Greg and Amy note that the extraordinary moments of revelation recorded in Scripture weren’t actually common but instead were centered around individuals who played crucial roles in God’s plan.
Transcript
Amy: All right, here’s a question from Myra Williams: “Why did the people in the Bible get to hear and see God while they were alive, but we have to die first?”
Greg: Well, I mean, just to be fair, that didn’t happen to many people in the Bible.
Amy: Right.
Greg: Now, if what you’re saying is the Bible insofar as it records these unique individuals, well, they’re recorded there and featured there because they’re unique in that regard, but most of the people in that time and around them and part of the commonwealth of Israel and God’s people, even in the book of Acts, did not have this experience. It was for certain people for a certain purpose.
Amy: And most of the time it was through a prophet to somebody. So, like, I don’t think God ever spoke directly to David. I think he did through prophets. I’m trying to think of any example, but I can’t think of—
Greg: Yeah, well, let’s see. He had the urim and thummim. He appealed to God, “Should I go up?” and God said.... So, there’s some ambiguity there. But even if we say he did speak to David, we do have—he spoke with Moses audibly. The people heard God talking to Moses, and it frightened them. You know? But the individuals are—I’m trying to think of a parallel—they’re featured because of their unique thing. This is like saying, “Why is it when I read sports magazines from 100 years ago, all of these people are sports stars?” Well, that’s because what the magazine is all about is sports stars. You know? Yeah. Everybody else wasn’t a sports star, but the people they wrote about were sports stars. And the same thing in Scripture. The people that we read about are the subjects of—oftentimes—subjects of revelation for the rest of the people who aren’t hearing from God. So, this is just a misunderstanding or a mistake of reading.
People have told me, “Gee, in the book of Acts, God is showing up everywhere and telling people things and working all these miracles and guiding people and all this.” Well, actually when you look at the 30-year record, there’s only 13 times or 14 times where that actually happens from the time of Pentecost on, and they’re grouped together. So, you have two of them associated with Paul’s conversion, two with the Ethiopian eunuch’s conversion. You have three that are associated with this thing or whatever. And it just isn’t as frequent as people think it is.
Amy: Well, we’re compressing 2,000 years into this book that you can pick up. You’re not talking about everybody who ever lived. In fact, you’ll read about long stretches of time where it will say God was not speaking to them in those days. But there were specific people that he spoke to, and I think, really, the Exodus was the main time when many people heard, and then, after that, he basically would go through prophets.
Greg: That’s right. And you have the initiation of God’s plan to save the world with Abraham. And so, obviously there’s going to be communication by God with Abraham and some of the others and Sarai and whatever. You see that going on. And Jacob wrestling with the angel. And there’s lots of stuff going on, but it’s focused in that original group of people that were foundational for God’s salvation plan for the world. But you don’t see this—well, look in 1 Samuel. It says there, in the beginning chapters as Samuel is being introduced, that words from the Lord were rare in those days. And, of course, from the time of the reconstruction of the temple under Nehemiah and Ezra and Haggai—I mean that period of reconstruction—you don’t hear anything from God until John the Baptist almost half a millennium later.
Amy: But I do have good news for Myra because we don’t have to wait to die in order to hear from God, because we do have his Word. We can hear from him any time we want. We read the Bible. We read everything that he revealed, because this is what we all needed. So, regardless of the fact that he spoke to some and not others, the ones he spoke to recorded it so that we could benefit from that.