We continue to explore how we hear God’s voice – this time, how we hear his whisper in the context of community, in creation, and in culture.
Summary
Chapter 7 – Hearing God’s Word in Community, Creation and Culture: Jesus became flesh and lived among us all the better to communicate with us – in a body and not just a book, materially and not just mystically. God speaks to us in and through the world, so we must be careful of having a sacred/secular divide. We must learn to discern the voice of God in the whole of life, not just in church meetings and spiritual exercises. The first thing we learn is that we cannot ‘do’ the Christian faith on our own – we need to be part of the community of misfits called the church. And be prepared that God may well want to speak to you through some people you might naturally dismiss or despise, rather than the way you want him to, supernaturally and personally. We also need to be accountable to ‘soul friends’ who we trust and who we permit to speak the word of God to us – just be careful how you form such friendships. God is also continually at work in every aspect of his created world, in our culture and everyday worlds – through a colleague, a film, a song, or the stars in the night sky. We need to believe Paul’s words in Acts 17:24-28 and be able to discern the hint of God’s whisper even in a poem written by an idolater. Not by being assimilated into the culture but by discerning the whisper of God in the culture. We do this through learning to hear his voice in the other ways discussed in the book so far. We do it by turning to the culture: learning to pay attention to ordinary life. Then, discerning the culture: there is a deceptive enemy out there who uses culture to spread his lies. Hear God’s whisper in your own conscience, have respect for others’ consciences and consider whether you can receive this aspect of culture as a gift from God. Finally, return to Scripture: meditate on it, reflect on it with other Christians and encounter Christ through it – then you guard against being conformed to the culture.
Some Key Quotes
We must learn to listen more carefully to those people the culture ignores, because God speaks most consistently from the margins – through children, through the poor, through those who suffer. (p. 202)
It was unthinkable that any follower of Jesus would ‘go it alone’, without someone else alongside them to bring God’s word and wisdom. (p. 205)
There is no aspect of God’s creation through which he cannot and does not speak. (p. 209)
Our problem is not with hearing God’s voice in the culture, but rather with completely confusing the spirit of the age with the Spirit of God. We switch off the gift of ‘discernment of spirits’ when we go to the cinema, or when we attend a lecture, or when we shop at the mall. We would never consider abandoning a box set because of its darkness or depravity or withdrawing from an acquaintance whose influence was consistently detrimental to our holiness. Our consciences are rarely troubled by the culture. (p. 211)
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
- What has been your experience of God speaking to you in the context of community, whether through a close friend or through a passing conversation with someone from ‘the margins’?
- How does God speak to you through his creation? If he is continually speaking through it, what do you hear him saying?
- Do you agree with Pete Greig’s assertion that we are no longer troubled in our conscience by what we experience in culture? Why might that be and what can we do about it?
There is a PDF version of this study here.