Review at The Dubious Disciple

It’s a very nice review as well!

I particularly like the emphasis on the idea that one can hear from God for oneself, which was one of my major points in the book. Other readers have focused on inerrancy, which is secondary, though one must deal with it in discussing prophecy, interpretation, and authority. But my critical concern in this book was that people get pushed around by other people who claim to speak for God.

I do not exclude the possibility of God giving a message to someone that is for someone else. That would fly in the face of the experience related in scripture and even my own personal experience. But I’m always skeptical of such messages, because in my experience, the vast majority of the time when someone tells you they heard something for God, and it wasn’t for them personally, it’s manipulative. They’re trying to make you do something they want. Is God in it? In most cases I doubt it.

One thing I may have de-emphasized in my book that would deserve more discussion is the role of the community in the authority of any book. The new release From Inspiration to Understanding: Reading the Bible Seriously and Faithfully by Edward W. H. Vick corrects this deficiency, though I note that the book is somewhat more challenging to the reader than mine! There are numerous points that Dr. Vick makes that could have provided footnotes for mine, had the order of publication been reversed.