Generally, when someone makes this kind of a statement, what they mean is a balance between the revealed Word of God (as written in the Bible and whose meaning has been “interpreted” by those with a greater mind capacity than you) and personal revelation. The second must be checked at the door of the first and if it “passes” then it’s ok — er “balanced.”
This sort of checks and balances assumes that the Bible has been around since the dawn of Creation and forgets the origins of such a book: personal revelation. Chicken or the egg, comes to mind. Perhaps, we should reverse the roles to achieve “balance.”
A people who no longer believe that their God speaks — a people who have put all their confidence in a God who “once” spoke, wrote it down and now no longer (or rarely) speaks — really shouldn’t be pursuing personal revelation, because they will forever be interpreting the “new” through the eye-glasses of the “old,” like old wine skins.
On the other hand, how “balanced” was Abraham? He had nothing but his personal relationship with God. How “balanced” was Moses, before he penned the first 5 books of our revealed revelation? How “balanced” were the prophets? How “balanced” was Paul, when he stepped away from the umbrella of the emerging church to spend the bulk of 17 years getting his doctrine from God — not men?
What is Word? What is Spirit? Is it “the Bible” and “personal revelation” — or have we taken the whole argument out of context?
If you asked, “What is the Word and the Spirit of Debbie?” The Word is what I speak, and the Spirit is what I am. Being human, these two might not paint the same picture. But God cannot lie — so His Words match his personage exactly. His Word and Spirit are not trying to be “balanced” — they aren’t competeing with each other.
Anyone who watches much news can quickly discern that a person’s words — yes, their real words, the one’s they really spoke — can be twisted in such a way as to no longer represent the “spirit” originally intended. Do you suppose humans have the same capacity with God? Do you suppose we have the same capacity to twist God’s words and spin a whole new meaning on those words?
Of course we do. And this capacity exists on both “written” words as well as individually “revealed” words. So now we get down to the truth of what people mean when they use terms like “balanced.” What they mean is: we don’t trust or accept your interpretation — we need a consensus and the only consensus I can find is through my denomination or group of Christians to which I belong.
Well, that very well leaves you out in the cold, doesn’t it? You’ve just alienated yourself from receiving any personal revelation — because you’ve got to run it by your committee of trusted advisers.
Actually, I agree with your first thought: you shouldn’t accept “your revelation” from the lips of another — you should get it direct from God Himself, for yourself. The same way Abraham did, Moses did, Paul did — Jesus did
“Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
“Jesus answered them and said, ‘My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me.’” (Matthew 16:12; John 7:16)
Every time you quote the Bible, you are quoting second-hand information. That doesn’t make it wrong. Most all news we receive (tv, newspaper, radio) comes second-hand. It’s just that second-hand information has an opportunity to become tainted. 2,000 years of committees and scholars interpreting God’s words has given much opportunity for meaning twisting.
The devil quoted “Scripture” in his tempation of Jesus in the wilderness, but the interpretation no longer matched the “spirit” or essense of the One Jesus knew as His Father.
I guarantee you that Jesus relied more on personal revelation than written Scripture — although that didn’t make Him discount Scripture, He quoted that too.
Jesus said He only spoke those things the Father told Him — that’s a whole lot of “extra-curricular” information. If I had to limit my speach to those things I found in the Bible, I wouldn’t be able to function in society.
It also shows us that the Father is wanting to be involved in every little part of our life! But if we shut Him out because we limit His input to the pages of Scripture, we are going to end up with an incomplete and very possibly inadequate resource in our “time of need.”
Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. (Psalm 25:5)
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. (John 16:13)
Now that sounds like balance to me.
Very nicely written. Thanks for an uplifting blogsite!
Nita
http://www.joyouslife.wordpress.com
Dear Warriorsink: I found your website and was at first intrigued by the content. I thought I had found a non-religious Christian site. But then I started reading some of your articles and what did I see? Same old religious denominational song and dance. The focus of your site is to develop a relationship with God, rather than only an intellectual knowledge of scriptures. Well every denominational church talks about the same thing. In fact there is a popular old-time Christian song that spells it out. It is entitled: “In the Garden”. The lyrics are as follows:
I come to the garden alone, While the dew is still on the roses;
And the voice I hear, falling on my ear, The Son of God discloses.
