Does God Speak outside the Bible?
by Chuck Smith Jr.

Article adapted from Frequently Avoided Questions: An Uncensored Dialogue on Faith by Chuck Smith Jr. and Matt Whitlock (Baker Books). For more information, visit www.godrisk.com. Used with permission.

For many the idea that God speaks outside the Bible is unnerving and even threatening.

Yet the Bible itself tells of a God who communicates to people through a variety of characters, circumstances, events, and states of consciousness (for example, dreams, visions, and trances; see Acts 10:10â€"13; 22:17â€"18). Sometimes fundamentalists argue that God spoke through these other means before believers had a complete Bible, but now this is no longer necessary. However, the Bible never says that God would at some point limit himself to speaking exclusively through the written text and abandon any other form of communication with humans.

God speaks everywhere, through everyone and everything, and all one needs is ears to hear, eyes to see, and a heart to perceive. God speaks through the voice of nature and every living thing (Job 12:7â€"10; Ps. 19:1â€"6; Rom. 1:19â€"20). God speaks in dreams, pain, and by way of angels (Job 33:14â€"15, 19, 23). Jesus found messages from God in a shepherd’s lost sheep, a merchant shopping for pearls, a field planted with both good seed and weeds, a rich man’s greed, a sparrow, and so on. He also uncovered spiritual revelations in common objects, such as water, light, bread, salt, and leaven.

Would you say God cannot speak through a rock, a plant, a donkey, an ant, a lizard, a false prophet, or a maniacal king? If there is anything in the universeâ€"object or eventâ€"that we believe God would definitely not use to speak to us, then we leave God out of that part of our existence. To refuse to listen to God through whatever media he chooses to communicate diminishes our experience and awareness of himâ€"we lose God.

The issue for a growing number of Christians today is not how God speaks to us or what means he uses to give us assurance and direction, but how his message is to be heard, interpreted, and applied. These Christians draw their theology from the Bible alone, but allow encouragement and understanding to come from a variety of sources. Interpretation is important. After all, well-meaning people can draw lies from the Bible (what is heresy, after all?) if they are not careful in the way they read and listen.

It is, of course, wrong for Christians to assume they have a corner on the truth market or God. Instead, we should assume he is larger than our intellectual boxes or theological constructs. Like Paul, who said God did not leave himself “without testimony� (Acts 14:17) but deposited trace amounts of truth in every culture, we ought to believe God is working, for example, in popular culture.

Let me tell you about how God used a Hollywood movie to speak to me.

Ever since high school I have lived with a low-grade depression. I am sure it is partially neuro-chemical, and I am aware of other contributing factors from my early life. Anyway, I have to keep myself going every single day, because the temptation to just stay in bed, escape the world, and avoid all responsibility is tremendous. My inner voice constantly tells me I am a failure, hopelessly flawed, and worthless.

About a year ago I hit a spell of depression and longed to flee the ministry forever. Keep in mind that everything was going well for me; my teaching was becoming more refined, greater numbers of people wanted to listen to my talks, my second book was due for publication, and all the time I was receiving encouragement from a variety of people that my efforts were effective. Still, the feeling of wanting to run away was so strong that I decided to spend a day fasting and seeking God. Normally I am not one to fast, and I do not necessarily think that it works all that well. So the few times that I have fasted, it has been sort of a hit-or-miss type of thing.

It was my day off, with another round of normal activities. I prayed and read my Bible in the morning, exercised a little, caught up on some email, did a couple of chores, and ran a couple of errands. By the evening I had not received any revelations, but that did not surprise me. I had fasted and my life was in God’s hands. That was good enough.

My wife, Barbara, asked if I wanted to go see a movie and let me know it was my turn to pick one. I chose the thriller Along Came a Spider. It would be hard to find a movie in 2001 that garnered more bad reviews than this one. No matter. Morgan Freeman is one of my favorite actors, and I am fairly easily entertained. So we sat there and watched an apparent friendship develop between Freeman’s character, Alex Cross, and Jezzie Flannigan, played by Monica Potter. Sitting in Jezzie’s apartment, Alex was trying to console her, because a child was kidnapped on her watch at an upscale boarding school. Jezzie was ready to give up her job with the secret service, and Alex was about to respond.

At that moment, time stood still for me. Something inside me said, Listen closely to this next line, and I could swear that there was a light shining down on me. Morgan Freeman’s deep, resonant, articulate voice said, “You do what you are, Jezzie.� Here is the dialogue that follows:

Jezzie: You mean you are what you do.
Alex: No, I mean you do what you are. You’re born with a gift. If not that, then you get good at something along the way. And what you’re good at, you don’t take for granted and don’t betray it.
Jezzie: What if you do . . . betray your gift?
Alex: Then you betray yourself. That’s a sad thing.

I doubt that there is any way God could have made a stronger impression on my heart that evening. I understood with certainty that I was where I was supposed to be, doing what I was supposed to do. When I arrived at church for the staff meeting the next morning, I was ready to face a new week of challenges with energy, creativity, and the confidence that I would not betray my gift.

There is no book I love and treasure more than the Bible. Every morning as I read, I am struck with a thought, discover an insight, come across a truth that either addresses a personal need or provides me with wisdom and understanding. In this way, I can say God speaks to me every day, and I have more than thirty notebooks collected for more than a dozen years in which I have stored my daily meditations on Scripture. But it would be a shame if God spoke to me in the morning only and then said nothing else to me while driving, counseling, reading, talking with my friends, or watching a movie.

Article adapted from Frequently Avoided Questions: An Uncensored Dialogue on Faith by Chuck Smith Jr. and Matt Whitlock (Baker Books). For more information, visit www.godrisk.com. Used with permission.

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