Why Doesn’t God Speak Directly?

Note: I strongly recommend that if you are taking my class in Hebrews, or who are following my study guide through the book answer the study guide questions before reading this entry. The purpose of the thought questions is to provide an opportunity to think. These are just some of my own thoughts on the question.

Q#2: Why does God use prophets rather than speaking to everyone?

The actual genesis of this question was in a small study group I was leading several years ago. Part of the group program was that we would take however much time the members wanted to and work through the meaning of each passage as long as the group cared to do so. This led to some rather lengthy arguments, and often to nitpicking the meaning. (You should only use this kind of approach in a study group if everyone truly wants to do it.) In one such session we were debating some passages in Revelation, and one of the members finally gave in to frustration and said, “Why can’t God just write all this out in the sky clearly, so that we would know beyond any doubt what it meant?”

Now that’s not the same question I’m asking, but it’s related. We’re starting the study of Hebrews, and the key passage for this first lesson is Hebrews 1:1-4. God has spoken at various times and in various ways through the prophets. Now, in the last days, he has spoken by means of his Son. But you and I still have to listen to God speak to someone else. We don’t see a physical Jesus or hear him preach. Instead we read reports of what he said to other people 2,000 years ago. We don’t even get to listen to the author of Hebrews; indeed, we can’t seem to agree on who he (or some say she) is. So again we’re hearing him speak to other people, and we are kind of eavesdropping. Why doesn’t God make it clearer? Why doesn’t it speak directly to me?

It’s not just speaking directly, though. It’s the clarity that’s important. If God would just make the message personal, we would not have to consider just what the principles are, and how to apply them to our own lives–we’d know!

Personally I believe that God does speak to each person directly, but clarity is another matter. In doing prayer ministry, one reason people will ask me to pray with them is that they believe they have heard from God, but they’re not sure that it is God, or they’re not sure just how to put it into practice.

This is not a question that we can resolve in a single blog entry, but it’s a good question to think about. Let me make some suggestions to think about, and then also provide links to some other things I have written on the same subject.

1. God wants us to learn to think. We often treasure the work of the prophets, and we like the results of the wisdom writers, but are we willing to do the work that goes behind wisdom? Hebrews 5:14 tell us: “¹⁴Solid food is for the mature, for those who through practice have exercised their understanding to distinguish good and evil.” God may well want us to practice our own judgment and discernment and grow in wisdom.
2. God wants us to hear from him in a community. Any one of us can go wildly astray on our own, but when we have accountability to brothers and sisters, at a minimum we have to consider the response of those close to us to what we say. Even writing this blog entry has made me give new consideration to this particular question.
3. God wants to leave us free to make unpressured decisions. This is hard for some of us to understand, because we think we want to know and do precisely what God commands. But if God made himself too obvious, we might feel pressured just by his obvious presence, sort of like having the boss breathing down our neck.
4. Those who actually listen to God are rare. It’s possible that God is speaking a great deal more than we are hearing, and that the prophets are the ones who listen more. If this one sounds good to you, make sure to consider the idea of the prophetic call Ezekiel 1 or Isaiah 6, for example, in this connection. Is it possible God calls many, and only a few hear and report the situation?

Now let me provide a few links to material on this topic.

For inspiration and testing claims that someone is speaking for God read my series that starts with The One Ended Crod. In addition, the Participatory Study Series pamphlets What is the Word of God?, The Authority of the Bible, and Spiritual Gifts: Prophecy.

On the possibility that God prefers freedom to security and certainty, see my entry Evolution, Theology, and Respect.