Friends one issue that underpins much of the polarisation among believers on this forum is how we view and handle scripture.
We usually agree that the scripture is preserved by God to be a reliable and accurate for every generation.
Most of us trust that the church fathers down through the ages made the right judgements regarding what was included in the Scripture.
We usually agree that the scripture is an absolute authority regarding matters of truth and practice.
But...
There is much less clarity about the relationship between the Scripture and the "Word of God"
Some see that the Word of God went forth before time to establish all that is, and continues to hold together the very fabric of creation. This Word of God is also active within the believers as sheep hearing the voice of the Shepherd.
Others insist that the Scripture has replaced the Word of God. These folk do not give any credence to someone claiming that they "hear God's Voice" regardless of whether the claims align with the teachings of scripture.
Others insist that anything not particularly mentioned in Scripture is not from God.
Scripture records the early church hearing God's word personally so when this was meant to have ceased is not quite clear.
These early believers hosted the greatest revival ever seen yet they did not have the Scripture as we know it.
Where does all this leave us?
Can we legitimately expect to be sheep who hear His voice personally saying "this is the way - walk Ye in it" or must we be "Readers of His Word" and that is it.
Some traditions even insist that only the clergy can tell us what what the scripture is saying.
Where is Jesus in all of this - is it heresy to claim that He is a friend that speaks to us direct.
I believe God can talk to us but it is not exactly in words sometimes, and it is not to build doctrine or add something new to the Scriptures. They are personal messages to us in our walk with Him as a means to follow Him, and or to protect us, and or to know something important within the Bible. God has in the past talked to me before several times using His Word in a powerful way.
For example:
Back when I lived in the state I grew up in: There was this baby deer that was living in my back yard once for about two weeks. It's mother would come by and feed it and then leave. However, it would make noises to it's mother at night, which would sometimes make it hard for me to sleep. So the one day, I was presented with an opportunity to get rid of this baby deer safely. So I decided to put on my black rubber work gloves and go outside in order to grab him gently and throw him over the chain link fence back into the forest where it's mother was at.
So I walked really slow and got really close to him; And just when I was about to grab him, he quickly bolted to the front of the house. This scared me a little, because I did not want the little guy getting hit by any cars in the front of the house, seeing I live on a busy street. However, when I got to the front of the house, he did not go near the traffic of the road, which was good. So he started to move back towards the back yard again. However, this time he went into the neighbor's back yard. This was perfect because they had a gate to their back yard so I could close it behind me, ensuring my capture of the little guy.
So I pinned him behind some stacked up wood behind the neighbor's shed and I grabbed him. He was kicking and screaming as I held him in my hands; And then I threw him over the chain link fence back into the forest. He landed safely on the other side of the fence; And later, I eventually seen him reunite with his mother (Which put me at ease).
However, afterwards I kept thinking to myself of how scared this baby deer was when I was holding it in my hands. I mean, it had no idea what I was going to do it. It probably thought I was trying to either eat it or hurt it in some way. In fact, I could actually feel the fear dripping off of this poor little guy.
Anyways, later that evening, when I was watching a video on "
YouTube" by Chuck Missler, as per my usual routine thru out the week (back then), he told me about the following passages ...
Isaiah 13:11a -
"And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity ..."
Isaiah 13:13 -
"Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger."
Isaiah 13:14 -
"And it shall be as the chased roe, and as a sheep that no man taketh up: they shall every man turn to his own people, and flee every one into his own land."
So I said to myself. What is a "roe"?
So I looked it up on the internet and low and behold, a roe is a baby deer! Here I was just a few hours earlier chasing a baby deer and I could feel it's fear in the fact that I was chasing it. This was a passage that God wanted to show me. He wanted to show me that the world will one day run in fear as the chased roe when God (i.e. Jesus Christ) will return to end all evil and iniquity. It was powerful! Coincidence you might say?
There were more of these kinds of things that took place.
There was a time when me and my
fiancé
at the time (who is now my wife) had run into the same message over and over and over. We went into a book store and opened a book and it talked about God's forgiveness. We went to church and the part of the preach was on forgiveness. We kept seeing forgiveness repeated to us throughout the time my fiancé was visiting me from her country; This all led up to a situation where forgiveness came into play personally within something that happened during our trip. It hit us personally.
