by Frank Viola
The priest is authorized by the authority of the Torah, which contains what God has previously spoken. The prophet is authorized by the present burden of the Lord that the Holy Spirit lays upon him. The sage is authorized by his experience and the fruit of his wisdom, which can be evaluated by the future outcome of his counsel (Luke 7:35).
Put another way, the priest looks to the past and asks, “Is this scriptural? Is this right?”
The prophet looks to the present and asks, “What is God saying to us right now? What is His present leading?”
The sage looks to the future and asks, “How will our present actions affect the future? Is this decision wise or foolish?”
To put it in the language of the Bible: The priest asks, “What do these stones mean?” (Josh. 4:6). The prophet asks, “Is there any word from the LORD?” (Jer. 37:17). And the sage asks, “Where can wisdom be found?” (Job 28:12).3
The Inherent Dangers of Each
Each form of God’s speaking has its own dangers if not attended to by the other forms. If a church is conditioned to recognize the Lord’s will through only the form of Torah, it will become ritualistic at best or judgmental, self-righteous, and legalistic at worst. It will need the prophetic word as well as the word of wisdom to balance it.
A church that recognizes the Lord’s speaking via only the lens of the prophet will be unstable and erratic at best. At worst, it will be deceived. This is because a prophet’s revelation can be bogus. Thus, a prophetic word should be tested by its faithfulness to what God has already said (i.e., Torah) and by its future outcome (i.e., wisdom).
If a church recognizes the Lord’s will through only the lens of wisdom, it will be given over to human reasoning and empty philosophy. True wisdom will always be faithful to what God has already said (i.e., Torah), and it will be responsive to the in-breaking of an authentic prophetic word.
Consequently, we should embrace all three forms because God speaks through each.
Unfortunately, our religious backgrounds condition us to recognize the Lord’s voice through only one form. Those who have a fundamentalist background tend to recognize the Lord speaking through only the Torah. Guidance must contain a standard or principle of God, which usually has a chapter and verse attached to it. But this narrow lens blinds them from recognizing God’s guidance through the other modes.
Those who come from a Charismatic/Pentecostal background tend to recognize the Lord’s voice through only the prophetic word. It must be peppered with, “I sense the Lord saying” … “I have a word from God” … “The Lord showed me” … “Thus saith the Lord.” Appeals to Scripture or wisdom have very little registration.
Those from mainline denominations tend to recognize God speaking through whatever sounds reasonable. Wisdom is their language. What God has said in the past often carries little weight. And prophetic revelation is suspect.
Put differently, those who prefer Torah-speaking are thinkers. Those who prefer prophetic-speaking are feelers. And those who prefer wisdom-speaking are doers. Three temperaments, three denominations, and three forms of God’s speaking.
It’s worth noting that our temperament is connected to our religious background. We are typically drawn to the denomination or movement that matches our disposition. Doers tend to gravitate toward denominations like Baptist. Feelers tend to gravitate toward the Charismatic/Pentecostal Movement. And thinkers tend to gravitate toward fundamentalist denominations, Presbyterian, or Anglican churches. Parachurch organizations and many large movements usually combine two of these temperaments, typically thinkers and doers or feelers and doers. I admit these are generalizations; however, I believe they are very close to reality.
Whether we realize it or not, our religious background is a major hurdle that stands in the way of laying hold of the mind of Christ individually and corporately.
Accordingly, God in Christ by the Spirit discloses His will through all three modes.
The Mind of Christ
In 1 Corinthians 12:1–2 (NKJV), Paul writes:
Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant: You know that you were Gentiles, carried away to these dumb idols, however you were led.
Notice that Paul mentions “dumb idols.” What exactly is a dumb idol? It’s not an idol with a low IQ. A dumb idol is an idol that doesn’t have the power of speech. It’s a mute idol.
Before the Corinthian believers came to Christ, they were following pagan gods that didn’t possess the power of speech. These gods were mute. They were dumb. Paul goes on, saying the following (this is my paraphrase of verses 3–6):
Remember how you served mute idols? Well, now you serve a God who speaks, and He speaks through you and your fellow members of the body of Christ. For example, when you say, “Jesus is Lord,” God’s own Spirit is speaking through you. There are varieties of spiritual gifts, but it’s the same Spirit. There are varieties of ministries, but it’s the same Lord. And there are varieties of effects, but it’s the same God who is working through them all. The one true God speaks through a variety of different ways via His one body.
Notice that God communicates in a variety of ways, but it’s the same God who is doing all the speaking. And God does that speaking through His body, i.e., a local assembly that allows Him to speak through its members.
Consequently, the mind of God can only be made fully known through a corporate body of believers.
Jesus Christ has the power of speech. He’s not a dumb idol. And when He speaks, He reveals the mind of God. But Christ never reveals His whole mind through an individual. It takes a body of believers to lay hold of His mind together.
