Should we expect to hear the voice of God? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
My boss at the Post Office was surprised when I told her that hearing the voice of God is not a part of normative Christian living. It hasn’t been for centuries. It’s only been in more recent times that Christians have been convinced they are hearing the voice of God and that this is what everyone is supposed to do.
Someday, I would like to know where it started.
So when I’m browsing Kindle books and I see one about hearing the voice of God, I figure for the sake of argument, I’ll get it. It’s by Priscilla Shirer and it’s called Discerning The Voice of God. Who knows? Maybe it will give me something substantial on this.
Instead, I saw more and more how dangerous this idea is.
One of the big problems you find is that when you go through this book, you’ll find you learn a lot about the author. You won’t really learn a lot about God. She regularly says God was telling her XYZ and yet, we just have to take her word for it. But hey, having someone say they heard from God has never led to any problems before has it?
Did I mention I’m reading a book on Islam now and I’m reading something on Mormonism?
Now to be fair, Shirer would say that they disagree with Scripture, so they’re false, and I agree, but the point is they do claim to hear from God.
Early on, we are told by Shirer that God wants to tell her things, but she’s too busy talking to listen.
Remember all those times in the Bible when the people are speaking so much that they can’t hear the voice of God?
Neither do I.
At this point, she has a sidebar referencing Ezekiel 3:10. (At least it looks like a sidebar on Kindle.)
And he said to me, “Son of man, listen carefully and take to heart all the words I speak to you.
Let me just state something obvious.
You are not Ezekiel.
This is one of the problems with this kind of thinking. People who hold this always look and say “Look at Abraham or Moses or Habakkuk.” Yes. Those people heard from God. You’re not them. We always look and say “If I’m anyone in Scripture, I’m one of the great people.” No. You and I are far more likely to not be Moses but to be Joe Israelite wandering around the wilderness just trying to survive.
She says Isaiah 55:3 tells us to incline our ears to Him. Indeed, it does, but notice that of those ears, only one set of ears was hearing directly from God. Those were Isaiah’s.
She says to go to the house of God to listen is found in Ecclesiastes 5:1. Indeed, it is, but these were not individualists. These were people going to hear the word of God being given out by the priest. They were essentially going to church to hear a sermon. If God was always speaking anyway like Shirer thinks, why do you need to go to the house of God? If it’s a sermon, then it’s clear why you go to the house of God.
She says that it shows up fifteen times that if anyone has ears to hear the message, they must listen. Indeed! But that’s also given in Revelation and the message they are hearing is a letter that was written. It is not a personal message to them.
Seriously, with this bad of interpretation, I wouldn’t blame a reader if they stopped the book there. I would hope most would. I’m not such. I keep going to make sure and because I read bad books so you won’t have to.
The next reference is James 1:25:
But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.
Forgetting what they heard refers to the Law. It does not refer to a private revelation. Most people could not read so how will they know what the Scriptures say? Through hearing.
Later in the chapter, Shirer says she often feels led to get down and prostrate before God. Look. If you want to worship God that way, go ahead. I have no problem, but where on Earth does Scripture tell us that God leads us by our feelings? So many churches treat it like a staple and an obvious given. If we are people who claim to be Sola Scriptura, we’d better back what we say with Scripture.
Next she talks about how prayer used to be one way and she felt no closer to God at the end.
Let me stress this so much because so many people struggle with this.
Your relationship with God is not dependent on your feelings.
You can feel God is mad at you or feel He is pleased with you and all that means is that that is what you think at the time. There have been plenty of people who have had joy in doing what is wrong because of their feelings. There have been plenty of people who have suffered for doing something that is not wrong but they were convinced it was. All of it was based on feelings.
You can be feeling miserable and still be alright with God. Being a Christian does mean living on cloud nine all the time. Every single one of us will be sad at times. If the very Son of God could not avoid sadness on this Earth, I would be extremely arrogant to think I can.
Then she says Paul wrote about praying with his mind as well as with his spirit in 1 Cor. 14:15.
And?
That means that Paul was telling you to stop and listen to see what God says back?
Notice no one does that in Scripture. When Jesus gives us the Lord’s prayer, nowhere does He say “Now stop and hear what God says to you.” Paul wrote plenty on prayer. He never told us to listen to hear a voice from God in prayer.
She talks about Bible study and how perhaps God brings a Scripture to mind and is leading me there. It’s like God is a gamemaster dropping hints for you or something. Could it just be that you thought of that passage yourself because you know Scripture well? The danger with saying God led you to a passage is that you are starting to treat yourself as infallible. After all, if God did it, who are we as mere mortals to question that?
But it comes down to, did God do that, and if all you have is a strong feeling, that’s not enough.
She then quotes 1 Cor. 2:11 with saying the thoughts of God no one knows but the Spirit of God.
Again, I wonder “Why are you quoting this? How does this make your case?”
This quote shows up later:
First, it is “me and Him.” I come to prayer conscious of myself, my need, my desires. I pour these out to God. Second, prayer becomes “Him and me.” Gradually I become more conscious of the presence of God than of myself. Then it is only “Him.” God’s presence arrests me, captivates me, warms me, works on me. —Stephen Verney
Shirer, Priscilla. Discerning the Voice of God: How to Recognize When He Speaks (p. 33). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.
I did some looking and I don’t know much about it, but he did write a book called Into the New Age. It will take some further looking to see if that is just a bad title or if he was in that movement to some extent. It wouldn’t surprise me because the above statement is honestly pantheism. I could be misunderstanding it to be fair, but I find it a highly concerning quote.
Edited to add: After writing this, I did speak to Marcia Montenegro who is my go-to person on the New Age movement and I am quoting her from our Facebook conversation with permission:
Actually, what you quoted from Shirer I’ve heard from others like John Mark Comer, I think, and maybe Tyler Staton, and other contemplatives. The Trappist monk Keating said you can’t think of God when you’re praying and the goal is that there is no subject-object distinction. I’ve been trying to warn about this stuff for over 20 years but hardly anyone paid attention. Now the contemplative stuff is all over the church. Shirer was influenced by Jan Johnson who likes Rohr. Johnson also is the president of the Dallas Willard Foundation. They are all on the same page which I consider to be a counterfeit of Christianity. So I would call it is more Contemplative than New Age because New Agers don’t really pray. Some Christians who are really into New Age beliefs might pray but prayer makes no sense in the New Age. So I would call this Contemplative. I’ll look up Verney.
I then asked that many Christians might think contemplative prayer sounds good. We are to pray and we should contemplate on our prayers. Right? So what’s the problem? She has several articles on the topic and recommended this as a start.
We now return to what I originally wrote.
The favorite passage is always “My sheep hear my voice” in John 10. Question. Who in the audience that day heard Jesus speaking?
Answer: Everyone.
So all of them were Christians?
No.
The voice is the call to salvation and it is not a literal voice. It is a hideous misuse of Scripture to take the call to salvation and turn it into personal guidance everyday.
That’s all we have for this chapter. We’ll see what happens in later chapters.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)