{"id":4759,"date":"2015-04-25T13:34:06","date_gmt":"2015-04-25T20:34:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=4759"},"modified":"2015-04-25T13:34:06","modified_gmt":"2015-04-25T20:34:06","slug":"talking-with-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/talking-with-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking With God"},"content":{"rendered":"

The book, When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship With God,<\/em> focuses on communication between between people and God. The author, Luhrmann, gives varies accounts of how God speaks to His people. The author explains God speaks to a person through the personal relationship that they have with God. Luhrmann explains, \u201cyou develop the relationship through prayer; prayer is hard work and requires effort and training; and when you develop that relationship, God will answer back, through thoughts and mental images he places in your mind.\u201d[1]<\/a> While I agree with the author, I believe we must be careful not to put God in a \u201cbox\u201d on how he communicates when his people.<\/p>\n

Prayer is only one-way in which God can speak to us. He also uses Scripture to speak to us. I believe that one reason American Christians fail to have the relationship they would like with God is due to the fact that many are not studying His word. While I don\u2019t know the percentage, my impression from discussions and serving in ministry, is that many Western Christians have never read the whole Bible and many do not read it daily. How can we expect to know God\u2019s will, nature, or character if we are not study the book that He wrote for His people? The Scriptures are not God\u2019s rulebook for our lives. The Bible is God\u2019s self-revelation of Himself to mankind.<\/p>\n

I can honestly say that I have never heard the audible voice of God speaking to me, although I know some Christians have claimed they have heard God\u2019s voice audibly. Certainly, Scripture testifies that God has spoken to His chosen people many times. All the way through the Old Testament, we find examples where God spoke to individuals and even physically walked with them. Starting with Adam and Eve, through the time when Christ ascended into heaven, God audibly communicated with mankind.<\/p>\n

As leaders in the church, we must teach and train our congregations that it is not how God talks with you that is important, rather it is that he does talk with you. God can speak through His word, creation, prayer, other people, dreams, etc. There is no limit on ways God can speak to us.<\/p>\n

Luhrmann\u2019s approach or explanation on how God speaks to his people is unique. Her views aren\u2019t drawn from the traditional Christian point of view, but from seeking to understand how individuals come to faith in Christ. We tend to learn about God through listening to the experience of other Christians. I think that Luhrmann\u2019s approach is good, as we must consider the way that God also talks to non-Christians.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> T. M. Luhrmann: When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship With God<\/em> (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 2012), 41<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The book, When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship With God, focuses on communication between between people and God. The author, Luhrmann, gives varies accounts of how God speaks to His people. The author explains God speaks to a person through the personal relationship that they have with God. Luhrmann explains, \u201cyou develop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[628],"class_list":["post-4759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-luhrmann","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4759"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4760,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4759\/revisions\/4760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}