Featured Why doesn't God speak?

While it may be a cliche, it is also true. For most things, God speaks to us through our study and meditation upon the scriptures.

There are quite a few assumptions wrapped up in this question. Let me straighten this out:

1.) Prophets and apostles were/are not "special" except that God has called them into faithful witness.
2.) God speaks to people other than prophets and apostles.
3.) "Audibly" = capable of being heard; loud enough to be heard; actually heard.
4.) People can "hear" God without God making pressure waves in the atmosphere that are registered in the human ear.
5.) I have heard testimony of "audible voices" (pressure waves registering in the ear) from credible people, but that actually opens the door to the idea that people could be pranking/deceiving the hearer. I have not knowingly heard an audible voice in those terms.
6.) I hear the voice of God from time to time in my thoughts - thoughts that are distinct from mine, and much more intelligent and perceptive - when I am seeking God's guidance, but more often when there is a practical or spiritual human need where I am called to intervene. I have learned to discern it more easily over the years and it has never been wrong.
7.) Exactly once, I heard from God in an extended dream/vision during an extremely difficult time in my life. God made three unlikely promises to me in that time and two were fulfilled within the year (by circumstances outside of my control), and I've watched the progress of the third one taking place over the last 11 years in a situation completely out of my hands.

 

God never moves. If He's not close to us, then it is we who have moved away from Him.

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That is not a logical conclusion.

Whether or not God speaks directly to individuals does not necessarily tell us anything about whether or not God is near to us or if He wants to be known. Communicating through scripture is still communication.

 

I've heard that before, but I don't believe it.

1.) Who claims that God is inactive (never moves)?
2.) We are notoriously poor at determining our "nearness" to God. When things are crashing down in our lives, it is too easy to assume that God is not near when God may be the One Who is sustaining us through the destruction.
3.) There is nowhere where we can go that is away from God.
4.) God gives us the illusion of distance so that we are not overwhelmed by His presence. If God were not partially veiled from us, we would be overwhelmed.

 

I've had this discussion many times with teenagers and college-aged folks.

 

I was merely relating to fact that God never wishes to be far from us in a relationship sense. Obviously, God is everywhere. But given the fact that He wants a personal relationship with us, He will not distance himself from us; hence "never moves". And so if we don't feel close to God, it's not because of Him. It's because of us.

In times of our most dire need, sometimes the only person we can look to is God. He'll be there. It's very much like those in the old testament who died because they simply did not look upon the bronze serpent. It was always there.



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You are entirely wrong. I have had an extremely distressing time in my life recently, and I have had the most blessed experience of God drawing close to me and comforting me through His word. It hasn't made the bad stuff go away but it has sustained me through it.

 

Thanks for the clarification. I agree.

 

27 Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house:

28 For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.

29 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.

30 And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.

31 And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead

 

Sorry you did not understand the passage.
Jesus when He was here on earth.....speaking....said if someone will not heed the written word neither will they listen if one rises from the dead.

Hebrews 12:25-29 indicates Jesus is speaking from heaven now....through His word, His person ,and His work as eternal prophet priest and king.
Not everyone can "hear the word", or understand what it says.