Does it bother anyone else when military leaders like George Bush claim they act on direct communication from God? It scares the bejeebus out of me. It is not that I don't think God is talking to us - but it is that one step so many miss. Everything we hear we filter through a grid of experience, expectation and our own falleness. This is why even scripture is only rightfully interpreted in the context of the body of believers.
I love the prophetic side of Christianity, I love hearing from God and speaking into peoples lives. But, and this is a big but, it is not loving or God honouring to usurp the role of God in the lives of others. (Let alone for the whole world as in the case of Bush.) We expect God to speak, but when we share we always want to recognize that God first speaks to us and then confirms through the body. I don't care if you are quoting scripture to someone - it is so easy to grab a verse out of our own framework and hammer it into an application that just doesn't fit.
Anyway, it makes me think this book might make a good read for those who are not troubled by the myth of unmediated access.
2 comments:
Frank, great post. What you write about reminds me of something said by Luke Timothy Johnson in his _Faith's Freedom_:
The most prevalent abuse of God-talk is found in the mouths of religious people who speak blithly about God as though the Master of the Universe were a bosom friend. Confident declarations about God's will and God's speaking should be as scandalous to believers as to nonbelievers. Anyone speaking of God who does not remember that God is in heaven and we are on earth is a fool. We cannot talk about God as glibly as we talk about our neighbours. God is not available for such casual disclosure and manipulation.
Although perhaps overstated for affect, I think we Evangelicals do have a tendency to speak to casually about God, God's will and what we believe God is saying. As a pastor, can you think of a good book that can help a person to discern God's voice rightly and well (esp. from your own Charsmatic perspective)?
You know I've always appreciated Graham Cookes book on Developing Your Prophetic Gifting. He tends to have a good value of waiting and discerning when it comes to this area. He is squarely charismatic, so able to navigate that langauge well, but not over the top like some of the other "Prophetic" authors I've read. The other person I've really appreciated in the past is Steve Witt. I don't know what he's done recently, but he wrestles with the balance of being a "prophetic" people and understanding that we are fallable human beings.
My question to wrestle with is have we learned from the situations that led Ignatius to stop ecstatic prophecy, or are we blindly ignoring that there was a real problem he was seeking to address. Much as I dislike his solution ("Let nothing be done except by the bishop") I do respect that he did recognize the problem.
Glad you liked the post.
Actually a more devotional book that is brilliant on the subject is Ken Gire's Window's of the Soul. Ken explores the different ways we hear God's voice through art, movies, conversation, ect. It is a good work, I read it years back and it was very encouraging.
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