Problems with Personal Guidance from God

by Brian Thornton @ http://voiceofthesheep.wordpress.com

If you have been coming to this blog recently, you have no doubt seen a particular theme running through my posts over the last several days. The main subject of my recent entries has been the issue of people hearing from and receiving direct, personal guidance from God. Even though my position has made me rather unpopular with some who have read my comments, I still have some thoughts I would like to share on this topic. Some of these are my own thoughts and some of these have been gleaned from material produced by Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason. Just in case anyone is not familiar with what I am talking about when I say ‘personal guidance from God’, I am referring to what many claim to receive in various mediums that they attribute to the voice or direct leading of God. These range from being called by God to do something (in ministry or otherwise) to being told directly what to do to being led to receiving a feeling or impression of what to do. Koukl gives some examples of the Christian lingo used to verbalize this: “I feel led…”, “I think God is telling me…”, “God wants me to…”, “I feel God is calling me…”, “I beleive it’s God’s will that I…”. Another more direct one I hear a lot these days is, “God told me to…”, “God spoke to me and said…”.

Here are some things that trouble me about this:

• These personal directives from God are totally subjective and unverifiable.
• Aside from direct, supernatural, unmistakable directives from God…this type of personal guidance cannot be found anywhere in Scripture.
• What was a very rare occurrence in the NT has been made into the norm for our day.
• IF these personal directives to individuals are, in fact, happening…what does that say to those believers who do not receive this kind of personal guidance from God? Are we less spiritual or less important to God? Have we not discovered how to tap into the ‘hotline’ to God’s will as these others have? Are we just not letting go and letting God…?
• Is it not more reasonable to attribute this ‘personal guidance’ to our own thoughts and conscience coupled with the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit upon God’s revealed will found in His word that we either had put to memory or were familiar with already, rather than to say that God is telling me something, or has revealed something to me, or is leading me to make some specific decision?
• Doesn’t this kind of direct instruction from God reduce the need for knowing His revealed will, since He is going to tell me directly what to do anyway?
• Doesn’t this personal guidance from God put Him on the hook and make Him responsible for all sorts of bad decisions we may make?
• Doesn’t this sort of personal guidance from God go contrary to being transformed by the renewing of our minds, and taking every thought captive for Christ?

Those are some of my additional thoughts on this. Here are some from Greg Koukl contained within his Ambasador Basic Curriculum on Decision Making and the Will of God:

• Hearing that God is providing direct personal guidance to others can create confusion, frustration, anxiety and even fear that we are not “tuned in” like others are.
• Some Christian leaders warn you not to do anything unless you have heard from God about the decision (Blackaby).
• All spiritual disciplines that are important and essential for productive Christian living are taught clearly in Scripture. They are not hidden between the lines.
• The teaching that we get guidance from God from a feeling is simply not biblical. There’s not a single instance in Scripture that asserts this (that Greg is aware of).
• God DOES use special personalized guidance in the Bible…but it is RARE. The cases are exceptional. There is no hint that day-to-day decisions - big or small - were made by getting special directions from God. They are sometimes given, but the biblical pattern is that they are rare, intrusive, clear, supernatural, and often go against wisdom.
• Regarding God’s individual will for me - God’s sovereign will is secret and His moral will is totally revealed. No other ‘will’ exists in the Bible. Greg found NO special category of ‘God’s will’ in the Scriptures tailor-made for us that we have to discover before we can make decisions.

Finally, this is a statement by J.I. Packer contained in the materials I am quoting from Stand to Reason on the subject of receiving personal guidance from God:

“What shall we say of [the personal guidance model]? The first thing to say is that this idea of guidance is actually a novelty among orthodox evangelicals. It does not go back further than the last century. Second, it has led people to so much foolish action on the one hand, and so much foolish inaction on the other, as well as puzzlement and heartbreak when the ‘hotline’ to God seems to go silent, that it has to be seen as discredited. Third, it must be said that Scripture gives us no more warrant to expect a personal ‘hotline’, ‘voice from the control-tower’ guidance than to expect new authoritative revelations for the guidance of the whole church.” - Hot Tub Religion, p.116

Koukl goes on in this curriculum (there are also audio tapes that accompany it) to talk about what biblical decision making really is apart from feeling led, called, directed, open/closed doors, circumstantial signs & fleeces, confirmations, etc.