How to Hear the Voice of God

The Will of God Ep. 4. This week we discuss how we can hear the voice of God. Bonhoeffer is convinced that the primary and the orienting way God speaks directly to us is through preaching. He writes:Proclamation is the specific mandate given to the church. God wants a place at which, until the end of the world, God’s word is again and again spoken, pronounced, delivered, expounded, and spread. The Word that in Jesus Christ came from heaven wants to come again in the form of human speech [in the sermon]…In this word God wills to be personally present. In the church God is determined to speak in person.Karl Barth, one of Bonhoeffer’s teachers, says that the logic of preaching is the logic of incarnation. Christ is both fully God and fully human in one person. So it is with the sermon. The sermon is both a purely human word but also a purely divine word. Why? Because Christ promises to bear the word of the sermon. Bonhoeffer will say that in the preached word “Christ steps into the congregation.” Elsewhere he says that “Christ is the sermon.”The human preacher is not cancelled out or obliterated by this divine activity. Think of the burning bush. The humble bramble is on fire with the fire of God but it is not consumed.Or think of the sacraments. Just as the bread remains bread and the wine remains wine while also becoming the body and blood of Christ, so does the sermon remain a completely human word, but also becomes the word of God by God’s grace.The speaking of the sermon is only half the work of preaching. There is also the hearing of the sermon. Jesus Christ is responsible for both. This is why the sermon is not a performance, but an act of God in his mercy. But, as Bonhoeffer says, we have lost the sermon. We do not equip or ready ourselves for what it actually is: the living God coming to speak to you personally through the proclamation.We as the people of God need to understand that each Sunday the pastor is preaching the word Christ has given to him or her to preach and we need to be listening specifically for what Christ is asking of us. St. Augustine says it perfectly: For we have Christ, the teacher within. When anything comes to your ears from my lips that you are not able to take in turn within your heart to the one who is both teaching me what to say and distributing understanding among you as he thinks fit. He knows what he has to give and who he is giving it to and so will present himself to the one who asks and open to the one who knocks. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cameroncombs.substack.com