"God Told Me..."

Image from - https://www.redeemermn.org/messages/hearinggodsvoice. Retrieved June 29th, 2024.

Something that features prominently in much charismatic theology today is the idea that present-day believers can hear God’s voice in personal and tangible ways. Sometimes this is framed as the gift of prophecy, or as being led by the Holy Spirit, or as discernment. This theology and spiritual practice, as is the case with the charismatic movement in general, is partly a reaction against more conservative theologies that have no room for direct communication from God to the believer outside the reading and preaching of Scripture. Charismatic churches usually emphasize that what the believer or group of believers hear(s) from the Holy Spirit must line up with and not deviate from the teaching of Scripture. Whilst this is a good start, my opinion is that oftentimes charismatic communities are so shallow in their understanding and teaching of the Bible that they are ill-equipped to actually follow through on this check and balance, if you could call it that. This is part of why we have so many charismatic leaders who are ‘hearing God say’ quite outlandish things! As is often the case with me, and as is the case with the church movement of which I am now a part (the Vineyard), I want to advocate a middle-ground-approach: I personally don’t think that the word-restrictive approach (God only speaks nowadays through the Bible) is very convincing biblically, and I am deeply concerned about the way in which so many charismatic leaders today are basing their sermons, worship songs, books and even entire church movements on things that they have ‘heard from God’ which, when push comes to shove, don’t actually reflect the teaching of Scripture and don’t even attempt to learn from the historic teachings of the universal Church.

This brings me to the title of this blog post. I have seen several near-disasters in people’s lives come about because they ‘heard God say fill in the blank’, and without any further discernment-related practices, actions or precautions, they went for it, with ‘it’ often being a major life decision. This is a good example of a charismatic spiritual practice that has not taken into account the collective and historical wisdom of the Church. Many theologians, past and present, have reflected on the spiritual practice of Christian discernment. As someone who does identify as a charismatic Christian, I do make room in my theology and personal practice of discernment for hearing from God in a direct, personal and tangible sense. I support this Scripturally with several key texts from the book of Acts. For example, the leadership of the Jerusalem church, at the end of their letter to the gentile believers which they produced after the so-called ‘Jerusalem council’, wrote “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements:” (Acts 15:28, NIV). It is clear that some kind of discernment is being referenced here. The Jerusalem leadership had some way of communicating with the Holy Spirit such that they not only spoke to Him (or to the Father assisted by Him), but that they also received communication back from Him in some way. More conservative evangelicals here would be quick to say that it is a bit of a leap to go from this text all the way to the charismatic practice of hearing actual sentences from the Holy Spirit and writing them down. I would agree, until we get to texts such as Acts 8:29 “The Spirit told Philip, ‘Go to that chariot and stay near it’” (NIV). At this point, the conservative evangelical is forced to either adopt cessationism – ‘This happened then but no longer happens now’, or to perhaps argue something like ‘Philip was a key leader in the church and so everyday Christians now can’t expect to have experiences like this, and besides, neither I, my pastor, nor anyone I have ever known has heard an entire sentence directly from the Holy Spirit.’ My response here would be to point out that Philip was not one of the twelve, he was one of the Greeks appointed to serve in Acts 6, and also that the most natural way to read the New Testament, without the self-imposed blinders of the unbiblical notion of cessationism, is that Jesus’ followers throughout all of church history are called to practice the same kind of supernatural ministry that was modelled first by Jesus himself, then by the twelve and Paul, then by figures such as Stephen and Philip, and so on. Also, just because neither you nor anyone you know has had this experience doesn’t mean it never happens! Some commentators have called the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement(s) of the last 120-years-or-so the most significant development in church history since the Reformation in the 16th century!

So, I do not personally condemn outright the practice of hearing from God in this manner, in fact, I (try to) do it myself! I am, however, deeply concerned by two things: 1. As I have already hinted at above, if we are going to ensure that our hearing from the Spirit remains true to the teaching of Scripture, we need to understand and teach that Scripture is the highest authority in the church (aside from Christ himself), and so all prophetic or discernment-related experiences must be judged by and placed underneath the authority of Scripture. And if we are going to do that, we have to actually know Scripture! Not to a Sunday school, memory-verse, sword-drill level, but with depth and clarity and understanding and intelligence and wisdom. It is very common in the charismatic movement today for a preacher to base his or her entire sermon on a personal revelation from God. This is not only a small, mild problem in my eyes, I argue that this is not proper preaching and that this is how heresies and cults start/survive/thrive! The preacher’s central task is to exegete and expound Scripture. If he or she wants to supplement this with things such as A. The historical teaching of the Church or B. An illustrative personal story from their own life where God met them or spoke to them through His Spirit, I think that this is acceptable, even commendable and desirable when done correctly. But the above-all task of the preacher is the exposition of Scripture, not ‘this is what God told me last week’.

