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NASB | Hebrews 1:1 God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Hebrews 1:1 God, having spoken to the fathers long ago in [the voices and writings of] the prophets in many separate revelations [each of which set forth a portion of the truth], and in many ways, |
Subject: How does God speak to us? |
Bible Note: Does God talk to you personally? "A Private Hot Line to God?" by Gregory Koukl 'Does God talk to you personally? Would you bet your life on it? Claiming to receive personal messages from God on a regular basis places subjective experience on the same level as Scripture, Greg argues. This is the claim of a prophet, and not even Old Testament prophets did so unless they were willing to die for the claim. 'I've made what I think is a telling observation about those who hold to a dual source of special revelation. Whenever an organization says, "We believe the Bible is inspired plus we believe our leadership is inspired," or "We believe the Bible is inspired plus we believe this other book of ours" (like the Book of Mormon, for example) "is inspired," the Bible always ends up taking the back seat instead of being on equal footing with these other sources of special revelation. 'I think most Christians will be comfortable with that assessment. This, though, raises a question about Evangelical claims to multiple sources of special revelation. For all our talk about sola Scriptura, many also hold that God speaks to them on a regular basis giving true information about Himself and specific directions for their lives. Their claim is, essentially, "I believe the Bible is a bona fide source of information and the Spirit also gives private information directly to me." The second step frequently follows the first: The personal, subjective sense of what a person thinks God is telling him trumps the objective Scripture. 'I was teaching from the Bible recently in a large Evangelical church here in Southern California, and I was publicly opposed by a woman who challenged my view not on the basis of a better interpretation of Scripture (she completely ignored my exegesis), but on the basis of what she was convinced the Holy Spirit had told her. She called me a heretic and said I was sinning because I was "analyzing and dissecting the Bible" instead of letting the Holy Spirit speak to me. My view was merely "man's interpretation." You'd be amazed at how often I run into that kind of response by otherwise orthodox Christians. 'Note that I have a very robust doctrine of the Holy Spirit. I'm charismatic in that I believe in the perpetuity of spiritual gifts and in energetic worship. The real question is-- and this is vital-- Are we justified in claiming that our personal, private, first-person, subjective experiences give us authoritative knowledge about God, or about what God wants us to do? 'If a woman said, "God told me to marry this man," that wouldn't be contrary to Scripture unless he was a non-Christian or already married. Even if he was a Christian, though, the statement begs a different question: Does Scripture give us the liberty to assign the authority of divine fiat to our subjective experiences? 'My answer is nowhere does the Bible give us that liberty. It does not enjoin us to assess our feelings and then judge whether they are a manifestation of the voice of God or not.' This is an excerpt from the article. To read more go to: ID# 85421 at this website (StudyBibleForum) and/or: (www.str.org/free/commentaries/life/aprivate.htm). |