God’s will, horses and mules, and your mind. Thoughts from John Stott for folks who think God “speaks” to them

For a variety of reasons I seem to be encountering more people these days who openly proclaim that God speaks to them personally, audibly, and even regularly.  Since I’m finally blogging on this subject I may have to actually give my opinion about this phenomena, but until then, I’ll quote John Stott on this subject from his book Your Mind Matters, which I’ve mentioned before on this blog.  This particular section of the book is titled, “The Christian’s guidance.”

That God is willing and able to guide his people is a fact.  We know this from Scripture, from its promises (for example, Prov. 3:6, “he will make straight your paths”), from its commands (for example, Eph. 5:17, “do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is”) and from its prayers (for example, Col 4:12, “that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God”).

Hello? God?

But how do we discover the will of God?  Some Christians claim rather glibly “the Lord told me to do this” or “the Lord called me to do that,” as if they had a hot line to heaven and were in direct and continuous telephonic communication with God.  I find it hard to believe them.  Others think they get detailed guidance from God through the most fanciful interpretations of Scripture passages which murder the natural sense, violate the context and have no basis in either sound exegesis or common sense.

John Stott on Paul, Athens, you and me, America, and the gospel

What, if anything, can we learn from Paul’s experience and approach in Athens as recorded in Acts 17?  Are there similarities to Athens in the first century and America in the twentieth century?  Have people changed over the years or are we still essentially the same?  Is Paul’s address in the Areopagus to the Athenians a message that we can pattern our message after?  Has the gospel changed over the centuries?  Does the Bible still speak to us where we are today?

In John Stott’s commentary on Acts he draws these conclusions about Paul’s experience in Athens and challenges us to be Christians who see, feel, and speak in our world like Paul did in his:

Hitting pretty close to home

The backdrop for this post is another post, What’s in the back of your Bible?, which I wrote last month on the other blog.  If you haven’t read that yet, this won’t make as much sense to you as it could.  I have forty or so books on my shelves by John MacArthur, many of which were given to us by Grace to You, and we still get a monthly letter and offer of a book or CD from them.  His book The Gospel According to Jesus was a watershed work in my life, as I’m sure it was for many others, in gaining clarity about the gospel in the muddy waters of today’s oh-so-soft evangelicalism.  The story of how I came about my first copy of that book is an interesting one, but I won’t be telling it here!

This month’s letter, which arrived in today’s mail, reads in part,