Hence, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:9–10:
However, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him”—but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.
Consider the following words:
Eye has not seen. He’s speaking of a single eye. A solo eye has not seen.
Ear has not heard. An individual ear has not heard.
And it has not entered into the heart of man. A single heart hasn’t received.
Now listen to Paul in 1 Corinthians 2:16 (NKJV):
For “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?”
This is an absurd question. But notice the singular: “Who has known the mind of the Lord that he [singular] may instruct him?”
The answer is obvious. No individual has God’s mind. But then Paul makes this remarkable statement: “But we [plural] have the mind of Christ.” We, corporately—as His body—possess the mind of Christ. Incredible.
The mind of Christ is discoverable. Jesus Christ is not a dumb idol. He has the power of speech. He desires to speak and reveal His thoughts. But the mind of Christ is a corporate discovery. It’s a corporate pursuit. It’s not the property of any individual. It’s the property of the body of Christ working together to secure it.
As a result, all three ways of God’s speaking in Christ (Torah, prophetic, and wisdom) should be held in tension. The reason? Jesus Christ incarnates all three modes.
Jesus Christ is the real Priest as well as the Torah itself.
Jesus Christ is the real Prophet as well as the Prophetic Word.
Jesus Christ is the real Sage as well as Wisdom itself.
Our Lord reveals His will to and through a local community of believers when they are seeking to lay hold of His mind together. The local assembly is the vehicle that God has chosen to disclose His mind. Through some believers, He speaks as Prophet. Through others, He speaks as Priest. Still through others, He speaks as Sage.
The speaking may sound different, but it’s the same Christ working through each one.
The Lord helps us to revise
our ears so that we may learn to hear the voice of the Shepherd through each one of His sheep.
Notes
1This list owes much to Gary Holt’s essay “Hermeneutics in Everyday Life.”
2Some New Testament scholars believe that a lost document called “Q” was the source for some of the material in the gospels of Matthew and Luke.
3I owe my awareness of these texts to Walter Brueggemann in an essay of his that I read many years ago.
CHAPTER 2
THE LORD TOLD ME
REVISING CHRISTIANEZE
In a number of movements in the Christian faith, God’s people are taught by both precept and example to preface many of their decisions with the words “God told me.”
“God told me to start attending Pastor Fielding’s church.”
“God told me to marry Felicia Norris.”
“God told me to buy a Mercedes.”
“God told me that I’m a prophetess.”
“God told me to break up with Rotunda.”
“God spoke to me and told me to rebuke my aunt Nina.”
God told me … it’s central to the vocabulary of a number of Christian traditions.
Several years ago, I made a disturbing observation about this type of language. That in well over half the cases when I’ve heard a person use the words “God told me,” what they said later turned out to be what the person wanted, and God got the rap for it.
Before you read on, please keep in mind that I believe that God speaks to His people in a variety of different ways. So this chapter doesn’t question whether or not God speaks to His children. He certainly does. What I’m addressing here is the tendency of many Christians to announce that God has told them something.
Some Illustrations
A Christian woman I had known for many years represents what I’ve observed innumerable times with innumerable people. We’ll call her Sally. Sally would routinely preface her decisions this way. “God is telling me to homeschool my kids.” “God is telling me to begin giving one hundred dollars each month to Apostle Chestwald’s worldwide ministry.” “God told me to purchase a used Toyota Camry.”
In virtually every case, Sally would end up not following through on what God told her to do. Oftentimes, it would only be a few weeks later.
She stopped homeschooling her kids. When someone asked her about this, she said, “Well, it’s really not for me. I think God wants me to send them to private school.”
Hmmm … did God change His mind that quickly?
When asked why she didn’t buy the car that “God told” her to buy, she said, “It has some problems with it that I don’t want to inherit. Plus, we can’t afford it right now anyway. I’m feeling led to lease a car instead.”
Hmmm … God changed His mind again.
Not long ago I was talking to a friend who has a network of churches he’s in relationship with. In conversing over some issues, I recommended to my friend that he invite one of my coworkers to spend a weekend with his network, as I believed it would be a great help to them. His first response was, “Yes, sure.”
A few days later, I thanked him for being open to inviting my coworker. He then replied, “Actually, I sense that God is telling me to wait and to take it slow.”
Those words short-circuited all conversation on the matter.
If God spoke, what else could be said? That’s quite the trump card.
He hasn’t invited my coworker to visit his network, and I doubt he ever will.
My friend’s response is very common in these circumstances. And in most cases like this, what it really means is: “I don’t feel comfortable doing this. I’m afraid to expose my people to someone other than me. So I’ve changed my mind.”
Here’s another one that’s a close cousin to “God told me.”
“I’m so sick. I can’t endure this pain. Why is God doing this to me?”
Hmmm … God is picking on you because you are sick? Is your pain really His fault?
