response to deere’ surprised by the voice of god

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A Paper

Presented to

Dr. Glenn Kreider

Dallas Theological Seminary

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In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Course

ST101 Theological Method and Bibliology

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by

Ken Suanjong Yeo

May 2020

response to deere’ surprised by the voice of god

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate Jack Deere’s views against the scriptures on the revelation of God in the church age[1].

Deere asserted at the beginning of the book that “Many Christians have wandered into a spiritual wilderness devoid of passion and power. Those who hear and obey the voice of God will escape that wilderness or see it changed into a garden.”[2] Deere’s goal is to show ordinary Christians what the voice of God is, and how to hear it.[3]

Deere’s assertion of this book is fairly simple and clear, that is God spoke in multiple ways in the New Testament especially in the Book of Acts, the same God is speaking in the same ways today, every Christians should strive to hear the voice of God through these various ways, or else the Christians are living an unfulfilled Christian life.

Deere observed that God “spoke through an audible voice, through dreams, visions, circumstances, fleeces, inner impressions, prophets, angels, and other ways, as well as through Scripture”[4]. God did not only speak in many ways, but He also did that frequently, it was the common Christian experience in the early church as portrayed in the Book of Acts. It was Deere’s common experience[5], it should be the experience for every Christian in today’s church as well. Does God still speak in the same ways commonly to every Christians today? I will try to answer this question in this paper based on the Scripture, the historical records of the church, and writings from theologians on this subject.

Deere’s View of Revelation and Scriptures

We are like Elijah

Deere used James’ reference of Elijah, “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours” to support his view that “Elijah was a man just like us” [6], in other words, Elijah is not special, every Christians should commonly experience miracle similar to Elijah.

While I agree with Deere’s observation that Elijah was self-pity and self-centered, Elijah was like all of us, a sinner. We can and should learn from Elijah about his faith as shown in his prayers to God. However, I believe James’ main point is to encourage Christians to have faith like Elijah to pray for those who are sick or in sins.[7] I don’t believe that James’ purpose of referencing Elijah was to tell the readers they should expect miracles commonly in their life similar to what Elijah had experienced, namely raising people from dead (1 Ki 17:22), calling fire from heaven (1 Ki 18:38; 2 Ki 10), hearing God’s audible voice (1 Ki 19:9), parting water with his cloak into two sides (2 Ki 2:8) or going up to heaven with a chariot in a whirlwind(2 Ki 2:11)![8]

Old Testament Miracles in Church Age

Deere used 1 Corinthians 10:11 to support his views that the New Testament teaches Christians should expect miracles experienced by the Israelites. He taught that Christians should not discount the examples in the bible are special people living in special times, doing so is a very unbiblical way of reading the Bible.[9]

In context, I believe Paul’s main point in 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 was to warn the Corinthian Christians not to follow the same moral and spiritual mistakes as the Israelites in the wilderness. Paul wrote “that we might not desire evil as they did”, “we must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did”, “we must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did…”, and “nor grumble…”. His point was not to tell the Corinthians Christians to expect supernatural phenomena just like the Israelites did in the wilderness.[10] Instead, Paul used the history of Israelites a metaphor of the spiritual experience between believers and Christ. The Israelites drank from the rock is a metaphor of Christians drinking water from Christ, for the Rock was Christ.[11]

Deere wrote that if Christians believed in the miracles in the Bible, but do not expect miracles in their life, they are just like the Pharisees. He interpreted Jesus’ words that the Pharisees have never heard the voice of His Father because they did not expect the Old Testament examples of supernatural phenomena to be repeated in their lifetime.[12] In other words, if a Christian does not expect or experience supernatural phenomena in his lifetime, he behaves just like a Pharisee. When we read the verse in context, Jesus told us the reason why He said the Pharisees have never heard from God, it was because they did not believe the one whom God has sent, referring to Jesus Himself. The scriptures bear witness of Christ[13], the miracles are not the end, they are means to the end, miracles in the Old Testament point to Jesus Christ, which is in line with how Paul interprets the Israelites’ experience of miracles in the wilderness in 1 Corinthians 10:1-3.

