Commands from God and his general level of interaction in the modern age

Well, wow, where to start.Christians DO experience God "talking" to us in a certain sense, but more indirectly, such as through His provision in our lives, through answered prayer, through a Bible passage that seems to jump off the page as it speaks directly to a current question or concern, and of course by impressions and guilt feelings in our conscience to guide our actions and show us where we are in the wrong (yes, He convicts me a lot about my fits of anger and I resolve to change, get slack about praying for His help and fall right back into it). ["Convicts" is Christian jargon I guess. It refers to impressions of guilt for wrong attitudes and actions.] It is all for our personal guidance in the things of God, for growth of the ability to obey the teachings and example of Christ.Except for this kind of communication, most branches of Christianity believe that prophecy as such [or the direct speaking of God to individuals, not to be confused with prophesying future events although sometimes that's part of it] stopped with the assembling of the Biblical canon. The first churches were given many direct messages from God as well as other supernatural manifestations such as miraculous healings. The usual explanation for why these phenomena (known as "charismata" or "spiritual gifts") stopped when scripture was complete, is that they were needed to encourage the first believers in this brand-new set of ideas never heard on earth before, to demonstrate that they were truly from God, and in the case of prophecy, needed to instruct the church in the doctrines of God while written guidance was yet only scantily available. So that when the church was later solidly established and doctrine more complete and readily available, including all the letters of the apostles, the need for prophecy and the other gifts of the Spirit stopped.However, there has always been some controversy about this view of the cessation of the gifts. Usually it was only small fringe groups (that were pronounced heretical) that insisted that the gifts had not stopped, and that all of them including prophecy were still in practice among them. Then in the 19th century the idea that the gifts were still intended for believers started to grow in popularity, and in the 20th century the idea took off as manifestations of the gifts were experienced in various churches, and the Pentecostal and then the Charismatic movement became large and influential.Randman and I discussed our agreements and disagreements about this movement on the thread started by Gilgamesh on Conversion Experiences a couple of months ago, but since the Search feature is disabled finding them would be a bit difficult at the moment.The student who said he would take a word from heaven as from God is probably a victim of this charismania. They tend to be short on doctrine and long on emotion so the fact that a knowledge of Christian teaching makes it absolutely certain that God would NOT tell someone to kill a person doesn't occur to him. Of course most charismatics would disagree with him too, so I don't know how to account for his extreme gullibility.To cut to the chase: Without taking a position on the validity of all charismatic teaching, I think I can say that any "word from God" that cannot be substantiated in scripture or in any way contradicts scripture is not from God. We do, however, believe in fallen angels, and in their various supernatural powers and their intention to deceive, and some of these things can be explained by their activities, only too easily put over on gullible Christians. No, it's not insanity, it's not a mental trick. These things happen.{Edit: Obviously, for a Christian to obey such a directive from a demonic being would be against God. To sum up my point, the way you know anything is from God is by its consistency with scripture and I mean scripture properly understood of course, as scripture wrongly understood can be used to rationalize anything too.}This message has been edited by Faith, 08-28-2005 08:19 PM

God killed them, people didn't, and He didn't order anyone to do it. Big difference. Death is the wages of sin, as we are taught throughout the Bible. In the case of Ananias and Sapphira God didn't waste any time making His point as an object lesson to the church that you don't lie to the Holy Spirit and get away with it.This message has been edited by Faith, 08-28-2005 10:08 PM

No, God does not go against His commandments either. God does not murder, God executes people for violations of the Law. He is the Judge of us all, and He is a perfect Judge, impartial and exact in His judgments. Again, a law of the universe is "the wages of sin is death." Ananias and Sapphira received their "wages" immediately and suddenly. Most of us take a lifetime to accumulate our death sentence for our disobedience of God. God used His people as instruments of His judgments in the Old Testament (He also used other nations as instruments of His punishments OF His people too). Since Jesus came and the gospel has gone out to all the world, we use the reality of God's judgments against our own sins as the reason to seek salvation in Christ. He was sent for that very purpose, to save us from God's punishment of our violations of His Law, otherwise known as our sins. I've been discussing this very issue on the thread, No Gospel Without Law, No Mercy Without Wrath, if you're interested. Yes, but this refers to the fact that people who come to believe in Christ often experience rejection and hostility from their families, especially Jews. The hostility comes AGAINST the believers, not FROM the believers, and in Jewish families it does often tear the family apart. Parents may disown children who become followers of Christ. Jesus' saying He came to bring a sword and not peace is the same message {Edit: In this case referring to the generalized hostility of the world against Christians.} This is meant as encouragement to the believers, to help them realize that this is to be expected and to hang in there.This message has been edited by Faith, 08-28-2005 11:25 PM

Some mediums are frauds I'm sure, but real mediums talk to demons, often demons impersonating dead people, hence the popularity of seances and rituals where the medium passes on a message supposedly from a loved one who has died. Mediums are basically witches, and all of it is forbidden by God.SO, if they call themselves Christians, sorry, they're not.{Edit: It's on topic in the sense that "voices from God" may be demon impersonations. In fact some of the more dramatic experiences of hearing voices and other bizarre phenomena make no sense as mental conditions, although that is the catchall classification for all strange experiences it seems, as materialists can't countenance the alternative, but some certainly do have the earmarks of demonic influence and if the person doesn't have any other symptoms of psychological disturbance it's the most likely explanation.}This message has been edited by Faith, 08-29-2005 04:56 AM

Unfortunately it CAN be, as can other charismatic phenomena, but in any given case it's hard to know, and since the early church spoke in tongues, we want to be careful how we judge these things. But speaking in tongues doesn't have any dangerous implications as a voice commanding murder does, so we can afford to leave it undetermined.

I have no idea what you meant to be saying in that post, Phat. I don't see how all those definitions clarify anything.Are you claiming a Christian can be a medium?Christ is our mediator. A medium is not a mediator. A medium in the sense Charles asked the question is what I said, somebody who communicates with demons. A "familiar spirit" is a demon, one a medium hangs out with.