“Voice In My Heart”

Monday, March 02, 2020

(This question is in response to “Something To Do”)

     Is prophecy not one of the spiritual gifts in 1 Cor 12?  When we feel that Jesus is calling us to do something or leading us in a direction, is that not communicating with us?  Why would Paul need to say in Gal 1:8 that if someone "should preach a gospel *other* than the one we preached to you", why not just say all preaching henceforth is false?

I am honestly asking these questions and not trying to be sarcastic; thank you for the time spent looking into this.

And by the way, thank you for posting the "Faith Over Feelings" post – not enough Christians seem to see this, and this was the best and simplest way I've seen it done.  I am thinking of sharing it with our youth group.  God bless.

Sincerely,
Pondering Prophecy

Dear Pondering Prophecy,

We don't take your question as sarcastic – it is a very valid concern.  So let's see if we can break the subject down verse by verse.
Prophecy is a spiritual gift, and all spiritual gifts are no longer around.  In fact, one of the primary purposes of 1^st Corinthians chapters 12-14 was to explain to the Corinthian church that they shouldn’t get too excited about spiritual gifts because the gifts wouldn’t be around forever, and what was truly important was a life of faith, hope, and love (1 Cor 13:13).
Prophecy, speaking in tongues, miraculous healings, etc. were all gifts from the Holy Spirit.  The way that people received those gifts was through an apostle laying his hands on them (Acts 8:17-18).  Since it took an apostle to convey the gift of the Holy Spirit, the gifts would cease with the death of the last person that the last living apostle laid his hands on.  In fact, God promised that this would happen.  Paul says that spiritual gifts would eventually perish once God had given us the complete and perfect Bible (1 Cor 13:8-9 – read more on this subject in “Gifts That Stop Giving”).

In Gal 1:8, Paul said not to preach another gospel because the Bible is meant to be our only guide.  Whatever we preach must be exactly what God says, no more, no less.  We are warned to never add or subtract from God’s Word (Rev 22:18-19) and that we should never go beyond what is written (1 Cor 4:6).
The problem with trusting in a feeling or that “voice in our heart” is that everyone has feelings, and feelings are very subjective.  God even warns that every man does what is right in his own eyes (Pr 21:2).  Even an atheist believes that what he is doing is correct.  Though intuition and our own personal feelings can often be right, they must always be in subjection to the Bible, which is how God speaks to us.

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