Hi friends,
There seems to exist a spectrum of convictions regarding God's will to guide His children. Some say that guidance can only be found in the Bible, others that fervent prayer combined with Bible reading and proper meditation can yield specific, personal and extra-biblical guidance/wisdom.
What accounts for this difference in conviction among believers? What has been your experience with this matter?
When the first Christians in Acts were being led by the Spirit, they didn't have access to the Scripture that you and I possess today. But in Scripture we have, as Paul wrote, all that we need to be "perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (
2 Timothy 3:16-17; Psalms 119:105; Matthew 4:4, etc.) God's word is sufficient to guide every believer; the application of its spiritual principles, truths, wisdom and commands ought to be the first and primary means of navigating life for the Christian person.
This is not to say, though, that the Spirit will never lead a believer very directly and personally to some particular place or act, as he did in the record of Scripture; it's just not the norm. And when the Spirit does so lead, His leading is overt, clear, unmistakable and never in contradiction to the principles, truths, wisdom and commands of Scripture.
Too often, believers make the Spirit's leading a highly subjective and very private, internal event. "I heard God's voice," or "God said to me," or "I felt God was leading me..." and so on. But this isn't how the Spirit led in Scripture. Not once in the NT are we told that the Spirit spoke to someone as a voice in their head, or as a strong impulse or feeling, nor is there any teaching from any of the writers of the NT that this is what one should expect in walking with God.
Instead, when God had something to communicate to someone in the record of Scripture He was always very direct, overt and plain. There was never any confusion about whether or not God had spoken and what He was saying (except with dreams, for which God provided an interpreter). A burning bush, a visit from the angel of the Lord, an external voice speaking out of the air, a disembodied hand writing on a wall, a vision or dream, a declaration from a prophet of God, plagues, snakes, the ground opening up and swallowing the wicked, fire from heaven, a talking donkey, Jesus himself saying, "Follow me," and so on - these are the ways in which God communicated with His creatures. Nowhere in the record of Scripture (that I'm aware of) do we read that God "spoke as a voice in the mind of..."
The problem with the "God told me in my mind/feelings" types is that, if they went strictly by what Scripture indicates, they'd have no basis for their very subjective, private, internal communications from God. This just isn't how God acted in the record of Scripture. But never mind that. Today God talks to people all the time. And if you don't believe it, well, you just don't really know God, then.
In this attitude lies one of the terrible, divisive deceits of the devil, I believe. By means of this subjective, "God told me" stuff, an "elite" spiritual class is established. Lesser, duller Christians don't hear God speak to them at every turn in their heads. They haven't "trained" themselves to hear God's voice (which is another notion never taught in the Bible), which is so difficult to make out that one needs to attend special conferences and read certain instructional books in order to learn to hear God properly.
This encourages great credulity among believers. All they require from each other as grounds for their claims about what God has said to them is the making of the claim itself. "God said to me..." one says. "Oh! Wonderful! What did He say? Tell me everything!" says the other. No questioning, no demand for proper justification of the claim, just immediate, uncritical acceptance. And they get used to this unchallenged condition, where whatever they claim - even if it is plainly unbiblical - is taken as from God. The thunder and lightning that issues from them when they do get challenged is something to behold! Rage, threats, ridicule, dismissal - these flow in a loud torrent from believers who've grown accustomed to their claims of divine communication being accepted without challenge, which suggests powerfully that God is not in their claims at all.
Anyway. The Spirit can and does lead believers in very particular, direct ways - at times. And he does so in the manner described in Scripture. But such leading is never said in Scripture to be the norm, the standard experience of God the Christian should chase after and "train" themselves to have. We have God's word and, generally, it is entirely sufficient to guide us through life and service to God.
