You moved the goalpost there Adamah... demonstrating faith is not the same as faith, itself. Building and demonstrating faith are two different things. I'll go through your entire post. But how about you answer the questions I asked of you? Or are you STILL going to sidestep?
In the Bible, demonstrating faith requires an ACTION based on information that MAY or MAY NOT have been communicated previously to the individual.
Acting on faith IS hearing and obeying, even if hearing comes in the form of revelation, dreams, the Spirit, words spoken.
In the 'information was communicated' category, consider the case of Noah, who acted ON FAITH by building the ark on the PROMISE of salvation for him and his family,
He had to hear God to have heard the promise God made, yes?
although he didn't KNOW if a deluge would occur, or that God would honor his 'Ark construction covenant' which he entered with Noah.
God told him. He was a righteous man, and so His faith was in God. He could be assured that such would happen because God TOLD Him such would happen.
Assured expectation of what one hopes for (the promise)... (based on what one heard from God, or the Spirit).... the evidence of something not YET seen. (knowing something is going to happen, though it has not YET happened, based on what one heard from God, or the Spirit)
Noah is a perfect example of the Hebrews definition of faith. So I don't know how you end up twisting it around so completely?
His act of faith was NOT due to hearing the voice of God, but demonstrating his faith by ACTING on the PROMISE God made to him, since he may have only been hearing voices in his head and have been building an ark based on an auditory hallucination, and been the laughing stock of the area for having built a massive boat far away from water THAT was the example of FAITH that Noah demonstrates.
Again... he had to HEAR the promise to begin with Adamah! He had to put full faith in God and IN what he heard, which no doubt MADE him a laughingstock... but his faith was proved TRUE; as faith in Christ and God and their promises ALWAYS are. That would be another point of the list of examples that Paul gave.
In the 'information was not communicated' category, consider Abel, who acted on FAITH ALONE by offering the best of his flock by offering the firstborn; as braincleaned says, it would be Divine favortism for God to 'whisper the answer key' to one individual and not the other, and such favortism cannot be blamed on the mortal (I know how much you like to do that kind of thing, using the "might makes right" excuse).
Yeah, I have never used a 'might makes right' excuse, so I'm not sure WHO you're addressing here.
And yes, Abel knew what to offer... Cain would not have been told to do what was right, if he could not also have known what was right to do. Are you sure that you haven't just placed a spin on the story to keep it in line with your view of God (whatever that view is). But all that was revealed in that account is what was already in Cain; and do you think THAT might have something to do with why his sacrifice was not right or looked upon with favor?
But again, the mere fact that many individuals heard the voice of God in the Bible has NOTHING to do with demonstrating (i.e. ACTING on) their faith.
And... your point? I never said otherwise.
In fact, many Bible characters heard the voice of God and acted CONTRARY to the orders they heard, and hence demonstrated their LACK of faith (eg ever read the account of Jonah and the whale, TEC?). You seem to think that the mere act of hearing God's voice has something to do with building or demonstrating faith, when it does NOT.
Yeah, one can choose to listen... one can choose NOT to listen. Again... what is your point, as per the discussion on what faith IS, that we are having. One can KNOW that God is REAL... and still not belong to God, and still act against God. Like Satan and the angels that followed Him.
Now Jonah had faith in God. He knew God was real. That was never a question. He knew that what God told him was true. He just didn't want to do what God was telling him, he did not want to travel to the ninevites and then have God turn around and show mercy upon them... though he did get around to doing as God directed Him.
2 Cor 5:7 says it all: Xians are "to walk by faith, not sight". To Xians, the idea is that ALL sensory perceptions (hearing, sight, touch, etc) of the human mortal form are worldly and merely illusions, less important than the spiritual matters, and hence why Xians must act on God-given knowledge ('gnosis') which is bestowed as a gift, much as faith (the confidence to act on gnosis) also is considered as a gift that Xians must ask to be given from God.
They are just senses, Adamah. Not illusion. The flesh means nothing; the spirit counts for everything... is true; but that does not make the flesh an illusion. And yes, faith is a gift that one can ask for, but the fact that one WANTS to ask for it could have something to do with it being given, yes? AS Christ also said:
"Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you?"
Sometimes you really get it, Adamah.... and sometimes you just have so many other things clouding your sight, standing in your way, so that you only get some truth, and then you wrap it with all these misconceptions so that you don't come into ALL truth. Something that won't happen unless you listen to the Spirit... who guides us into ALL truth. (also written in the bible).
In both cases, there IS no discernable information transferred: instead, both are examples of the process of 'Divine revelation', a mystical magical transferrence of information that is not detectable to anyone, much less the recipient, who just "knows" in some cases without being told, and ACTS on the promises which are often unspoken.
Sometimes, yes (though if someone knows something, then it has been detected by the recipient, he just might not always know who to give credit TO...)... like those examples of men of faith, who knew what to do, becasue they HEARD what to do. (in the various ways that God and the Spirit speak)
BUT that is just some cases, Adamah... there are also instances of men being TOLD, with words. Or in dreams. Or in visions. Or in having one's eyes OPENED so as to be able to SEE and understand what is written; or as in having one's ears OPENED, so as to be able to hear what the Spirit is speaking. And John received VERY specific information in his revelation. Specific enough that he could write it down and share it with others.
PS the Job 33 passage you cited has one of Job's "friends" claiming that God speaks to people via revelation, but note how it says, "they do not perceive God's voice".
Do you undersrtand what this means? Men were not perceiving God speaking to him (just as men are not perceiving for some reason or another, the Spirit speaking now)... SO God instead spoke to them in dreams; as they would be able to hear Him then, when they were not hearing Him otherwise. But thank you for confirming what I shared, that God DOES speak in dreams.
So if you claim to perceive the voice of Jesus in your head as a voice, such that you "hear" it, per the Bible itself, you are not receiving "divine revelation", but are more likely experiencing an 'auditory hallucination', a common occurrance in many people (∼10% of the population) which can in some cases be caused by mental illness (eg schizophrenics, bipolar), or as a result of traumatic events (post child-abuse, etc), but in many cases just seems to be the result of anomalous information processing where the person is unable to recognize their internal voice as coming from within and misattribute it to an external source (eg God).
Yeah, Adamah? There is nothing 'as per the bible' about what you have said above. I have not described anything that men who heard have not also described AS PER the bible.
Peace,
tammy
