I have to be honest, the title of this post is worded very carefully to make a specific point. Evangelicalism and certainly the Alliance holds to a very high view of scripture. We believe it is the word of God, but do we really believe it is sufficient?
Think about this for a minute. When God speaks His word is infallible and authoritative, right? So no matter who God speaks to or in what circumstances His word is perfect and never mistaken. If that is true then when God gives someone a message that message is as authoritative and infallible as scripture itself. WOW that scares me a little bit.
I wonder if many Christians who claim God has spoken to them really want to continue to claim that kind of a word from God. It seems to me that would create all kinds of theological problems. If Scripture is sufficient for faith and practice, then why do we need additional messages from God?
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Well, JB, next time God speaks to you, you feel free to tell Him that you don't need what He's offering. For my part, I will square what I hear against Scripture, recognizing that my spiritual ears are fallible, and if what I'm hearing checks out, I'll thank the Lord for speaking to me and do my best to obey Him.
I'm not sure I understand the comment. If God speaks directly to me apart from scripture I will certainly obey. That said, I think God has said all He needs to. I actually believe scripture is sufficient for life and practice.
Your question was, "why do we need additional messages from God?"
We need additional messages from God because we forget, ignore, or just don't know the teaching of the Scriptures, or have little idea which passages apply to which situations in our lives. We need additional messages from God to point us to the right place in Scripture, to stimulate our Biblical thinking on the issues in our lives, or to remind us that we serve a personal God who cares intimately about what's going on in our shoes. We need additional messages from God in order to preach powerfully into the lives of believers and non-believers whose situations may be unknown to us.
Who knows why specifically we need additional messages from God? The fact is, HE does. And He DOES give us additional messages - not to add to Scripture, but to illuminate and emphasize Scripture.
Denes house,
You made it clear why you think we need these additional messages, but you did not deal with the theological implications. I don't believe God delivers these messages nearly as much as people claim. Nor do I understand why they think they need them.
If they are so needed then scripture is not sufficient for faith and practice since something more is needed.
You say these messages are not additions to scripture. Perhaps they are not, but if they are from God they are infallible and just as authoritative because of who the message came from. Certainly God does not give fallible messages or messages that do not carry absolute authority.
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