This same practice is employed by charismatic leaders when they write worship songs, books, Bible studies, and so on. The result of this is that we have an abundance of theology in these mediums that is either biblically shallow or downright unbiblical/heretical. An example of this is the almost ubiquitous charismatic practice of ‘speaking God’s will into being’, also known as ‘word of faith’ teaching. At first glance, this practice may seem fine! Jesus did speak to the fig tree after all (Mark 11:12-25), and Proverbs 18:21 could potentially be read this way. What most charismatics don’t know, as the esteemed theologian Roger Olson points out, is that this teaching originally came into parts of Christianity from the non-Christian New Thought movement that believed that poverty and ill-health come from negative thinking and speaking, and that people could speak health and prosperity into existence (see Olson’s recent book entitled Unsafe Sects: Understanding Religious Cults). Surprising though it may seem to many, this very common charismatic practice is unbiblical and came from a non-Christian religious/spiritual source! This kind of negative teaching, and many others, oftentimes in my opinion spring from charismatic leaders who have ‘heard God say this or that’, but do not have the desire or the tools to discern whether the teaching is true and good.

Okay, onto to the second thing that concerns me, 2. When charismatic Christian’s practice of discernment consists solely of hearing from the Holy Spirit in this direct, immediate and tangible sense. A healthy, biblical and tradition-informed practice of Christian discernment can I think include hearing from the Spirit in this way, but it must also include other elements such as: the study of and reflection upon Scripture individually and in community, candid discussion with trusted spiritual leaders to whom one is accountable, the humble willingness to be wrong, discernment practices within wider Christian community as opposed to as a lone-wolf Christian, solitude and silence, gratitude, contemplative prayer, and so on. In my own walk with God, I have had many times where something I felt I had heard from God turned out to be true and good. I have learned, however, to have a healthy suspicion of things that I ‘hear from God’, and to subject all of this to the above, full-orbed practice of discernment. I have found patience and waiting to be of particular use in this matter. If you feel you have heard something from God, whether it be through the practice of personal, prayerful journaling, or through a prophetic word from a fellow believer, don’t rush to act on it immediately. Sit on it. Put it on the shelf. Discernment is not a one-and-done action, it is a process, oftentimes a long one! I have in the past felt that I had heard something from God, and initially it felt accurate and true and edifying. But with time, I could see that I had misheard. The converse has also happened. I felt I had heard something from God and quickly dismissed it. But six months or two years later, I could see that God was preparing me for something I couldn’t yet anticipate fully. Whenever God speaks, he speaks clearly and truthfully and authoritatively, but our ability to hear him in this life is not complete and perfect, see 1 Corinthians 13:9. We must therefore be circumspect, humble, teachable, and dependent on others in Christian community.

To conclude, I want to affirm that I, as a charismatic Christian, have been immensely blessed by the practice of hearing from the Holy Spirit in personal, immediate and tangible ways. To be quite honest with you, I don’t know how I would have got through the last fifteen years, with all the accompanying challenges, setbacks and sufferings, without this practice. It is probably no longer possible to count the number of times that I have considered giving up on the hard task of following Christ faithfully in pain, suffering, smallness, hiddenness and waiting. But, fifteen years later, I have not given up, and I know that I will not give up. Part of the reason for this is because I have so often heard Christ/the Spirit whisper deeply meaningful encouragement and kindness and mercy into my spiritual ears. Although I am Paul’s equal in no respect, this has often felt like Acts 18:9-11 (NIV), “One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: ‘Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.’ So Paul stayed in Corinth for a year and a half, teaching them the word of God.” The reason I know how to engage in this kind of spiritual practice is because of the countless leaders in the Pentecostal/charismatic tradition who have gone before me and faithfully taught these things. So, although I have offered some rather bold critiques above, I am and always will be a member and supporter of the charismatic movement who loves what God has done and is doing through this part of his Church. To summarize my thoughts in this post succinctly, I think that the charismatic movement often makes it too easy to hear God’s voice. On the other hand, the Church does need to hear from and be guided by the Spirit.

Thanks for reading, I would love to hear people’s thoughts on this in the comments or on social media.