“God told me”: The Challenge of Religious Language
Here is a PDF overview of the first six “everyday practices” from our Sermon Series The Intertwined Life: Everyday Practices for a World Gone Mad.
I distinctly remember my freshman year at Baylor University.
I had many burning questions from “Why do I need an email address?” to “Where’s the gym for pick-up basketball games?”
Yet, midway through my freshman year, a burning question of faith roared to the top of the list: “Why does everyone seem to hear the Lord speaking with such clarity and regularity?” I was surrounded by (some) zealous Baptists who loved to begin faith conversations by stating, “The Lord told me…”
After about 100 times of hearing my friends exclaim: “The Lord told me”, I had my own question for the Lord: “God, why don’t you ever speak directly to me?” I was experiencing a mini-crisis of faith.
Eventually, I sensed that in the instances where I might say: “Here’s where I sense the Lord is leading me” or “God’s Word taught me this cool thing” or “I believe the Lord is calling me to…”, my Baptists friends were more comfortable with “God spoke to me” or “God told me” language.
At the time, I chalked it up to denominational differences and differences in personality.
Today, upon further theological reflection, I believe my hesitancy to state so baldly “God told me” and “God said to me” is based upon two ideas:
1) The Sufficiency of the Word of God.
“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the their of all things, through whom also he created the world” (Heb. 1:1-2).
The point of Hebrews 1 is that in Christ “we have the fullness and finality of God’s redemption and revelation”.
Kevin DeYoung writes, “And we must not separate redemption from revelation. Both were finished and fulfilled in the Son…The words of the Bible and the Word made flesh are distinct, but they are also inseparable. Every act of redemption—from the Exodus, to the return from exile, to the cross itself—is also a revelation. They tell us something about the nature of sin, the way of salvation, and the character of God. Likewise, the point of revelation is always to redeem. The words of the prophets and the apostles are not meant to make us smart, but to get us saved. Redemption reveals. Revelation redeems.”
“Does this mean God no longer speaks? Not all. But we must think carefully about how he speaks in these last days. God now speaks through his Son.”
“So, yes, God still speaks. He is not silent. He communicates with us personally and directly. But this ongoing speech is not ongoing revelation. “The Holy Spirit no longer reveals any new doctrines but takes everything from Christ (John 16:14),” Bavinck writes….In these last days, God speaks to us not by many and various ways, but in one way, through his Son. And he speaks through his Son by the revelation of the Son’s redeeming work that we find first predicted and prefigured in the Old Testament, then recorded in the gospels, and finally unpacked by the Spirit through the apostles in the rest of the New Testament.” Read DeYoung’s entire article here.
So when I heard my friends say “God spoke to me,” it felt to me, theologically, that the immediacy and clarity of that kind of religious language should be reserved exclusively for the Word of God.
Impressions are different. The Holy Spirit’s leading is different than God speaking decisively and finally through his Son (Heb. 1:2).
2) Theological Humility
One of the weaknesses of John Eldredge’s religious language that he utilizes throughout Get Your Life Back: Everyday Practices for a World Gone Mad, is that he gives off the impression that when he enters the kitchen, “God tells me this,” and when he sits down in the living room, “God tells me that”.
That kind of religious language, I believe, could use some theological humility.
We are to enjoy a personal and intimate relationship with our Heavenly Father. That is the hallmark of an evangelical faith. Yet, that kind of “casual” and “immediate” encounter by God seems to be worlds away from how God typically speaks and reveals himself in Scripture.
When God speaks, the world is created (Gen. 1). When God speaks, the apostle John falls down as though dead (Rev. 1:17). When God shows up, people are undone (Isaiah 6:5, Luke 5:8-10).
Brother Lawrence in The Practice of the Presence of God talks about a sweet communion with his Savior even while doing the most menial of tasks (like washing dishes) at the monastery. No doubt, that can be true! Yet the humility of Brother Lawrence invites you “practice the presence of God” without resorting to describing God’s direct speech outside of the Bible.
The point is that the way we talk about the faith matters.
The sufficiency of the Word of God matters, even in our Christian world which is always looking for something unique, fascinating, and alluring other than the Word of God. We must not become bored with the Word of God yet always extol its utter Sufficiency for life and godliness.
By the same token, theological humility matters. We should never presume to be more in touch with the Almighty God than is biblically and reasonably warranted. We should not speak as if God is our Genie in the Bottle or Must Show Up at our Every Decision. Being a Christian means being authentic to the entire repertoire of the human and biblical experience of God: sometimes God withdraws his presence, his silence is a mystery to us, and we wonder with the Psalmist: “How long will you hide your face from me?” (Ps. 13:1). In fact, these experiences of God are much more commonplace for the people of God than we often dare admit.
In our zeal to hear from God, let us not forget humility before God.