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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: Experience is not authoritative... the Bible is. ____________________ "The only Word of God that we are ever enjoined to listen to is not the word that comes into our spiritual ears, as it were, from the spiritual ozone, but the Word that comes from the Scriptures." ____________________ 'For me to say the Bible doesn't teach this and then someone to say, "Well, here's what happened to me." All they are telling me is what happened to them. They are not proving to me that God was involved with it just because it happened to them. That's precisely what's in question. I'm not questioning the experience, I'm questioning the source and the validity of the experience. Experience is not authoritative to me...What is compelling to me is to go to the Scriptures and to show in the Scriptures where such a thing is a discipline.' (...) 'What happens here is that people don't do the hard work of learning...There is a distinct difference between the work of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament and that of the Old. The New being the fulfillment of the promise of Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 37 and following in Joel and a number of other places of the giving of the New Covenant. 'Now, here is what is interesting to me. I was having a conversation with a friend who...believes that this is an appropriate thing for Christians, yet at the same time this person didn't have a clear understanding of the difference between the old covenant and the new with regards to the working of the Holy Spirit, which is fundamental in understanding how to look at Christian life. 'This is my fear, ladies and gentlemen, and I'll end with this point. This skill is being offered, and what it ultimately involves, what it ultimately ends up being is a short cut to the real McCoy of knowledge and spiritual growth. Instead of investing our time learning the truth and working at making it a part of us so that we have a good understanding of the truth from the front to the back, from the beginning to the end, from Genesis to Revelation, we opt out for an easy way out, which is to let God just tell us and therefore we are not equipped. 'Not only that, but a lot of times when God tells us, what He tells us is false because it's not God telling us. So we've got a lot of screwy things going on with people who believe this kind of thing, and instead of being devoted to developing spiritual maturity and attaining Scriptural knowledge we want the quick fix, and then we call the quick fix spiritual maturity and knowledge. That's what is ironic about it. Instead of devoting ourselves to developing real maturity and attaining genuine Scriptural knowledge we go for the quick fix, and instead of developing mastery we want the Master to be sitting next to us during the tests of life whispering His answers in our ears. Do you know what that's called, ladies and gentlemen? That's called cheating. 'And there is no guarantee and no teaching and no instruction in the New Testament or Old that this is the way that we are to live our lives on a day to day basis. The only Word of God that we are ever enjoined to listen to is not the word that comes into our spiritual ears, as it were, from the spiritual ozone, but the Word that comes from the Scriptures. That's the one that we are told to learn, listen, heed, abide and hide in our heart.' ____________________ (www.str.org/free/commentaries/life/heargod.htm) |