God Told Me

So what's a common phrase you hear in evangelical Christianity today? If the title of the blog post hasn't already told you what I'm talking about, I'll just tell you: God told me. That's a very common thing to hear in (and out of) most churches these days. Now, rather than do my normal thing and throw my opinions in your face, I'm going to try to get people thinking about what it really means when we say such things.

Where Does The Authority Come From?

When we read the Bible, I wonder: do we think of what we're reading? Is it just another book? No, what we're reading is the very Word of God, given to us to save us, to instruct us, sanctify us, and guide us. God Himself inspired the writers of Scripture to, well, write Scripture! As a result, what we have is a perfectly infallible, authoritative Word that has the final say on everything because, well, it's from God, Who is perfectly infallible and authoritative.

Now, the Reformers knew this. That was one of the big reasons they separated from the Catholic Church; the Catholic Church said that the church (meaning specifically the clergy and the Pope) had equal authority to the Bible (hint: they don't, and neither do we). The Reformers understood that absolutely nothing has more authority than the Bible. Why is that? Because it comes from God!

So when we say God told me this, aren't we, in fact, saying that whatever we say God told us has just as much authority as the Bible itself?

Well...

There's a common argument against that statement that, frankly, I don't understand. The words and visions given to the church now aren't as authoritative as the Bible.

Really? Because last I checked, if a Word comes from the absolutely authoritative God, shouldn't it be perfectly and absolutely authoritative? And if it's not, wouldn't that mean that it's not from God? Or are we saying that God has less authority than He used to?

What About Acts?

I know someone might say that since we have recorded evidence in the Bible that God spoke directly to people, He obviously does that. And I'd fully agree with you that we have that conclusive evidence. But the problem with that argument is that all those times you're talking about are recorded in the Bible. What I mean by that is that those words from God were later added to the Scripture. So if the words spoken to the church now are, in fact, from God, shouldn't we perhaps be writing them down? Why isn't the Bible much longer? Why does it stop almost two thousand years ago if God is still giving direct, extra-Biblical instruction to the church? Shouldn't those instructions be recorded for the whole church to hear?

These are honest questions, because I know I have friends and family who believe these things and I honestly don't understand.

An Afterword

Please note that when I'm saying all this, I'm not arguing against or doubting things such as God's providence. I absolutely believe God still works in the world and makes some things that He wants us to do clear when the Bible doesn't say explicitly, Adam, move to Olympia. I know it was God's will for us to move here because we moved here. If it wasn't God's will, or part of His plan, we wouldn't be here right now.

And when we think of words or passages from the Bible, is it because God brought them to mind? Absolutely, I have no doubt about that. And when we look on the earth as see God's glory, we can know God is communicating to us His glory through His creation.

But when we say God told us something directly, aren't there serious ramifications? And what do we do with that?