O my soul, is it possible for thee to hear the excellency of Scripture thus opened to thee, and not to burn in love to it? Hast thou been all this while in such a host bath, and still cold and shivering?The Christian Man\'s Calling
I have learned in my spiritual life not to focus on temptation or I'll get hit by it every time. Instead, I have learned to look to Jesus, who saves me from the temptations as I focus on His Word.
So when I wonder about which job offer to take, I don't go through a divination process to discover the hidden message of God. Instead I examine how God has called me to live my life, what my motives are, what He has given me a heart for, where I am in my walk with Christ, and what God is saying to me through His word and His people.God\'s Will, 16
God is not a magic genie. The use of promise boxes, or flipping open your Bible and pointing your finger, or relying on the first thought to enter your mind after a prayer are unwarranted forms of Christian divination.Finding God\'s Will, 12
Christians need to remember that the sufficiency of Scripture gives us a comprehensive worldview that equips us to wrestle with even the most challenging ethical dilemmas of our time.
We must allow the Word of God to confront us, to disturb our security, to undermine our complacency and to overthrow our patterns of thought and behavior.
In short, I will preach it [the Word], teach it, write it, but I will constrain no man by force, for faith must come freely without compulsion. Take myself as an example. I opposed indulgences and all the papists, but never with force. I simply taught, preached, and wrote God's Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philip and Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything.
The collapse in evangelical doctrinal consensus is intimately related to the collapse in the understanding of, and role assigned to, Scripture as God's Word spoken within the church.Reformation: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
Be thankful to God for the scriptures. What a mercy is it that God has not only acquainted us what his will is, but that he has made it known by writing!A Body of Divinity, p37
There is a circularity here I do not doubt. I am defending the Bible by the Bible. Circularity of a kind is unavoidable when one seeks to defend an ultimate standard of truth, for one's defense must itself be accountable to that standard.The Doctrine of the Word of God
either no human writings at all must be considered as true, or everyone must acknowledge that the sacred accounts are true and reliable -and hence, also divine.Synopsis of a Purer Theology, Disputation 2
God honors obedience. He is in your life, ready to lead you according to His program of guidance. But He cannot lead a person who does not listen to Him, who is not close to Him. If you are struggling with a specific question, rather than trying to magically divine God's answer, spend time drawing close to Him. Then your character, and perhaps your perspective, will change. Then God will shape your desires. They you will have the mind of Christ.
Don't think that a no answer from God, or the rise of difficult circumstances, means that God is necessarily displeased with you. He might just be trying to draw you closer to Himself. He may be using it as a way to build your faith.
We need to drop entirely the concept of divination, which is not appropriate for Christians. We should reformulate our ideas and focus on what the Scriptures teach about the way our God guides His elect saints to do His pleasure.
Nearly all of the New Age movement is focused on trying to attain some hidden knowledge of God, with the hope that this knowledge will change both the individual and the world. Books, tapes, and seminars preach a pantheistic message of finding supernatural power that fills the spiritual void of the individual.
What makes the Scriptures holy is not their historical accuracy or even their content, but the presence of God in them.God Is Love: A Biblical and Systematic Theology (p. 43). Crossway