In the October edition of Christianity Magazine (to which I have just subscribed and, on the evidence so far, I would recommend to others) there is an excellent article by the venerable RT Kendall (formerly minister of Westminster Chapel) entitled “God Told Me” – Really?
It’s aimed at the charismatic tendency to use (if not massively over-use) on a day-to-day basis, “The Lord told me …” terminology. Do we really need to ‘name drop’ like this, RT asks? Whose credibility are we trying to enhance – the Lord’s, or ours?
As you might imagine, I am firmly in the RT camp on this subject.
Can we really point to a biblically-based expectation that the average Christian should get more “words from the Lord” in a week than Billy Graham has had in his entire lifetime? Would someone like to present a biblical case for it?
I won’t say too much about RT’s article – here’s a link (I hope the publishers won’t mind me advertising their excellent magazine in this way, at no cost to them …).
http://www.faithandstuff.org/web_documents/christianity_article.pdf
This isn’t a criticism of ordinary believers simply seeking to enjoy a personal, intimate and interactive two-way relationship with God. Not at all, so please don’t take it that way. The fault lies with pastors and preachers, who are probably the most prone to such language misues themselves, and who ’set the tone’ for their congregations.
Furthermore, pastors often seem pathologically disinclined to ‘correct’ their flock in this area, presumably to avoid discouraging people in their fledgling “experiential faith.” The idea seems to be that less harm is done by a bit of ‘over-claiming’, than would be the case if someone is corrected and as a result put off trying to ‘hear from God’ in their personal life. But this is a poor excuse. Don’t we have a responsibility to train people? And are we sure that less harm is done?
What is ‘wrong’ here is not “experiential faith”, not at all. At the very heart of the gospel is restored relationship.
But might we charismatics not learn to be a little more humble, a little more communal (and less individualistic) about our ideas of ‘God speaking to us’ and a little less grandiose in our claims?