Chorus
And He walks with me, and He talks with me, And He tells me I am His own.
And the joy we share as we tarry there, None other has ever known.
He speaks, and the sound of His voice Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,
And the melody that He gave to me, Within my heart is ringing.
This song was copyrighted in 1912. He walks with me and talks with me. A relationship with God doesn’t get any better than this! And I bet you thought this was a big secret that only you discovered.
Then I read some of your scriptures that you used to corroborate your viewpoints. You did the same thing that religions have been guilty of doing for centuries: jerk a verse out of its context and give it a meaning that it is not supposed to have. One prime example is your misinterpretation of Romans 8: 28. I won’t go into detail but your interpretation is the same erroneous interpretation that most Christian churches give it.
Then you talk about experiences having just as much importance in knowing God as scriptural study. You mentioned the fact that many of the people in the Old Testament didn’t have the written Word of God to read about God that we have today in the form of our Bible. You said that Abraham didn’t have anything to read to know about God and he had to rely only on God speaking to him. This is erroneously presumptuous of you. In the Gospel of John chapter 1 in the first 5 verses we have the truth stated. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him: and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” Some religions and translations of the Bible try to say that Word is Jesus Christ. They get this from verse 14. But the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us refers to Jesus so living God’s Word that he is God’s Word personified. It is a figure of speech.
The Word was in the beginning with God. No the Epistles written by the Apostle Paul were not in the beginning. But the information written anywhere in scripture that tells us who God is and what He is all about was with God in the beginning. Then it was told to Adam and Eve. Did Adam and Eve write it down? Do you know for sure that they did not? They may have carved it on stone tablets; they may have carved it on the walls of a cave; they may have painted it on slabs of wood or etched it on sheets of metal. Then for sure they would have given it to their children and their children’s children to be passed down to many generations to follow. Men like Noah and Abraham could then have read about God in this way.
Another venue of God’s Word being communicated to the people of the Old Testament is in astronomy. Bible scholars refer to this as: “God’s Word written in the stars”. No you can’t look up at the stars and read a chapter from Isaiah. The stars are grouped into 12 constellations. These are the 12 signs of the Zodiac. The Word was with God in the beginning and God put the stars in the heaven even before He created man. Then in Genesis 1: 14 God gives the purpose of the stars: “let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:”. The original meanings of the 12 signs of the Zodiac were to remind people of the knowledge of God that each sign stood for. Then after Adam and Eve fell into sin God’s plan of redemption was added to the information that the signs stood for. Finally the 12 signs came to be associated with the 12 sons of Jacob and prophecies concerning each son were indicated by the signs. Astrology has since corrupted this ancient knowledge and most of it is no longer available to us. But we should not be surprised that information was lost. After all, in recent years we finally discovered the Dead Sea scrolls; scrolls that contained information that we didn’t think existed.
Do you find the idea of God’s Word written in the stars far-fetched? Consider the wise men at the time of Jesus’ birth. The religious Christian denominational rendering of that story is as follows. The wise men looked up at the stars one night and saw a bright star that sent a beam of light down on Bethlehem and the wise men followed this star till it led them to the stable where Jesus was lying in a manger. This is absurdly silly! Read the story of the wise men very carefully.
This is in Matthew chapter 2. In verse one it says that these wise men came from the east. Then in verse 2 it says they saw his star in the east, and are come to worship him. If the wise men saw the star in the east, they would have to travel east to follow it. It would have led them to China, not Israel. To travel to Israel they had to go west. Also if the star sent a beam of light down on Bethlehem why did the wise men go to Jerusalem? Finally how would a beam of light communicate to the wise men that a king was born? The following is the truth concerning the wise men.
The information concerning the 12 signs of the Zodiac was passed down from generation to generation with the Children of Israel. It came to be taught then to the prophet Daniel. In Daniel 5: 11 it says that Daniel was made “master of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers”. Daniel taught the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers the true meanings of the 12 signs of the Zodiac. Many of these people then held on to these teachings and passed them down from generation to generation all the way forward to the birth of Christ. When the wise men of Matthew chapter 2 followed the movements of the planets as they passed into one sign of the Zodiac after another it meant something to them as Daniel had taught their ancestors. They finally saw a particular conjunction in the sign of Leo, the sign that represented Judah, which told them that the Messiah was born. They then decided to travel west to Israel to visit the Messiah.
