Well, do we need to hear from God before we make a decision? And what if we have a friend who claims to have heard God's voice on something, but we think they're mistaken in that decision? How do we question that decision without undermining their faith? This is a really sharp question from a listener named Matt.

Pastor John, thank you for your ministry and all that you do for the glory of God through the world. I have a question about addressing issues with people who have prayed about a certain decision and feel that God spoke to them. Is there a way to lovingly push back when it seems like what they apparently heard from God seems like a poor choice?

How do you critique their choice without shaking their faith and making them doubt their ability to ever hear from God? Well, I would attempt five steps with them, perhaps. And this may be over time rather than in the moment. These are things you need to establish with a person in order to help them see rightly about this.

So the first thing I want to establish is that Scripture trumps spiritual gifts. And the principle is found in 1 Corinthians 14, 37, and 38, where Paul says this, "If anyone thinks that he is a prophet or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord.

If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized." Now remember, he's saying that to prophets, "If anyone thinks he's a prophet." So this is a person who claims because he's spiritual or because he has a close tie-in with God and a spiritual gift, he has a word from God about something he should do or say.

And Paul is saying, "Now wait a minute. If I say something that preempts what you just said, you need to submit to what I say because I'm writing Scripture as an authorized apostle." Now, the implication of that for us is we have the New Testament as the apostolic deposit, and that therefore today is the criterion for assessing whether someone has discerned truly the will of God.

And if you perceive that a person is about to do something because they think they have a hotline to heaven or a word of prophecy or word of knowledge or some kind of dream or vision, and yet it is unwise on Scriptural grounds, then on this principle you can ask them to reconsider, not because you don't think God can speak today but because you have been told by God how to discern what is true and wise and what's not.

Number two, the normal Christian pattern of discerning God's will is by a transformed mind that assesses things with the instincts of God by the Spirit through the Word. Let me show you what I mean. Romans 12, 1 and 2, "I appeal to you, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Do not be conformed to this world but be—" here it comes—"be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Why? "So that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." So I'm arguing that there is, in verse 2 of Romans 12, an implicit normative pattern for discerning the will of God, and that implicit normative pattern is "be transformed in the renewing of your mind." And you can study out how that happens by the Spirit through the Word in the writings of Paul, but that's different than a sudden breaking in of a Word from outside.

So I would try to encourage somebody to develop this as their normal pattern of discernment. And here it is again in Philippians 1, 9 to 11, Paul's prayer, "It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment." Now why would you want your love to abound with knowledge and all discernment?

"So that," verse 10, "you may approve." That's the same word as back in Romans 12, "approve what is excellent." So how do you know what the excellent path is? There's a fork in the road, and one path is to be chosen over the other. How do you discern the excellent path?

"That you may discern what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with fruits of righteousness." That's what we want. We want our lives to have been marked by making righteous choices and bearing righteous fruit. And this text says it comes by your love being supplemented with or informed by knowledge and discernment so that you can test and approve what is excellent out there.

So both of those texts, Romans 12 and Philippians 1, set a normal pattern of discerning the will of God by a transformed mind and a love informed by knowledge and discernment, rather than ordinarily receiving special words from God. Number three, the spiritual gift of prophecy, as the typical means by which one might receive a special word from God, the typical gift, the gift of prophecy, is fallible.

If somebody thinks that the gift of prophecy results in people going around today speaking Scripture, adding to the Bible, they're going to bring down the wrath of God on them. First Thessalonians 5:20 says, "Don't despise prophecies." So I don't want to deny that there's such a gift as prophecy today.

You can go to the Desiring God website and see the series of articles that John Bloom did a while back on the nature of biblical prophecy today, which I think are good. Do not despise prophecies. Test everything. Hold fast to what is good. I think that implies that the gift of prophecy should be weighed, discerned, not assumed to be Scripture-level infallible truth.

And so you have a warrant then, a biblical warrant, for saying to your friend, "Remember, biblical gifts of prophecy and wisdom and knowledge coming through a fallible human mind, like yours and mine, is fallible. It must be tested by Scripture." Number four, Matt asks, "How do you critique their choice without shaking their faith and making them doubt their ability to ever hear from God?" And I would say that you encourage them to see, to feel, and to believe that it's a hundred times more precious and wonderful that we have a book like the Bible where we can count on every line of it properly understood being infallible.

It's amazing that we have such a large, glorious revelation from God. And you suggest to them then that it's more likely that they will have a reliable gift of prophecy, a reliable gift of wisdom or word of knowledge, if they are submitted to the Scriptures and saturated with the Scriptures, because the Holy Spirit is always consistent.

If you are immersed in the word of the Scripture, the word of the Spirit, it is much more likely that you will be able to discern the voice of the Spirit if he's leading you in some other way that will always be finally tested by the one infallible source we have, namely the Scripture.

And the last thing, number five, that you might do or say is remind your friend that what God cares about most when it comes to doing his will—if a person is struggling with how do you find the will of God—what God values most is our holiness in every decision rather than whether the decision itself, like who do you marry or what house to buy or where to live or what job to take or whether to buy this shirt or that shirt.

In every decision, if you are acting in a biblical, holy way, God is pleased. First Thessalonians 4:3, "This is the will of God, your sanctification." That's a wonderfully liberating thing. So those are the five strategies in the bigger picture that I would have to try to help a friend not elevate a word from outside the Bible about a decision which you, judging by the Bible, regard as a poor decision.

Wow, that's a lot to ponder here, Pastor John, especially that idea that what God values most is our holiness in every decision rather than in the precise decision itself. That is really sharp insight worth a lot more consideration. Thank you. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Over at our online home, you can explore all of our episodes in our archive, about 1,300 episodes to date.

There you can see a list of our most popular ones, read full transcripts, and submit questions that you might be wrestling with yourself like this very good one that we had today. For all that, go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. But also be sure to subscribe to us in your favorite podcast app while you're at it.

I'm not sure what's up Friday, but we plan to return with something, one of your questions. I'm sure it'll be good. Until then, I'm your host Tony Ranke, and we'll see you then.