make a big deal about it, but he was embarrassed enough to not claim that he heard God's voice again. At least, when I was around.

 

[sunlover1]

Prophesies are words people speak about *God's Word* to *other* people.

By, "God's Word, are you referring to Scripture?

 

[Anguspure]

I disagree with your commentary.
I hear His voice!
Not as often as I'd like to,
but the variable is me, not Him.

He once told me that the variable is caused by "noise" between us. In the same way that a digital or radio signal might become garbled by input of non-information carrying signals so the voice of God becomes less intelligible when we allow the day to day busyness and sin to degrade the relationship between us.
Paul, in the letter to the Ephesians, urges us not to grieve the Holy Spirit for this reason. It is the Spirit of Christ that is the relationship between God and ourselves and we live by the Spirit that we have been given.

 

[jimmyjimmy]

The pastor admitted that he had not heard from God, rather he just said that to get people to agree with his plan.

I am shocked that he would, from the pulpit, lie and say that God told him, and I am twice as shocked that he admitted that God didn't speak to him afterward! I might look for another church. . .

 

[jimmyjimmy]

He once told me that the variable is caused by "noise" between us.

Who told you this? I'm not sure what you are saying.

In the same way that a digital or radio signal might become garbled by input of non-information carrying signals so the voice of God becomes less intelligible when we allow the day to day busyness and sin to degrade the relationship between us.

Do you think that this idea is very important for all Christians to understand?

 

[Arsenios]

Well, I believe that God would even help someone to remember butter.
I have been known to be a bit absent minded, and I discuss this with the
Father every time I screw up, but seriously, He helps me with things
that most people would say "oh bull"..
Reminds me of the time about 20 years ago that I couldn't pay my light bill.
I had just started stretching my faith muscles, and a lady from the power company
came to turn off my lights :/
I small children and would not have the money until the next day so when she came
to my door i told her that i was broke and she said she would have to turn off the
power on the side of the house.
I said, okay and smiled nicely at her.
Then right to the kitchen table i sat praying by faith that Father would not allow my
power to die.
I remembered that He'd said that if we had faith, if we asked according to His will.
etc. so.. I thought i would ask Him to help me out.
As I prayed, the light above the table flickered, I kept praying, then it went dark. I
continued to stand in faith believing that He really cared and would hear my prayer.
It came back on, it went dark again, and eventually, it came back on.
The doorbell rang, the woman stood there with her tools in hand. she said, "i can't
get it to turn off, I will have to send someone tomorrow. I smiled and said, "I'm
not surprised". She asked if I had tampered with the electrical box. I said "no"
She said, "why did you say that then?" and I told her how I had been praying.
She left .. I paid my bill before they came back.!
That was about faith, not hearing God.
But the next part relates to your comment.
My close friend was dabbling in Christianity, but in the sects that are iffy.
I told her my awesome story! All about how Good God is, etc.
Her words to me. "Well you have cigarettes and coffee and God saved your
power? Hardly!"

Yeah, I did, years ago I smoked.
Yeah, I was a sinner, and dumb and much more.
But He heard my prayer.

Might be super important to someone that they
go home with butter. Might be the needed ingredient
for the cake they're baking for the neighbor who's
mom just died. who knows. But i won't discount the
idea that God could/or would remind someone to get
their butter, because He carries my butt. Not bragging.
I know it's not His ideal. He wants us to "Grow up" in Him.

When someone is living hand to mouth in poverty with children, and is praying to God for help with day to day hand to mouth issues, then yes, of course, God will hear and provide... Amazing how it works... But the key is profound need... And yes, if the butter is important, God can and often does see to it that it gets remembered...

The other side, that gets missed, is that not all such reminders are from God, but can be picked up by demonic powers who are seeking to trip a person of faith into the vainglory [pride] of thinking that they are so holy that they "have God's ear" and that God has made them special to Himself...

Anymore, in my old age, when I lose something, which is often, and I actually do manage to find it again, I just mumble "Thank-You Lord" and let it go, knowing it will happen again, and soon at that, and that IF God wants me to have lost it, I will have lost it, and if found, then found... And I don't attach myself all that much to either outcome...

God has certainly blessed you in your poverty, my Friend!

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Arsenio's, when you say "Anything written about the bible is an addition to the bible."

Even when people like John MacArthur or RC Sproul write notes and add them to the pages of the scripture that is not an addition. We as evangelicals do not consider any comments on the bible as inerrantly/infallibly inspired, and thus it is not an addition to the bible.