Book of Acts – Normal or Abnormal Christianity

Deere posted a very reasonable and serious question in chapter 4: is the church’s experience recorded in Acts normal or abnormal Christianity?[14] By posting this question, and presenting the miracles experienced by the apostles in Acts as normal Christian experience, Deere is leading the readers to think that without experiencing these miracles their Christian life is abnormal. The message is unless Christians are constantly experiencing miracles similar to the miracles[15] in the book of Acts in their life, they are living an unfulfilled, dissatisfying Christian life.

I disagree with Deere’s proposition and will support my view based on two points. The first point is based on the observation of the Book of Acts and the second point is based on observation of the New Testament Epistles.

Observation of the Book of Acts

First, on observation of the Book of Acts. The revelatory activities[16] of God happened mostly to and through the apostles[17], specifically Peter and Paul. And with lesser frequency to a few other disciples, there are Stephen[18], Philip[19], Ananias[20] , and Cornelius[21]. The main exception is speaking in tongue, which happened at first on Pentecost to the 120 disciples and for the last time to about twelve disciples at Ephesus[22]. Since Deere did not specifically deal with speaking in tongue, this topic will not be discussed in this paper.

On the surface, God did indeed speak to people supernaturally throughout the book of Acts. Although God did reveal to people supernaturally in the Book of Acts, the number of people He has revealed Himself is a relatively small number. There was no record of God commonly revealing Himself supernaturally to all disciples in dreams, visions, through angels or prophecy in the book of Acts. Deere was trying to use the Book of Acts to establish the argument that God is commonly revealing Himself to many believers in the present church age. He argued that the issue is not God does not reveal Himself, the issue is Christians do not believe and expect God frequently speaks to them supernaturally through visions, dreams, angels, and prophecies. I do not think this is a strong argument as mentioned above. It will be a better argument if Deere argued that God sometimes speaks to selected individuals supernaturally to accomplish His plan.

Observation on the New Testament Epistles

Second, on the observation of the entire New Testament. Deere put a lot of emphasis on the book of Acts as the model of normal Christianity and put less emphasis on the epistles. It is understandable because it is much harder to support the proposition that God commonly revealed Himself supernaturally frequently to many Christians using the epistles. It is because all the 21 epistles do not mention supernatural revelation much, except prophecy, which will be discussed in the prophecy section later on. When supernatural revelation like dreams or visions was mentioned, it was to a few selected individuals. Thus, it is crucial not to only look at the book of Acts as a model of normal Christianity, but to look at the entire New Testament.

Deere did try to use the epistles to support his view, but he only managed to find a few scriptures, and the passages he used is fairly weak. He chose the example of Paul received a revelation from God to visit Jerusalem with Barnabas and Titus.[23] He mentioned that Paul “does not tell how the revelation came. Apparently, that wasn’t important for his readers to know. What was important was that they understood it was the Lord himself who had directed him”.[24] Just a few verses earlier, Paul also mentioned that the gospel that he preached he did not receive from any man, but he received it through a direct revelation from God.[25] Paul was the God-chosen apostle to write at least 13 books in the New Testament, he received direct supernatural revelation from God to write down the scriptures, and in context, Paul was trying to argue for his apostleship,[26] thus I do not think we can apply God’s revelation to Paul as a common way for God to communicate to all Christians. [27]

The other scripture Deere quoted to support his view in Philippians 3:15. This is a stronger argument than Galatians 2:2 because this time Paul wrote that the readers, not just him, would receive revelation from God. However similar to Gelation 2:2, Paul did not explain the method of revelation. Furthermore, in context, Paul wrote if any of the readers think that he does not need to press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus, God will eventually reveal this truth to them. So, the point of this passage is that God will reveal to Christians they need to grow in maturity in Christ, instead of telling the Christians they will hear God revelation supernaturally.[28]

