Does God speak to you? Such an assertion is part of a relevant understanding of faith in some communities. It’s great when God speaks to you in person. That marks relevance, doesn’t it? I would like to devote some attention to this in this article. I would also like to doubt it. Whenever I hear something like “The Lord told me”, “Jesus showed me” or “God told me”, I start to wonder. What drives a person to make such statements? What is happening here? Are there prophets today like in the old days or is this just an outgrowth of pious beliefs? How should I assess this?

In concrete terms

It sounds pious when you hear such phrases. This is most common in charismatic communities. Don’t we read something similar in the Bible? In Isaiah, for example, we read:

“The Lord has sent a word against Jacob, and it comes down to Israel”
Isa 9:8

This is written directly in the Bible. Isn’t everything in the Bible supposed to be eternally valid and always and at all times “true”? Isaiah then speaks this word. Does this automatically mean that God is sending his word to you or me today? This is an important question, because the wording alone does not make a statement about a divine utterance. Isaiah also writes:

“For the Lord, Yahweh of hosts, is carrying out destruction and a firmament in the midst of the whole earth”
Isa 10:23

Does such a statement now allow one to say anything about the church or about the lives of others today and for God? Is it particularly meaningful to make such a pronouncement about others?

If someone claims to speak in God’s name, you should ask specifically: Where and how did you hear this? Are you a self-declared prophet or has someone forced you to do so? How is it that people suddenly start prophesying in God’s name?

Isaiah spoke in God’s name. He said something like:

“Therefore thus says the Lord, Yahweh of hosts, ‘Do not be afraid, my people who dwell in Zion, of Assyria, when he strikes you with a rod and raises his staff against you after the manner of Egypt.”
Isa 10:24

He also says something like this:

“For thus has the Lord spoken to me: Go, set a watchman; let him report what he sees.”
Isa 21:6

Now if someone stands up and uses the same words, what happens? Is this person a prophet like Isaiah? It is appropriate to ask how this person heard the message. More on this later.

A warning against the wording

Doubts are appropriate when someone claims a divine origin for their statements. Because not everyone who cries “Lord, Lord!” does so in the right sense. In the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus speaks about the Messianic kingdom, it says:

“Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord!” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord! Did we not prophesy through your name, and through your name cast out demons, and through your name perform many miracles?” And then I will confess to them: I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers!”
Mt 7:21-23

So the wording alone is not enough. According to Jesus, it should be supplemented with “whoever does the will of my Father”. This is how it reads in Matthew 7. Anyone who claims something like “The Lord told me” does not fulfill a divine ISO standard for prophecy. As everywhere in Scripture, it is not the statement but the effect in everyday life that is important.

“But what do you call me, Lord, Lord! and do not do what I say?”
Luke 6:41

You shouldn’t fantasize about a reverse conclusion here, i.e. “If I do the right thing, I can say what I want afterwards”. It doesn’t work like that. But what if you take a few steps back and look at these customs and “Lord, Lord!” cries from a distance? What claim do people derive from this? Why do they say it like that? Here are two possibilities:

1. Arrogance
   One demands obedience from other people as confirmation of one’s own assumptions or acceptance by others is “proof” of one’s own self-righteousness, rightness and piety.
2. Insecurity
   By referring to God or Jesus, people conceal their own insecurity or it is an attempt to “belong” in this community, in which such statements are particularly important.

Anyone who presents themselves as a divine oracle, perhaps with the label “prophet” stuck on them, does not win a fictitious cup of faith. There are warnings and one should not prematurely deduce a divine origin from human words.

Your word or God’s word?

Which origin applies? Bible writers also give answers other than “I am a prophet, so I speak in God’s place”. Paul writes humbly:

” … for the sake of the grace given to me by God.”
Rom 15:15

He also clearly differentiates between the Lord’s words and his own thoughts:

” … I instruct, that is, not I, but the Lord.”
1 Corinthians 7:10

“… I have no command from the Lord, but I give my opinion as (one who is credible on the basis of) the mercy obtained from the Lord.”
1Cor 7,25

Of course Paul’s word has a meaning. He is an apostle. However, he does not state this here as if we had to “blindly believe”, but rather he reports on his own knowledge based on the mercy he received from the Lord. His experience and the mercy he experienced from God should make him credible. This is sober and makes his statements more credible.

Hear the message

How do people hear a message? Well, I have heard various comments on this.

• Inspiration
  Someone thinks that what has just come to their mind is the word of God. Critical: Are these not your own thoughts?
• Dream
  Jesus appeared in a dream. Critical: Do you think that was Jesus? Have you ever met Jesus in real life so that you can make this claim?
• Vision
  Jesus appeared in a vision. Critical: Could this be a projection?

These are the claims I have heard the most. They are all unverifiable and mainly appear where beliefs are built around these kinds of special effects. It is impossible to avoid asking critical questions about them. Because: If I want to confirm the “correctness” of my assumptions through such special effects, why do people also believe without such special effects? Is the correctness with special effects greater than a sober faith that trusts in God?

What about the Bible?

Viewed soberly, there are two possibilities for a supposedly prophetic statement:

1. The statement corresponds to the Bible
2. The statement does not correspond to the Bible.

In the first case, the question arises as to why additional prophecy is needed if it is already described in the Bible? In the second case, prophecy stands against the statements of the Bible (or it was not necessary to record this in the Bible). What do you then want to accept as the basis for life and faith? The Bible or the special effects?

So if you want to be sober in your faith, you can’t do much with special effects (enthusiasm, projections). However, this justifies the question of why such special effects are so important to many people.

Is God very close?

One could refer here to a statement by Paul in which he says: “(He) is not far from each one of us, for in Him we live and move and are” (Acts 17:27-28). That sounds good. But what if I don’t “feel” that? Then I might be at a loss as to how I feel and ask myself where and how I can meet God “properly”. A belief in miracles or direct statements from God through a prophet supposedly turn question marks into exclamation marks. I understand the need. However, something else happens to me: with prophets and miracle healers, I often recognize the question marks behind the exclamation marks.

One could deduce two things from these statements:

1. We are not very familiar with the biblical context of these special effects.
2. You want to be very close to God, but how do you satisfy your feeling?

On the first point, it is important to note that not everything happens at the same time and not everything can be read in context and applied to the present day. This is about theology. The second point is about a valid need that tries to assert itself through religious rituals or special effects. This is something like self-soothing through an outward projection.

In particular, however, the claim “to speak in God’s place” is part of another problem area, that of credibility and authority. Just as human religiosity, the keeping of rules, feast days and the like merely serve “to satisfy one’s own flesh” (Col 2:23), the special effects (miraculous healing, speaking in tongues, prophetic words) seem to me to do the same.

Paul clearly states that he has completed the word (Col 1:25). So prophetic speeches today can never be about revealing something new. So some people tend to limit these prophetic speeches today to personal situations and behavior. Then it would merely be a personal communication from God.

The supposedly personal message would indeed fulfill the desire for a direct experience of God, but it can also be questioned here with the same words as before. Is this statement in the Bible? Then why does it still have to be prophesied? Or is the statement not in the Bible, and why should we then pay attention to it?

Does God speak through prophets today?

I question that. And you?