Day 175
1 Kings 12:25-14:20, Acts 16:1-15, Psalms 78:1-8
Discernment is the word of the day today. "The man of God" (who has no name) fell into a trap that it is so easy to fall into. Someone (also with no name) came to him saying "God said..." and he believed it, and then duly went against what God had actually said. Such mistakes aren't limited to Old Testament biblical times and we can trace similar errors through the history of faith. God speaks through people, we know this for certain through the prophets and the fact that prophecy continues to be one of the spiritual gifts. Despite the fact that God speaks through men and women, sometimes men and women speak without God.
1 Thess 5:21 tells us to "test all things" to see what is good and of God, and the lesson from the Old Testament is a good example of why. One such test is whether what we are hearing confesses Christ (1 John 4). Sometimes we may hear preaching that does not even mention Christ and we could rightly be dubious of that. The other great test, which "the man of God" seemed to fail on, is prayer. If we are in any doubt as to whether we are hearing from God or man, we should give it back to God and test it through prayer.
We see some of this through the story of Acts as people preach against what the disciples are preaching, but we know that one of the strengths of the early church is that it is good at prayer. The church is also good at relying on the Holy Spirit and here we see a physical intervention of the Spirit as it ensures Paul and Timothy don't go a certain way.
Our challenge is to always open ourselves to the word of God and the power of the Spirit. When we are open to the word of God, we are also open to the word of man, and so our openness should always be twinned with prayer.
Discernment is the word of the day today. "The man of God" (who has no name) fell into a trap that it is so easy to fall into. Someone (also with no name) came to him saying "God said..." and he believed it, and then duly went against what God had actually said. Such mistakes aren't limited to Old Testament biblical times and we can trace similar errors through the history of faith. God speaks through people, we know this for certain through the prophets and the fact that prophecy continues to be one of the spiritual gifts. Despite the fact that God speaks through men and women, sometimes men and women speak without God.
1 Thess 5:21 tells us to "test all things" to see what is good and of God, and the lesson from the Old Testament is a good example of why. One such test is whether what we are hearing confesses Christ (1 John 4). Sometimes we may hear preaching that does not even mention Christ and we could rightly be dubious of that. The other great test, which "the man of God" seemed to fail on, is prayer. If we are in any doubt as to whether we are hearing from God or man, we should give it back to God and test it through prayer.
We see some of this through the story of Acts as people preach against what the disciples are preaching, but we know that one of the strengths of the early church is that it is good at prayer. The church is also good at relying on the Holy Spirit and here we see a physical intervention of the Spirit as it ensures Paul and Timothy don't go a certain way.
Our challenge is to always open ourselves to the word of God and the power of the Spirit. When we are open to the word of God, we are also open to the word of man, and so our openness should always be twinned with prayer.
hello phil, me again.
ReplyDeletewe get all these people in the old testament who god speaks to. moses actually got to talk to god face to face. here we have david and jesobaum and men of god whom god is speaking to. is god talking to them face to face too or via dreams or consciences etc like our days?
from dan
In this instance God will have probably spoken through dreams and visions like he does today. He does also speak through an audible voice like he did with Paul on the road to Damascus.
ReplyDeleteYou have also hit on one of those instances that people pick up as contradiction in the Bible. God speaks face to face with Moses but then 9 verses later says that no one will see his face. A lot is lost in translation but what Moses saw was likely to just be a small fragment of the Glory of the Lord, certainly more than anyone else would ever see (Num 12:6-8).