Here is Deere’s conclusion on Paul’s experience in Acts and his letters: “Both Paul’s letters and the book of Acts demonstrate that Christians never outgrow their need for God’s revelatory ministry.”[29] And then He included an endnote with a reference to Gerald Hawthorne’s Philippians commentary to support his view. I think it is helpful to quote the section on Paul’s view on visions in the Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, whom Hawthorne was one of the editors on this subject:

“Paul’s own attitude toward visions can be contrasted with that of Luke. Luke emphasized the visions as part of his apologetic for the Gentile missions: this can only be the work of God and so visions corroborate the Pauline ministry in his call and fulfillment. Paul defends the Gentile mission and his role within it on the groups that the Word has been proclaimed and the church established (2 Cor 3:2-3; 12:12; Rom 15:18-20). Ecstatic experiences are of value only to the extent that they carry forward that work (1 Cor 14:26, 30-33). For this reason, they assume a secondary role in Paul’s understanding of ministry.”[30]

In summary, Deere did not have strong support in the New Testament text to support his view. To have a balanced understanding of the normality of Christianity regarding how God reveals to Christians in the Church age, we cannot rely on the Book of Acts by itself, we must consider all the New Testament scriptures and have a balanced view on this subject. The book of Acts recorded God’s supernatural revelations to the main characters in the book but did not paint the pictures that the supernatural revelations were a common experience to all believers. It is confirmed by the New Testament epistles, where visions or dreams were hardly mentioned. Thus I believe that the ways that God revealed Himself supernaturally to the major characters in the book of Acts are not the common ways God reveals to all Christian in the New Testament age, as well as in the church age. Does it mean that God does not longer reveals himself in supernaturally? No, I believe God still reveals Himself supernaturally through dreams and vision, however, I do not believe those are the common ways for God to reveal Himself. When and how God reveals Himself through dreams and visions? We will discuss that next.

Dreams and Visions

For this paper, dreams and visions are synonymous.[31] Deere devoted a chapter to discussing the purposes of dreams and how to interpret them.[32] Although I do not believe dreams are the common method for God to communicate with people, I do believe that sometimes God does choose to use dreams communicate to with some people.

In the last few decades, there are many reports of Muslims converted to Christian because they had dreams about Jesus. Dr. Dudley Woodbury, Sr. Professor of Islamic Studies did some research between 1991 and 2007, and the result is staggering:    

“in that research, he interacted with 750 Muslim-background believers. As he interacted with them, he began to ask them about what role dreams played in them coming to Christ. He noted that 27 percent [said they had] experienced Jesus-related dreams before their conversion to Christ. So, about one-fourth of those 750 Muslim-background believers had had some kind of dream experience that impacted them, that provoked them to come to Christ. Forty percent of them said it was at the time of their conversion, right around their conversion. Forty-five percent of them said it was after their conversion, after they believed; it was some kind of affirmation that they’d received in a dream.”[33]

I do not think Christian should actively seek God’s revelation through dreams because the New Testament does not teach that. However, I do think that Christian ought to open to the possibility for God to communicate to us through dreams.[34] Conversely, we need to be aware that most dreams are not from God, but a result of our brain own activity while sleeping. We also need to be aware that men’s heart is sinful, the dream could be misused by men to claim authority and fall into sin.[35]

Are There Prophets in The Church Age?

A large portion of the book is devoted to defending the validity of prophetic ministry in the church age. In chapters 5 and 6, Deere presented a list of prophetic gifted ministers between the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century, ended with Charles Spurgeon. To me, this is quite a convincing argument that some form of prophetic ministry exited in the church age.

Since the Book of Acts recorded the activities of a few prophets,[36] and the apostle Paul also taught about the ministry of the prophets in Ephesians 4 and 1 Corinthian 12-14. Furthermore, Paul encourages the readers of 1 Corinthians to earnestly desire to prophesy (1 Cor 14:39), thus I believe the New Testament does teach about prophetic ministry in the church age.

