reading god

Dan Phillips is like the Energizer Bunny ... he just keeps going and going and going ... and not always getting somewhere. At least this is true of his assault on "leaky-Canon" types. His other messages are usually excellent - especially those on the place of Scripture in our lives. Yet he frequently taints those with some faulty logic or misunderstanding of Scripture in regard to the activity of God today. And from time to time he gets brazen and writes a complete article demonstrating his misunderstandings.

Phillips states, "A girl I knew decades ago decided against something important because thinking about it made her feel confused, and "God is not the author of confusion" (1 Corinthians 14:33, kidnapped at gunpoint from its context), so it could not be of God." He then rightly argues that the Bible provides the interpretive grid. And he then showed that she may have mis-used Scripture to understand what she experienced. But he did this in a way that casts doubt on God's use of our circumstances to direct us.

While he did well to teach the place of Scripture, once again he did so at the cost of God speaking in any other manner. He could have just as easily painted a picture of how we shouldn't use Scripture because here this person wasn't smart (or diligent) enough to do so. He would have been just as wrong doing that as he did here by casting doubt on the various other ways God speaks.

His example proves nothing. If I find an example of someone who wrongly teaching from the Bible, would it mean Bible teaching is wrong? Or does it mean that Bible interpretation requires diligence? He paints his picture as if this person's use of her inner sense was wrong. Unfortunately, we don't know if the end result was really wrong and even if it were, how could we conclude that she was guilty of anything other than failure to be diligent?

Second, using his example, if the decision this girl had to make was not explicit in Scripture, I'm not sure what Phillips is advising. Do nothing? Keep doing what you're doing until circumstance changes things?

Finally, any reader of this article would assume this girl did the wrong thing. How does Phillips know that? What Scripture did he use and how is his sight broad enough and deep enough to judge how this fit in God's master plan? What was the fruit. It seems Phillips has deviated from his press to use Scripture as a guide and has imposed his thoughts and feelings into the assessment.

What really gets me here is that I believe Phillips believes that we are to renew our mind by the Word of Truth. In doing so, shouldn't our thoughts and feelings about a situation become more and more conformed to "the mind of Christ"? And if so, shouldn't we trust our senses where Scripture is not explicit? If not, I'm wondering how Phillips proposes one live life?

I just read another article from someone of Phillips' ilk where they slammed Henry Blackaby's Experiencing God model.
We need to keep Scripture as our grid for interpretation and understanding but this gang simply thinks that God only speaks in the written Word of Scripture, thereby demonstrating that they miss the overall thrust of Scripture which is to reveal a living God that interacts in time, space, history. And it surprises me that this gang doesn't seem to get that. They are Reformed and believe that it is only by His Spirit that we come to Christ and that He is sovereign overall things. How do they synchronize that with their relying solely on their own intellect to understand Scripture?

PS - I should have noted that I like the Energizer Bunny. His strengths are also his annoyances - but overall, he seems like a good fellow.