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Why would He heal but not speak?How would you prove it?
The OP is addressing God speaking directly to people today. As I have explained, I (along with most of Christendom) hold that to be an errant view; however, I never said that God did not or would not physically heal people today. There's the distinction.
I don't see why you'd say that.All of orthodox Christianity for the past 2,000 believes that the canon of scripture is closed, and most of them understand that to mean that God does not speak directly to men any longer. Even when He did speak in the past, it was only to a very select group and only for a very specific purpose in redemptive history. This is the view of the vast majority of Christianity, so I'm not the one holding to an unusual or heterodox position. You are.
Excellent find, sunlover1!I don't see why you'd say that.
Even a Presbyterian church posted about how to hear God:
Article
"...The Bible proclaims a God who speaks. Folks, this is biblical. Of course, He speaks authoritatively and perfectly in His written word. But even this Word talks about his living voice. It sets up a relationship where we can hear the Lord and we’ll talk about how we do that. But the Bible proclaims a God who speaks to me in a living way right now! We heard that as Marilyn read John 10. Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice.” That’s a characteristic of being a disciple of Jesus. My sheep hear my voice. The whole point, Jesus says, is my sheep can grow into being able to hear it. Otherwise why would He bother speaking to us? They will run away from a stranger. Why? They don’t recognize His voice. So the Bible is saying here not only that Jesus speaks, but that you and I can learn, as John 10 just said, to recognize His voice. We can learn to distinguish it from the robber’s voice!..."
I don't see why you'd say that.
Even a Presbyterian church posted about how to hear God:
Article
"...The Bible proclaims a God who speaks. Folks, this is biblical. Of course, He speaks authoritatively and perfectly in His written word. But even this Word talks about his living voice. It sets up a relationship where we can hear the Lord and we’ll talk about how we do that. But the Bible proclaims a God who speaks to me in a living way right now! We heard that as Marilyn read John 10. Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice.” That’s a characteristic of being a disciple of Jesus. My sheep hear my voice. The whole point, Jesus says, is my sheep can grow into being able to hear it. Otherwise why would He bother speaking to us? They will run away from a stranger. Why? They don’t recognize His voice. So the Bible is saying here not only that Jesus speaks, but that you and I can learn, as John 10 just said, to recognize His voice. We can learn to distinguish it from the robber’s voice!..."
So, the supreme authority in all matters of doctrine and practice tells us to desire prophecy. If you deny the scripture's authority on the practice of prophecy, then you are not Sola Scriptura.
You cannot place a doctrine that is not in the Bible above the Bible and call yourself Sola Scriptura.
How can it escape you that you continually use extrabiblical sources to tell us why God doesn't speak (once we have the canon) and certain gifts have ceased? This cessationist teaching does not come from the Bible. The New Testament says God gives out these gifts. Anyone who claims Sola Scriptura must believe that God has not changed his will.Paul's message was directed at the church in Corinth which certainly was to desire the gift of prophecy as they didn't have a New Testament to guide them in the faith.
If you take it to mean that individual believers can desire and seek certain gifts which they fancy you end up with all sorts of difficulties because it is the Holy Spirit alone who determines who has what gift (1 Cor 12:11). Paul goes on to teach an important lesson in 1 Cor 12:14-20 whereby God alone places gifted individuals in the body of Christ just as he wanted them. This was the problem the Corinthians had - everybody wanted to be 'an eye'. You can desire a certain gift you fancy as much as you like. You can pray for it and seek it till you're blue in the face but unless it was given to you as he preordained you won't get it. People who refuse to accept that and insist they must have the gift they desire find themselves practicing an unbiblical counterfeit version of the gift.
In any case many of the gifts are no longer in operation. Most people would agree that the gift of apostleship has ceased, and on the basis of scripture and history it can be demonstrated that the miraculous and revelatory gifts (tongues, healings, prophecy etc) also ceased.
How can it escape you that you continually use extrabiblical sources to tell us why God doesn't speak (once we have the canon) and certain gifts have ceased? This cessationist teaching does not come from the Bible. The New Testament says God gives out these gifts. Anyone who claims Sola Scriptura must believe that God has not changed his will.
The teaching that God has stopped certain gifts is not in the Bible and it was not a popular teaching until the Reformation. Reformation teaching cannot claim greater authority than the Bible under Sola Scriptura.
