So you know that Moses who wrote some of the books of the Bible and other people also wrote books. How did they know what God wanted and what He didn\u2019t want? Or did God really have a voice that reached from the heavens to earth and told them what to write back then?<\/p>\n\t
It appears you think of God as being solely in heaven and separated from the life here on earth. “‘Can a man hide himself in hiding places so I do not see him?’ declares the LORD. ‘Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?’ declares the LORD<\/em>” (Jeremiah 23:24). We speak of God’s presence in the universe and we say that He is omnipresent; that is, He can be felt anywhere. “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night,” Even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You<\/em>” (Psalms 13:7-12). Therefore, the idea that God can speak His thought into a person’s mind should not be surprising.<\/p>\n How God told the people what to say varied greatly, especially during the time before the New Testament. In Hebrews 1:1-2, the writer said that God spoke at different times and in different ways in the past. Sometimes he spoke to people in dreams, such as in Genesis 20:3. At other times he gave people a special dream that represented what they needed to know, such as in Genesis 37:5-10. God also used visions. A vision is seeing something that is not physically there. It would be sort of like a waking dream. An example of this can be found in Genesis 15:1. Sometimes God would send an angel to deliver his message, such as in Matthew 1:18-24. Another method that God used was prophets. A prophet was a spokesman for God. God would deliver a message to the prophet and the prophet would then deliver the message to the proper person. Moses was a prophet, but he held a special place. God did not use cryptic dreams with him or using sayings that were difficult to understand. God spoke plainly and directly with Moses just as a person would speak to his friend. (Numbers 12:6-8.)<\/p>\n In II Timothy 3:16, Paul said that all Scripture is God-breathed (or inspired, depending on your translation). By this, Paul means that our entire Bible comes from the mouth of God. God told the various writers what to say and they then told the people and wrote the words down. Paul also told us that God gave the very words to record. “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words<\/em>” (I Corinthians 2:12-13). Therefore, we are not talking about prophets receiving vague feelings or being told roughly what to say and then they wrote it down in their own words. God made sure that the prophets recorded exactly what He wanted to be recorded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question: So you know that Moses who wrote some of the books of the Bible and other people also wrote books. How did they know what God wanted and what He didn\u2019t want? Or did God really have a voice that reached from the heavens to earth and told them what to write back then?…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[225,483],"class_list":["post-16316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-inspiration","tag-prophets"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":40168,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-it-possible-to-feel-the-presence-of-god-when-one-worships-him\/","url_meta":{"origin":16316,"position":0},"title":"Is it possible to feel the presence of God when one worships Him?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Is it possible to feel the presence of God when one worships Him? Answer: You ask the question in the wrong way because in the realm of\u00a0possibility when dealing with God, almost anything is possible. But if you ask how God made His presence known in the past, then\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18175,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/peter-cant-be-referring-to-the-physical-elements-being-destroyed-can-he\/","url_meta":{"origin":16316,"position":1},"title":"Peter can’t be referring to the physical elements being destroyed, can he?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 19, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: To get to my point here, it is stated in the study you gave me on \"The Second Coming of the Lord\" that in II Peter 3 is talking about the \"end of the world.\" Let us have a closer examination of it, and we will find it means\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":52384,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-did-the-jews-reject-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":16316,"position":2},"title":"Why did the Jews reject God?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 14, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have read what was written on the website about why the Jews rejected God, but I remain confused as to why this occurred. Are you able to make it clearer? Using passages from the Bible does not explain this, at least I have not read it. What I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3735,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-was-before-the-heavens-and-earth-where-does-god-come-from\/","url_meta":{"origin":16316,"position":3},"title":"What was before the heavens and earth? Where does God come from?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 17, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: God\u00a0created heaven and earth. What was around before heaven and earth? Where does God\u00a0come from? Answer: In regards to the creation, see: Could there have been a gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2? How old is the world? Was there a world before Genesis? In regards to God, the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16387,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/where-was-god-before-he-created-the-heavens-and-the-earth\/","url_meta":{"origin":16316,"position":4},"title":"Where was God before He created the heavens and the earth?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 15, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Where was God before He created the heavens and the earth? Answer: \"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth\" (Genesis 1:2). In this simple statement are many implications. Since it was \"in the beginning,\" it is implied that time did not exist before this. So thus,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1937,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/could-there-have-been-a-gap-between-genesis-11-and-12\/","url_meta":{"origin":16316,"position":5},"title":"Could there have been a gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 21, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Are you familiar with the \"Gap Theory?\" Since the Bible isn't exhaustive, could something have taken place between\u00a0Genesis 1:1\u00a0and\u00a01:2? Answer: Ever since evolution was espoused in the late 1800s, people have struggled with making the Bible conform to the current popular scientific theories. Of course, it is a never-ending\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16316\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}