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Does God Really Speak Today?

Written by Matt Tague Saturday, 03 October 2009 09:37

A popular question that people ask is "Does God really speak to humans today?" Two answers emerge from Christians. Yes or no. There are very intelligent people who find themselves disagreeing over this issue. My own answer is an unqualified YES.

A popular question that people ask is "Does God really speak to humans today?" Two answers emerge from Christians. Yes or no. There are very intelligent people who find themselves disagreeing over this issue. My own answer is an unqualified YES.

We could all think of examples of TV preachers or a wierdo who tell everyone that God speaks through them, and we are all very skeptical about that. But, just for argument's sake, let's throw those extreme examples out and reason the matter out more closely. Let's ask the question, "Does God really speak to believers today apart from the scriptures?"

The group that says "no" usually points to examples of people who have been hurt by those that said that God was speaking through them. When a life is hurt because another person told them something supposedly from God, it seems to give God a bad image to the person who was hurt. But as powerful an emotional argument as that is, is that still any reason to believe that God doesn't speak to us today?

Think about this: God has always used two instruments in the life of his church: First, the Holy Spirit and second, the Bible. Some people interpret the Bible wrong but does that mean we throw it out? No way. In the same way, some people interpret the Holy Spirit wrongly in what He is doing or saying, but that doesn?t mean that the Holy Spirit is not with us or speaking to us.

The person of the Holy Spirit and the living Word of the Bible work similarly in our lives as Christians. Neither of them have a 100%, always right interpreter for us to look to in order to solve every moral, ethical or doctrinal question. We can and do disagree about what the Bible says at times. We also can and do disagree about what the Holy Spirit can say to God's people. But the fact that there are abuses of these two instruments does not mean that we should close our ears to them and believe that they don't speak.

A scripture regarding this is John 14:6 ?I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth.? If the Holy Spirit is inside of us, then he still speaks to us. If the Holy Spirit speaks to us, then God still speaks to us. It's not a good argument to claim that God has given us his Holy Spirit, but that God doesn't speak to us. The Holy Spirit is our comforter, advocate, helper, etc... Does it make sense that he does all this without saying anything to us?