In my previous post that you refer too I was referring to modern day oral revelation as the addition to the bible.

I really should explain, but I now have very little time and will probably not be on the boards as much. In fact I now have to go back to work.

Day Jobs!

I am plagued with one myself...

Forgive my abruptness...

Commentary is inherently an addition, however it is arrived at...

Unavoidable...

Arsenios

 

[sunlover1]

When someone is living hand to mouth in poverty with children, and is praying to God for help with day to day hand to mouth issues, then yes, of course, God will hear and provide... Amazing how it works... But the key is profound need... And yes, if the butter is important, God can and often does see to it that it gets remembered...

The other side, that gets missed, is that not all such reminders are from God, but can be picked up by demonic powers who are seeking to trip a person of faith into the vainglory [pride] of thinking that they are so holy that they "have God's ear" and that God has made them special to Himself...

Anymore, in my old age, when I lose something, which is often, and I actually do manage to find it again, I just mumble "Thank-You Lord" and let it go, knowing it will happen again, and soon at that, and that IF God wants me to have lost it, I will have lost it, and if found, then found... And I don't attach myself all that much to either outcome...

God has certainly blessed you in your poverty, my Friend!

Arsenios

Thank you
Yes, He is awesome!
and yes, we do get thoughts put into our heads by
the voice of the enemy.
We have to take them captive.
Doubt a lot of folks bother with that either though.

 

[jimmyjimmy]

Commentary is inherently an addition, however it is arrived at...

Following that logic, a sermon is as well.

 

[Winter_Rose]

Thank you
Yes, He is awesome!
and yes, we do get thoughts put into our heads by
the voice of the enemy.
We have to take them captive.
Doubt a lot of folks bother with that either though.

We have our thoughts, the things that the enemy puts in and God's thoughts.

 

[Arsenios]

People writing *about* God's word are not very often saying that *God* spoke to them, and almost none as saying that their words are actually God's words.

I have never heard of anyone telling us that God told them how to interpret a passage of Scripture...

If the question is interpretation of a passage, the worshiping community that initially gave us the Bible and its descendants form the interpretational matrix for its understanding... To approach the Bible as an outsider to this Faith Community and its praxis of the [Apostolic] Faith of Christ, and think that one can divine its real meaning exegetically according to language and syntax and cultural millieu etc outside the Faith that actually wrote it, and has been interpreting it for 2000 years, is simply vain...

And God has never stopped speaking with His Faithful...

Remember the Ananias who baptized Paul?

Did he speak with God?

Some have argued with Him...

One wrestled with Him...

Holding a Bible up in the air and saying THIS is the Word of God and the ONLY way God communicates with mankind is fine in the rhetoric of the Reformation where Europe is being tyranized by an apostatic Latin See, but the Holy Tradition of interpretation has held the center all this time, through persecutions and heresies and all manner of evils, and is still living and breathing... And we still get our direction from God, and we kiss our Bibles in the Liturgies of the Body of Christ when they are opened and read each day... But just as we are not subordinated to our Patriarch's opinions, nor that of the Latin Pope, neither are we headed by a Book we have written, but Christ is our Head, and Him do we follow, in the Holy Tradition of the Church of 2000 years now, and counting...

Prophesy is alive and well in the Holy Spirit of the Apostolic Faith - Christ's Holy Spirit... And it has little to do with future events, and nothing to do with providing dates for world history via Revelation, which is forbidden by Revelation itself... It has now mostly to do with prophetic insight for the sake of directing the Faithful in their Walk in the Way in Christ...

God is living and real and every day, and we have converse with Him often, as with our best and absolutely most treasured Friend ever... While we do have unimaginably exalted Saints, we also have everyday ones, and Christ loves us all, and cares for us, together with all His Household, both in this life and in the next...

One simply cannot substitute our Holy Writ for God Who GAVE it to us and caused it to be written and preserved and treasured... God is not a Book, and the Book is ABOUT God, but is NOT God... Protestants need to outgrow their Reformation and its usage of the Bible to overturn an apostatic Rome... God is Who is needed, and not the Book He gave to us...

Enough of this rant!

Forgive me for running on...

May it not offend...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Following that logic, a sermon is as well.

Indeed...

Can't be avoided...

So be careful in what you do, for you may be the only Bible some will ever see...

