Have you ever worried that you aren’t hearing from God through the Bible?
Have you ever worried that you’re doing something wrong because you aren’t feeling the effects from the Bible you think you need to feel in order to ensure you’re hearing God’s voice?
If so, then I ask that you read this post in its entirety. It may challenge you, and it may confront some things you’ve believed about engaging the Bible and hearing from God, but I think it will truly help you.
It helped me.
A Helpful Theological Exercise?
My theology professor asked the class the following question: when do you know you’ve heard from God during your Bible reading experience?
It is a question that piques our interest. The fact that we ask it indicate we have to think about it. Recognizing that we have to think about it has the potential to make us worry that we might not be hearing from God.
Where do we begin?
Hearing God’s Voice Through the Communication Loop
The Bible is written communication. That might seem simple, but it is helpful as we think through this.
All written & verbal communication follows the same communication loop:
- The words themselves
- The intended meaning of the words
- The effect the words have on the recipient1
I’ll ask you the same question my professor asked me: at what stage in this sequence does God speak to us?
Does God speak to us through the words themselves?
Or do we hear from God when we’ve understood the words?
Or do we have to feel the effect of the words before we’ve heard from Him?
Is it some combination of all three: 1&2, 1&3, 2&3?
Better yet, how can we know?
Thinking Through How God Speaks to Us
It is common to assume God speaks to us at all stages of the communication loop:
The words seem important, but words without meaning are less than helpful. Additionally, if spiritual growth and transformation are what we’re after, then the effects of the words have got to contain God’s voice. After all, the Holy Spirit guides us to all truth.
But this assumption has multiple problems.
If you haven’t heard from God until you feel the effects of the words on the page, then the words on the page (God’s word) are not enough to hear from God. This is a departure from the position that God’s word is sufficient for salvation, sanctification, and is inspired.
If hearing and understanding the words of the Bible are not sufficient for hearing from God, then God’s word is inspiring, but not inspired. God’s word is demoted to something that has the potential to help you hear from God. That is not an inspired text, and it is less than the inspired writers’ understanding of God’s word:
Psalm 19:7–11
Psalm 119:9–17
2 Tim. 3:16–17
Heb. 4:12
In case you’re not convinced, I’ll leave you with the followup question my professor asked us:
If the Bible sat in the forrest unopened and unread by anybody, would it still be God’s word?
If the answer is yes (which it is), then God’s voice is contained within the words them selves and the meaning of the words (steps 1&2 in the communication loop), but not the effect of the words (step 3; more on step 3 below).
That surprise to you, but it is actually incredibly liberating.
But What about the effect the Word has on us?
You may be thinking that I am downplaying the effect God’s word has on us (or worse, even dismissing it). I am not downplaying or dismissing it. I value it. I also know we don’t always experience that feeling.
Rather than dismiss it, I am bringing clarity to the process of hearing from God through Scripture in order to reduce Bibleing overwhelm and anxiety.
God’s word does have an effect on us; it is just that its effect is part of a different experience than hearing from God.
The ‘sweetness’ effect we all love and desire from our biblical engagement is real. But it is a Spirit driven response to the revelation we encounter in God’s word, not the revelation itself.
Two theological concepts are unfortunately conflated within popular Christianity, and this results in confusion and overwhelm.
Revelation is that which God reveals to us.
Illumination is the Spirit’s work to help us love and desire what God has revealed.
Steps 1&2 of the communication loop are revelation. Step 3 is illumination.
Why does this matter?
Understanding this difference explains the different experiences we have within the biblical text. The text itself is revelation, but we don’t always feel like we’ve spent time with God. This causes us to worry something is wrong, or worse, give up entirely.
That sweet feeling we all desire is the effect of illumination, not revelation. It is possible to encounter God’s revelation within the Bible and still hate God. We feel sweet communion with God when the Holy Spirit illumines our hearts and minds to the truth (and why/how it is beautiful) of the Bible.
Instead of thinking we haven’t heard from God when we don’t feel the ‘sweetness’, we need to turn to prayer and ask God for Illumination so that we love the truth of His revelation and see how & why it is beautiful.
This isn’t an intellectual distinction without real effects.
It is the way God has designed us to understand His Revelation within the format of written communication (the Bible).
Understanding this process is the difference between experiencing sweet fellowship with God through His word (all of it) and spiraling into overwhelm and eventually giving up.
Here are six real implications that genuinely make a difference in your faith and practice.
What this means for my biblical engagement
How does this information help us?
First, it clarifies that simply being in the Bible, whether you’re reading, studying, or meditating, means you are hearing from God.
Second, it means that encountering any verse within the Bible means that you are hearing from God (even 1 Chronicles 1:1). This should automatically shift your question from “how on earth is this passage helpful or relevant to my life” to “why did God preserve this information for me to read? Why does God want me to encounter this information?” This gets your mind curious about what you’re reading, which softens your heart to the Spirit’s work of illumination.
Third, it reduces the overwhelm and anxiety of wondering if you’re Bibleing well enough to hear from God. If you read anything from any of the 1,189 chapters within the Bible, then you heard from God.
Fourth, hearing from God is far more accessible than we assume it is. Humans tend to assume we have to do something to reach God.
That is a lie from satan.
God comes to His creation. We cannot go to God without Him first coming to us. He is the one who draws near so that we can run to Him. You don’t have to conduct the perfect Bible study sequence in order to hear from God. You don’t need to ‘sit’ in a passage until you feel something in order to make sure you’ve heard from God. Engage the words of Scripture. If you do that, then you’ve heard from God.
Fifth, it means that covering ground in the Bible through reading is unbelievably valuable. If we hear from God by encountering the words and meaning of the Bible, then encountering the full scope of that message is invaluable. The process of illumination also dispels the idea that reading Matthew in one sitting is spiritually unprofitable. The more revelation you encounter, the more material there is for the Spirit to illuminate.
Sixth, it pushes us to enter into a prayerful meditation about what we’ve read in Scripture. This means we are abiding with God through His word. Prayerful dialogue, reflection, and quietness softens our hearts and enables us to experience the Spirit’s work of Illumination.
Conclusion
Thank you for getting this far. I know some of that material was dense, and I also know it likely rubbed against what you previously believed about how we hear God’s voice in His word.
God isn’t trying to make us jump through hoops in order to hear Him. He literally inspired humans to write what He wants us to know. He entered His own creation as a humble man in order to redeem us so we can live in communion with Him for eternity. The process of communing with Him through His word is simple, but we assume it has to be more difficult.
If you’ve been worried that you aren’t Bibleing correctly, then I encourage you to adopt what I’ve outlined here as your new mindset. Spend time in God’s word. Know you’ve heard from Him. Commune with Him through prayer in response to what you read.
I believe you will be blown away by that experience, and that is what I want for you.
How do we know if we’ve heard from God? Have we read what He’s given us? If yes, then we’ve heard from Him.
What a peaceful thought.
Happy Bibleing!
Footnotes
- The technical term for these stages of the communication loop are Locution, Illocution, and Perlocution. Together, these are “the three elements of Speech Act theory” as observed and articulated by J. L. Austin and J. Searle. See How To Do Things with Words, ed. J. O. Urmoson and M. Sbisa, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975, and J. Searle, Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1969, as described and cited in William W. Klein, Craig L. Blomberg, and Robert L. Hubbard Jr, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), 244–45. ↩︎
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