Christian Mythology: 27. Speaking – Myth: Man no longer receives divine inspiration

Why do so many Christians believe in a silent God? The standard answer to "How does God 'speak' to us today?" is typically fourfold: from the Bible of course, through other believers, through circumstances, and through prayer.

Let's look just at that last one. How does God speak to us through prayer? By a show of hands please, how many believe God actually speaks to us in prayer? Okay. How many believe this is just a figure of speech? God is really silent on His end of prayer. If there are any replies, they must line up with Scripture, AND, they certainly won't be unique and personal. After all, we don't want to get mystical. Our God is not some New Age god who speaks audibly and interacts personally with us.

Really? What Word of God are you familiar with?

At Antioch, God said this out loud, "As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them."

When Paul spent three years in the desert learning from Jesus, he says, "that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." Paul received out loud first person instruction from our risen Lord.

God says, "But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him."

Jesus says, "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you."

Here is where we get mystical. Earlier this year I went to a Christian Writer's conference. The speaker shared about her son's demise into horrible sin. He finally ended up in jail and she refused this time to bail him out. "I don't want you back until you are that person God made you long ago." She kept a picture of him on her mirror. It was a picture of that former man before the scars of sin took their toll on his face and body. She prayed that vision to God.

She said to us that this is a perfectly acceptable way to pray and ask. Visioning. Oh yeah, it's not New Age. They got it from us!

It's the same thing with God speaking out loud, in person, and interactive with us. He says He will. You just read it in black and white. Do you believe it? Well, maybe you heard about it happening with other kinds of Christians. But it simply wouldn't be acceptable in your church. Certainly not normal. Why not? Do you talk to your children or parents every day? Why can't God do the same?

We claim a personal relationship to Jesus Christ yet how impersonal we are to keep Him at such length that we refuse to hear Him or spend time in His presence.