Are you claiming that the Bible is our authority for faith and practice in everything except the gifts of the Holy Spirit? That's awfully convenient.
It's merely proof that an "orthodox" church isn't claiming that God stopped speaking.I fail to see how a sermon delivered at a church in Rochelle, Illinois in 2010 by a junior minister containing a number of errors is proof of anything.
Look at the prophetic example of Charles Spurgeon
“I could tell as many as a dozen similar cases [emphasis mine] in which I pointed at somebody in the hall without having the slightest knowledge of the person, or any idea that what I said was right, except that I believed I was moved by the Spirit to say it; and so striking has been my description, that the persons have gone away, and said to their friends, ‘Come, see a man that told me all things that ever I did; beyond a doubt, he must have been sent of God to my soul, or else he could not have described me so exactly.’ And not only so, but I have known many instances in which the thoughts of men have been revealed from the pulpit. I have sometimes seen persons nudge their neighbours with their elbow, because they had got a smart hit, and they have been heard to say, when they were going out, ‘The preacher told us just what we said to one another when we went in at the door’” (ibid., 227).
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“Our personal pathway has been so frequently directed contrary to our own design and beyond our own conception by singularly powerful impulses, and irresistibly suggestive providences, that it were wanton wickedness for us to deride the doctrine that God occasionally grants to his servants a special and perceptible manifestation of his will for their guidance, over and above the strengthening energies of the Holy Spirit, and the sacred teaching of the inspired Word. We are not likely to adopt the peculiarities of the Quakers, but in this respect we are heartily agreed with them.
It needs a deliberate and judicious reflection to distinguish between the actual and apparent in professedly preternatural intimations, and if opposed to Scripture and common sense, we must neither believe in them nor obey them. The precious gift of reason is not to be ignored; we are not to be drifted hither and thither by every wayward impulse of a fickle mind, nor are we to be led into evil by suppositious impressions; these are misuses of a great truth, a murderous use of most useful edged tools. But notwithstanding all the folly of hair-brained rant, we believe that the unseen hand may be at times assuredly felt by gracious souls, and the mysterious power which guided the minds of the seers of old may, even to this day, sensibly overshadow reverent spirits. We would speak discreetly, but we dare say no less.”
I agree with Spurgeon and the New Testament.
I call it Scripture! Thought you were SS too.My guess is that expressive individualism is at the heart of the idea, even the expectation, that God speaks to every and all Christians, individually.
You can call it what you will, Spurgeon's mind received impressions regarding specific information about individuals from the Holy Spirit. This is no mere insight, it was divinely revealed information that Spurgeon could not have known beforehand. It functioned as a sign which validated his preaching and led people to repent.Another gem from the 'Prince of Preachers':
The saint cares not for the dogmas of priests or the traditions of the elders, but, "Order my steps in Your Word" is his prayer. Some, I know, fall into a very vicious habit, which habit they excuse themselves—namely, that of ordering their footsteps according to impressions.
Every now and then I meet with people whom I think to be rather weak in the head, who will journey from place to place and will perform follies by the gross under the belief that they are doing the will of God because some silly whim of their diseased brains is imagined to be an inspiration from above.
http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols13-15/chs878.pdf
You can call it what you will, Spurgeon's mind received impressions regarding specific information about individuals from the Holy Spirit. This is no mere insight, it was divinely revealed information that Spurgeon could not have known beforehand. It functioned as a sign which validated his preaching and led people to repent.
I agree with Spurgeon's emphasis on the Bible. I am a Bible teacher and theologian. My priority is on understanding God's written word and helping my students do the same. But, I also hear from God and find his personal direction invaluable.
Here is an example of prophecy where God does not speak audibly and the prophecy is not written in scripture: 1 Samuel 10:9-11
9 As Saul turned to leave Samuel, God changed Saul’s heart, and all these signs were fulfilled that day. 10 When he and his servant arrived at Gibeah, a procession of prophets met him; the Spirit of God came powerfully upon him, and he joined in their prophesying. 11 When all those who had formerly known him saw him prophesying with the prophets, they asked each other, “What is this that has happened to the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?”
So even in the OT, prophecy is not as rigid as cessationists claim.
The idea the God talks back to us when we pray has become so accepted that it's difficult to challenge, but is it true or a cliché?
Smart phones really help with "words of knowledge".
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