Some evangelicals choke on the idea that god speaks to people today.  Paul identifies four ways God spoke people in his day: prophecy, word of wisdom, word of knowledge, and tongues with interpretation.  In addition we see dreams, visions, trances and angelic communications informing people of God’s will.  This is true in the New Testament as well as the Old. In addition there is a kind of analysis to be performed by those who have the gift of Discernment of spirits, which also then serves as a kind of communication from God.

Some say these communications ceased when the Scriptures were written.  One writer even identifies the point in the book of Romans when this happened.  The peculiar thing is that these same writers and thinkers affirm that we are in the “last days”.  This is precisely the term Joel uses and Peter quotes from in Acts 2:17.  Joel says dreams, visions and prophecy will be a marked feature of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at that time – now these times.

The objection is that such revelations will rival Scripture.  Even Wayne Grudem, who supports modern communications from God distinguishes between OT prophecy and NT prophecy.  He supposes that in the OT the prophecy was not challenged or judged by the community as the NT community is challenged to do.  Actually the OT community was challenged in exactly the same way.  The filter given to Israel contains three elements: is the prophet speaking in the name of Yahweh; is he in accord with the revelation given to Moses; do his words come true, and have other prophets said the same thing.  This latter qualification is significant in the book of Jeremiah.  If the prophet does not meet these criteria he is to be rejected or killed. Even the gift of Discernment is active among the prophets as they see the spirits that are moving in the prophet.

In the NT the community, led by either the other prophets or the elders, is to reject the words if they do not harmonize with what the Spirit is saying to the church and in the letters of John the people are expected to be able to hear what the Spirit is saying.  In the OT and NT the people in the community are responsible to hear, discern and act for their own protection and for the community.  They are not simply to rely on accurate exegesis by the teachers, who so often disagree, but on direction from the Spirit also.