How God Speaks

Does God only speak through the Bible, or is He still speaking?

Pretend it is the year 50 A.D. You are a brand-new Christian living in Corinth. You are a Gentile, meaning you were not raised going to Synagogue every Sabbath to hear Moses and the Prophets read.

What is your Bible?

What verses are you going to look up in order to “hear from God”?

You don’t have a Bible. In fact, no one had a Bible. Everyone listened to scribes teach and interpret the Law and Prophets in the synagogue every Sabbath, IF you were Jewish, that is, or had previously converted to Judaism sometime in your life.

But PRAISE GOD because the Holy Spirit had finally come to dwell within people and among one another!

So you have the Holy Spirit!

Yet, you are a Gentile. You have no “Bible.” Meaning your mind had never been “renewed” with scripture. And the Spirit within you still needed to move information from your spirit to your mind.

So what, or I should say, who is your Bible?

Your Bible is either the apostle Paul, whom Christ specifically chose to teach Gentile Christians, or it could be Timothy, Titus, or another of Paul’s assistance.

Remember, you are from Corinth. And those in the Corinthian church had sent letters to Paul asking his help in knowing how to obey God in the areas of relationships, food offered to idols, spiritual gifts, and some other things. They couldn’t just sit down and open a Bible up to find the answer.

Your Bible, that book with a front and back cover that holds pages and pages of information with headings, paragraphs, red letters, and verse numbers, did not begin that way.

First of all, NO ONE had their own Bible before 1600 years after Christianity even began!

And the process that brought it about in its present form was no quick or simple task. In fact, it was long and complicated.

So, how did God speak before Christians could sit down at the breakfast table and open their Bible to “hear from God”?

And even if they could have opened their own Bible, which language or version was the “inspired God-breathed” one?

Are you beginning to understand why I’m writing this?

There are long-held traditions regarding the Bible. And long ago, sometime, and somehow, it became common to hold the Bible high and say, “This book is our official canon of scripture, it is closed, nothing can be added, and only here does God speak, every verse and every word is God-breathed” [Note: If you are familiar with the book of Revelation and how it says to not add to this book or take away from it. Please understand that 1, that is referring only to the book of Revelation. 2, the book of Revelation was debated early on as to whether it even belonged in the canon. And 3, it hasn’t always been at the end of the Bible. Remember, everything was its own book for a long time before a Bible was ever formed.]

But history proves that neither God nor angels put our Bible together and then dropped it down from heaven in its present form.

The history of forming the Bible is messy.

BUT GOD did choose certain individuals called Apostles, who He filled with the Spirit of wisdom and who He charged with the authority to teach us.

And THIS is our Bible. The New Testament is the Christian’s Bible. More specifically, it is the letters written to churches by the apostles that actually explain to us how we are to live, think, and what we’re to believe.

You may say, what about the Old Testament? Well, the New Testament actually explains the Old Testament to us. I’m NOT saying we shouldn’t read it, though. What I’m saying is that the Old Testament isn’t our “foundation” or even “our” (meaning us Gentiles) history. The Old Testament is Israel’s history. Our history begins with Jesus, and to be more specific, Peter (see Acts chapter 10) and from there on out, it was Paul. That may upset some Christians. But Paul himself tells us this. You can argue with him.

So then, how does God speak? He has always spoken through people.

God has always chosen people to teach others, who were to teach others, who were to teach others…

God chose Moses to speak through, then Joshua to speak through, then Judges to speak through, then King David and Prophets to speak through, and many in between. Then came the New Testament, and Jesus spoke, then Jesus chose Apostles to speak through, and the Apostles passed on their teachings to disciples, and disciples passed it on to other disciples. And that’s how God does “Bible”

Don’t get me wrong, I am VERY thankful to have a collection of writings done of individuals chosen by God who spoke and wrote. Yet, I am aware that before the 1600’s and before the Bible was ever translated into our language, the Holy Spirit still spoke to people through church fathers and fathers of families as they passed on spiritual truths to one another.

This was, and is, still God’s design.

He chooses faithful people, gives them the Spirit of wisdom, and calls them to teach.