Arsenios

 

[jimmyjimmy]

I have never heard of anyone telling us that God told them how to interpret a passage of Scripture...

If the question is interpretation of a passage, the worshiping community that initially gave us the Bible and its descendants form the interpretational matrix for its understanding... To approach the Bible as an outsider to this Faith Community and its praxis of the [Apostolic] Faith of Christ, and think that one can divine its real meaning exegetically according to language and syntax and cultural millieu etc outside the Faith that actually wrote it, and has been interpreting it for 2000 years, is simply vain...

And God has never stopped speaking with His Faithful...

Remember the Ananias who baptized Paul?

Did he speak with God?

Some have argued with Him...

One wrestled with Him...

Holding a Bible up in the air and saying THIS is the Word of God and the ONLY way God communicates with mankind is fine in the rhetoric of the Reformation where Europe is being tyranized by an apostatic Latin See, but the Holy Tradition of interpretation has held the center all this time, through persecutions and heresies and all manner of evils, and is still living and breathing... And we still get our direction from God, and we kiss our Bibles in the Liturgies of the Body of Christ when they are opened and read each day... But just as we are not subordinated to our Patriarch's opinions, nor that of the Latin Pope, neither are we headed by a Book we have written, but Christ is our Head, and Him do we follow, in the Holy Tradition of the Church of 2000 years now, and counting...

Prophesy is alive and well in the Holy Spirit of the Apostolic Faith - Christ's Holy Spirit... And it has little to do with future events, and nothing to do with providing dates for world history via Revelation, which is forbidden by Revelation itself... It has now mostly to do with prophetic insight for the sake of directing the Faithful in their Walk in the Way in Christ...

God is living and real and every day, and we have converse with Him often, as with our best and absolutely most treasured Friend ever... While we do have unimaginably exalted Saints, we also have everyday ones, and Christ loves us all, and cares for us, together with all His Household, both in this life and in the next...

One simply cannot substitute our Holy Writ for God Who GAVE it to us and caused it to be written and preserved and treasured... God is not a Book, and the Book is ABOUT God, but is NOT God... Protestants need to outgrow their Reformation and its usage of the Bible to overturn an apostatic Rome... God is Who is needed, and not the Book He gave to us...

Enough of this rant!

Forgive me for running on...

May it not offend...

Arsenios

It was a rant. It did offend, and you did accuse me of Bible worship; however, all is forgiven.

The importance of this subject cannot be overstated. The very first chapters of Genesis give us all the reason in the world to take the subject deadly seriously.

 

[sunlover1]

One simply cannot substitute our Holy Writ for God Who GAVE it to us and caused it to be written and preserved and treasured... God is not a Book, and the Book is ABOUT God, but is NOT God... Protestants need to outgrow their Reformation and its usage of the Bible to overturn an apostatic Rome... God is Who is needed, and not the Book He gave to us...

Thank you!

 

[Gwen-is-new!]

just like "Till" did with Kevin in Michigan. COmeon, that
was pure blind faith!

Who ?

 

[Gwen-is-new!]

"God told me" in everyone I've pressed on the issue, is a feeling, not God's voice, and people would best serve their fellow man by referring to it as such. Why can't we rather say: I feel that I should quit my job? Is that so difficult?

When I say "God told me", I definitely don't mean anything that can't be backed in scripture! I didn't know we were talking special revelation in this thread.. yikes!

I'm guessing when you press them and they say it's a "feeling".. you are misunderstanding feelings to be some fickle and shakeable thing, subjective, and HE is the solid rock on which we stand, so that flies in your face (I do see where you are coming from). It demonstrates your awe of HIM, but maybe show some mercy?

To me, "God told me" means that He brought HIS word/scripture(s) to my memory and thoughts. His words that I have heard (preachers) and memorized over the past 15 years, pieces from sermons, hymns, etc. come to my mind - that is Him talking to me. He told me is HIM bringing it to the forefront of my mind! Thoughts I would have never had on my own, in my fleshly woman world.

I believe this is what scripture says is the roles of the Holy Spirit - the PERSON living inside us.. ie, we hear from people we are relating to.

To me, "God told me" means He put others on my hearts - for example, he prompts me to pray for a friend, love on a sister in Christ, ask someone how they are -- anything that comes to mind that is NOT about me.. is from HIM.

jm2c

 

[sunlover1]

Who ?

A post earlier in the thread, couldn't remember the posters entire name, it
was a very interesting story.