There is an interesting principle illustrated in this story concerning gaining knowledge from God. The wise men went to Jerusalem, not Bethlehem. Why didn’t God tell them to go to Bethlehem? They definitely made a commitment to go to Israel to find the Messiah. God could have saved them some trouble by talking to them about where to find Jesus. The principle is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12: 7. Few Christians understand this chapter or the next two chapters. But these chapters give valuable instruction in the dominant aspect of a relationship with God; the manifestation of holy spirit. Verse 7 says that the manifestation is given to every man to profit withal. There needs to be a sound reason for God talking to somebody. If the information can be obtained by your five senses, God expects you to use your five senses. How did the wise men find out where the Messiah was to be born? They went to Jerusalem where the chief priests and scribes told them it would be Bethlehem. And where did the priests and scribes get the information? From the scriptures written by the prophet. This information was written, so God expected the people to read it. Then there was a piece of information that the wise men couldn’t read anywhere, that Herod had evil intentions concerning Jesus. So in verse 12 of Matthew 2 God warns the wise men in a dream not to return to Herod. Seeing these crystal clear sharp details in scripture sends chills up and down my spine!
I return now to your mention of experiences being as valid in getting to know God as the written Word. This is a slippery slope to be on. Everybody in denominational religions talks about experiences. I remember an event that occurred in the church that I grew up in. We were celebrating the Bi-centennial in the summer of 1976. At one point in our celebration we raised the United States flag on a flag pole and played the National Anthem as we all stood at attention. We had a spot light shining on the flag. It was a calm night, no wind. But at the beginning of the Anthem a small breeze came up and unfurled the flag. Some people thought we had an electric fan up there somewhere blowing on the flag. When it became widely known that there was no fan, people took it as a sign from God.
I’ve seen many examples of people following signs, miracles and hearing the voice of God and the attitude that comes about is: “See, we have heard from or received a sign from God. This proves our religion true.” This attitude stinks to high heaven! The only thing these things prove is that God is willing to bless His people.
But let’s take this into the Bible. In Acts 8 there is a group of people who were being led astray by what the Bible calls: “lying signs and wonders”. A man named Simon who was practicing witchcraft bewitched the people of Samaria with sorceries. But in verse 10 the people thought that he was the great power of God. If you want experiences the Devil will gladly oblige you. Witchcraft had been fooling people all through the Old Testament all the way back to Moses. In Exodus 7 is the story of Moses and Aaron casting down a rod before Pharaoh and it became a serpent. But Pharaoh called his magicians and sorcerers and they cast down their rods also and they became serpents. Experiences given to you by the Devil can lead you astray. How can you avoid this? By reading the Bible and finding out what true experiences from God will be like. In the end your experiences better line up with scripture or they may not be from the true God.
Knowing God’s Word accurately is still the most important aspect of any Christian’s life. 2 Timothy 3: 16 tells us that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, reproof and correction, for instruction in righteousness. Then the purpose is in verse 17. “That the man of God may be perfect, throughly (on the inside) furnished unto all good works.” First scripture tells us true doctrine. Then it reproves us when we are wrong. Then it corrects us or brings us back to true doctrine. Scripture does this and God then expects us to study the scriptures to accomplish this. Now you can bring in John 16: 13. When is the holy spirit going to guide you into all truth? When you are studying scripture. I have personally experienced this. But this then poses a problem. Not many Christians know and understand the Bible or know how to study it. This includes you as is evidenced by your several misinterpretations of scripture. What is needed is instruction on how to study the scriptures and rightly divide them. (2 Timothy 2: 15)
Well I know of a book that will help in doing just that. It is entitled: “Christianity Without Religion” by Joshua Powers. It shows the many flaws in Christian religions and then gives instruction on how to study the Bible for yourself. This book is available from Xlibris publishing. Their website is: http://www.xlibris.com The ISBN is 978-1-4257-7881-1. The information in this book has been a great aid in my studies of the Bible.