Deere listed five questions to be asked about the ministry of prophetic persons:

“1. Are they honoring Christ and bringing glory to him, or are they bringing attention to themselves? 2. Are they walking in humility, and does their ministry produce humility? 3. Does their ministry produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit? 4. Are their words accurate and do their predictions come true? 5. Does their teaching fall in line with the Scripture?”[37]

I agree that these are good questions to evaluate the prophet ministry of a person because 1) Jesus teaches us to recognize false prophets by their fruits (Matt 7:15), 2) Jesus teaches us he will recognize the one who does the will of His father, not just prophesize in His name (Matt 7:21-22), 3) Paul teaches that let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said (1 Cor 14:29). He also teaches do not quench the Spirit, do not despise prophecies, but test everything, hold fast what is good, abstains from every form of evil (1 Thess 5:22).

Deere put a lot of emphasis on supernatural revelation such as predicting the future or telling the background of a stranger in prophecy. He teaches that learning the language of the Holy Spirit is like learning a human language, a person needs to go through a trial and error learning stage to be good at discerning the voice of God. [38] Although he will make errors, if he is gifted, he will eventually get better in interpreting dreams and prophesying future events. I think he is putting too much emphasis on the supernatural phenomena than what the New Testament teaches. For example, Paul teaches prophecy is about learning and be encouraged (1 Cor 14:31), and upbuilding and encouragement and consolation (1 Cor 14:3).

Prophesy in the New Testament seems to be quite different than in the Old Testament. The reformers like Luther and Calvin, limited the spontaneous character of prophecy by defining this gift as the proper exposition of the Scriptures, hence, they popularized the idea of prophecy as preaching[39]. Paul’s teaching of prophecy in 1 Corinthians 12-14 seems to suggest that prophesy in the New Testament is a spiritual gift that lays somewhere between Deere’s definition and the reformers’ definition. Interestingly, C. M. Robeck observed that the twentieth century Pentecostalism and charismatic renewal movement share a similar understanding of New Testament prophecy with the contemporary evangelical:

“On the whole, they value the place of the spontaneous oracle alongside preaching as a genuine manifestation of prophecy which continues to appear within the contemporary church (cf. Yocum, Grudem, Cullmann). Such utterances are believed to play a role that may be both revelatory and authoritative, but these believers take their cue from Paul by emphasizing the need for discernment by the community of faith ( 1 Cor 14:29-33; 1 Thess 5:19-22)”.[40]

Conclusion

In conclusion, while I agree with Deere’s view that God continues to supernaturally speak to people outside of the Scripture through dreams or visions, I do not agree with his proposition that these are supposed to be normal ways for God to reveal Himself to people. Deere’s choice in using the words normal and abnormal to ask these questions: “Does The Book Of Acts Represent Normal Christianity?”, “If Acts represents abnormal Christianity when compared with the present state of the church, wouldn’t we be better off to choose the abnormal experience of Acts?”[41], is leading the readers to think that without hearing from God supernaturally, we are living an abnormal, unfulfilled, Christian life.

I believe that the primary way for God to speak to people is through Scripture. The Holy Spirit’s role is to lead and reveal the truth in the scriptures to God’s people. Any other supernatural revelations are God’s extra grace to us. Christians do not need to have supernatural encounters with God to live a fulfilled Christian life. However God is sovereign, He supernaturally reveals to people if He chooses to. Supernatural revelations of God through dreams seem to be more common among Christians who used to be Muslims, often God would send Christians into their life before or after the encounter to witness the gospel to them.[42]

I believe the New Testament teaches (Ephesians 4:10; 1 Cor 12-14; Rom 12:6; 1 Thess 5:19) that prophetic ministry exists in the church age. It is supported by the experience of some of the ministers in the history of the church as mentioned in Deere’s book. The New Testament prophetic ministry is not the same as Old Testament prophetic ministry. Its focus is not on prophesying future events or proclaims judgment to Israel or the nations. These prophetic gifted ministers do not have authority over the church, as taught by some of the new Apostolic Reformation prophets.[43] New Testament prophetic ministry’s primary purpose is to build up the spiritual maturity of the church of Christ by preaching the Scriptures with illumination from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit could speak through them while preparing for a sermon or spontaneously while delivering the sermon.

NOTES