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The proof of love is in the works. Where love exists, it works great things. But when it ceases to act, it ceases to exist.

andy wrote:

Or take action so they won't. My wife's two prophetic dreams (one is described in the earlier link I provided) gave her the information she needed to take action (stay somewhere when she would have otherwise left) to avoid something terrible happening.

DB writes:

I think you are confusing prophecy with word of knowledge.

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Cobra (the car, not the poisonous reptile)
all scripture is NRSV unless otherwise noted

Words of knowledge may come in this way, but not necessarily. Many of my experiences have begun with very strong symbolic imagery followed by the Spirit's clear impression of what the images meant. At other times I have not received a clear understanding of the imagery, but when I shared what I "saw" with the individual to whom it pertained, he/she knew exactly what it meant. I should perhaps add that in my own experience the word of knowledge frequently comes together with a word of wisdom and/or prophecy. Different people do experience the operation of such gifts in different ways. I know some people, for example, who never "see" anything when moving in revelatory gifts, but receive everything in a verbal flow.

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"The person who has my commandments and obeys them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will reveal myself to him." (John 14:21)

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I think God communicates people based on how they need communication.

I have always liked the comparison of the father of John and the father (so it was supposed) of Jesus.

Zacharias needed an angel to confront him in the temple, and then he needed to be struck mute as a confirmation.
All Joseph needed was a dream.

I think Joseph must have been a man of very great faith.

Some people today will only accept what is written in scripture and will not accept that God might continue to speak to people today.
Others accept scripture and accept messages of God to people today.
I don't mean to imply there is a difference in the level of faith between the two, just a difference in the best way for God to communicate with the different groups. (Actually, I don't know which group has the most faith -- the one that accepts God's message with no additional information today, or those who might need the reassurance of information today. So I am not saying one group is "more spiritual," just that the groups are different and God is understanding of that.)

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Cobra (the car, not the poisonous reptile)
all scripture is NRSV unless otherwise noted

I once did a lecture/bible study on the first two chapters of Luke, on "God, the Great Communicator," identifying about 14 different ways God communicates in those chapters. I defined communication something like this: "How did God get people to know what he wanted them to know, to do what he wanted them to do, and to be where he wanted them to be?"

God IS the Great Communicator, and he is multi-style in his communications.

None of this is to disparage the Bible, a book which still uniquely fascinates me after 45 years or reading it. However, we need to remember that God IS a multi-style Great Communicator.

A fantastic book on this subject is Dallas Willard's Hearing God. Willard is/was? Professor of Philosophy at USC, and is a deeply committed and deep thinking Christian. (He was also mentor to J.P Moreland, one of the sharpest pencils in the box. In his book, Willard points out that if we read the Bible and are always saying, "Well that was Moses, but I'm not Moses," or, "That was Paul, but I am not Paul," or, "That was the Apostles, and we are not apostles," we in effect make the Bible to be an irrelevant book. He points out delicately but strongly that many Christians are functional Deists, and this is absolutely true.

I cannot recommend the book strongly enough. It is well-reasoned, irenically presented, and, to me, irrefutable.

Fascinating.