Or how about this one:
“Pastor Melvin announced this past Sunday that as a result of our church’s vow to tithe on our gross last year, God provided the money to build our new one-hundred-million-dollar church building. Isn’t God good!?”
Ummm … really? God is good because your church tithed to buy a very expensive building?
Point: I’ve routinely watched God get credit for things that He never authored and blamed for things He never imagined.
I wonder how the Lord feels when this happens.
What’s Really Behind It?
All of this has led me to ask a simple question: “Why do so many people feel the need to broadcast to others what they think God told them?”
I’m loathe to judge the motives of others. In fact, motive-judging is one of the most destructive things that a Christian can engage in. It destroys relationships. For this reason, the Lord had some very strong thoughts about it (Matt. 7:1–5; 1 Cor. 4:3–5).
However, upon the honest admission of some Christians whom I’ve known, here are six reasons why at least some people choose to use this hyperspiritual language. Read their own confessions:
• “If I could say that ‘God told me’ to do something, then I didn’t feel responsible for whatever He told me to do. God was responsible.”
• “It made me sound more spiritual when I made sure that people knew that it was God who was talking to me. Plus, all my friends talk this way.”
• “I was afraid that if I didn’t say, ‘God told me,’ people wouldn’t accept what I said. Or they would argue with my decision.”
• “I had a desire to lead others. If I could convince them that God told me something, I found that they would follow me.”
• “I really didn’t want to keep conversing about a specific matter that I didn’t feel comfortable with, so I ended it with ‘God told me.’ How can anyone argue with that?”
• “I wanted so bad to hear God’s voice that I thought if I said that He always spoke to me in everything, it would become a reality.”
Please reflect on the above. And note that these people were largely unconscious of their motives until later.
I know that there are many Christians who don’t have these motives operating in them. In such cases, I believe it’s a matter of thoughtlessly borrowing the language of a particular Christian subculture. “Everyone else talks that way in my church, so I guess I just naturally picked it up subconsciously.”
The Testimony of the New Testament
As I read through the New Testament, I never see any Christian talking like this. Paul will sometimes quote the Lord Jesus. But in those cases, he is quoting what the Lord taught when He was on earth (e.g., Acts 20:35; 1 Cor. 7:10).
In one instance, Paul was forced to share his spiritual experiences. But when he did, he admitted that he was playing the fool in doing so (2 Cor. 12:1ff.).
Paul also told Luke (or perhaps someone else who knew Paul told Luke) about several supernatural visions he received where the Lord appeared to him and spoke to him. But those cases were clearly supernatural, and they had to do with the direction of Paul’s apostolic ministry (e.g., Acts 22:10; 23:11).
In one case, Agabus, a prophet from Jerusalem, quoted the Holy Spirit, who had given him a supernatural revelation about a future event (Acts 21:10–11). Here, Agabus was speaking the exact words of the Spirit. Agabus was simply a mouthpiece. And the proof of the pudding was in the eating. What Agabus predicted came to pass exactly as the Spirit said it would. It was an authentic prophetic word regarding the future.
However, when we read Paul’s letters to the churches, we discover that he never says, “God told me.” Rather, he simply speaks what he believes to be God’s will in normal, shirtsleeve Greek, using his own vocabulary
. And yet, all of what he wrote was inspired by the Spirit of God. The same is true for the other apostles who penned their letters.
What’s my point?
It’s simply this: I believe that using the “God told me” card is largely a learned habit. It’s not the natural way that we Christians speak.
Even if you feel that God has told you something, in most cases, it’s profoundly unnecessary to broadcast it to the world so that they know that it was the Almighty, the Creator of the universe who said it to you. Not only that, but I believe it’s usually counterproductive and depletes the power of what’s being spoken.
To my mind, it’s much more natural—and powerful—to simply say what it is that you feel God told you without trying to puff it up by making Him responsible for it.
I’ve observed that if God has put His words in your mouth or He has given you insight into His thoughts, people will know that it’s inspired when you say it. There’s no need to “prop it up” by adding the ornament of “God told me” to it.
Of course, if you are an Agabus and you are going to quote the Holy Spirit about something you could only know supernaturally, then by all means go for it. But I will add that many things the Holy Spirit shows us are not meant for us to tell others. They are for our private use. And that use is often to help us know how to effectively minister to others or to know how to intelligently pray for them.
Yet if you feel you must quote the Lord in Agabus-style, I would simply caution you with two things.
One, please use your own natural language. If you’re an American, that means speak in shirtsleeve English. No need to dress it up with a dead language from the Elizabethan era (“Thus saith da Laud”).
Two, if you are quoting God, be aware that you are responsible for what you say—not God. At that moment, you are making yourself His mouthpiece.
If it’s God, it will be proved to be so.
If it’s not, well, it’s far better to just say it in your own words without having to add a divine banner to it, making the Lord responsible.
