“Are we limiting God?” “Anyone who puts God in a box is going to live a small life. He gives us as much as we are willing to believe.”

I totally agree with what I have paraphased above. There are two aspects to it though:
1. In the context of, say I Cor. 1:23, neither miracles nor wisdom should be the focal point of our pursuit. Yet God may still perform miracles while we are taught not see this as the primary concern!

I guess God’s way and wisdom is above us. It is inaccordance with HIs revealed will that we should decided as what should be done. Epeciallyso, if we still proclaim that HIs revealed, written words is the ultimate guidiance for all matters of faith and practices.

2. the second point being: whether we see that the church at the time of Acts is a full-fledged one and should be made a blue print of all churches even in our times.

What has happened at Acts’ time is epoch-making and different from our time! (eg Start of the promised work of the Holy Spirit). These are in the “once-and-for-all, once-and-forever” category.

In turn, the full body of New Testament was not yet canonised nor even fully written.

In view of the above, I tend to think that what is done then may bot be equally applicable today. We may not ne able to copy them all incidences in a wholesale manner. This certainly include the direct revelation as a common mode of God’s communication to man.

In fact we can find cases, when God has clearly demo (like Anaias and Sophia’s lying and death) and established his unambiguious intention and teaching, He does not repeat this in every case afterward both in OT and NT. God is graceful to us and allows time for us to come round in many cases.

Overall, I find encouraging to seek to hear God’s revealation has a few pitfall in today;’s terms: falling into occult worship, new age spirituality, over-valuation of personal experience more than what the Bible teaches, just to name a few.

The above is just some of my personalthoughts.

To add, I enjoy your honest sharing.

Blessings

Tommy, Auckland, NZ
2006-08-27

My issue all along was that your representation of Friesen’s view - and more accurately how he supports his view - is skewed. But, I think we’ve spilled enough ink so that anyone still reading this thread can make up their own minds.

I’d be interested in the reviews of Decision Making that you’ve run across. I tried to find the one at Challies.com but couln’t find it. E-mail me if you don’t want to list them here - brian [at] reasonwhy [dot] org.

Hope you have a great weekend.

I read the book about twenty years ago, read a portion of it again about ten years ago, loaned it out to someone who asked to read it, then never saw the book again.

This does not mean that I’m foggy on the book. Just in the last few months there were extensive reviews of it online at several blogs, including Tim Challies’s.

We’ll have to disagree on the individual will issue. If he says that there is no specific individual will of God for each of us, well, I think he’s wrong and I’ve shown why. When he talks about people struggling to find God’s will and coming up empty, this is exactly what he’s talking about.

As far as the nudge/impression view goes, I also showed why I believe he’s wrong in that regard, too. Now what I didn’t say is that people always get that form of leading right. That says nothing about God’s guidance and everything about our own maelstrom of noise inside us.

I believe that Friesen downplays supernatural leading to the point that it becomes a non-issue. He may say he leaves an opening for it, but in presenting his arguments the way he does he doesn’t show that it’s something he believes can be a normal part of every Christian’s life.

We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one.