Is that you Lord?

Not knocked for six

IS THAT YOU LORD?
Hearing the voice of the Lord.
By Gary Gilley
Evangelical Press. 96 pages. £6.95
ISBN 978-0-85234-625-5

Gary Gilley is pastor of ‘Southern View Chapel’, which, I guess, is somewhere in the American mid-west and faces south. He is noted for his previous paperbacks, This little church went to market and This little church stayed home.

This book sets out to deal with a cluster of issues: mysticism and pietism, prophesy, guidance, whether God speaks to us through prayer, and how we are to respond to impressions and convictions. OK, so they are all connected, but that is quite a lot to be going on with. Gary is firmly in the cessationist camp and committed to the sufficiency of Scripture, as I am, so there wasn’t much to disagree with here. However, when you watch someone else go in to bat for your side, on a good wicket and against easy bowling, you expect better stroke play than this, and more boundaries!

Instead, he works through the issues without developing any of them properly. Grudem on prophesy gets short shrift, pietism gets a brief explanation (the best part of the book, but so short) and a survey of Scripture is done in eight pages. If you want good writing on this kind of thing, look at Sinclair Ferguson’s Discovering God’s Will, Phillip Jensen’s Guidance and the Voice of God or Michael Raiter’s Stirrings of the Soul.

Jim Sayers,
pastor, Kesgrave Baptist Church

© Evangelicals Now - June 2008
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Main Articles

• Uganda cries for justice
• The Commentary
  Trustworthy Scripture
• 'Of course, no one is really gay'
  The Rev. Peter Ould shares his experience
• Drifting away from church?
  A temptation for singles
• Learning to plant churches for the 21st century
• Without a shepherd
  Some suggestions for churches without a pastor
• 'Hear O earth': 50 years of GBM radio
• Did you hear the one about...?
  Chris Idle asks when banter becomes bullying
• Edith Margaret Clarkson, 1915-2008
  Obituary
• Is it smart to forget God's wrath?
• To Excel as women
  London Women's Convention relocates
• Monthly arts and media column
  'You're fired!' - the successes and failures of BBC2's The Apprentice
• Monthly youth leaders column
  God's people - back up
• Letter from America
  'Are we nearly there yet?'
• The Music Exchange
  Singing a bit sad?
• The Third Degree
  Freshers - student link up

Other articles

• Promised land
• Three and out
• Reading the Bible and Praying in Public
• Shelf life - Looking at secular books
• The divine spiration of Scripture - Challenging evangelical perspectives
• Engaging with Barth - Contemporary evangelical critiques
• One step beyond - One man's journey from near death to new life
• The reason for God - Belief in an age of skepticism
• The evangelical universalist - The biblical hope that God's love will save us all
• Growing up... Growing wise @ home
• The quest for true tolerance - Searching for a tolerance that dos not make society sick
• Tolerance and Truth - The spirit of the age or the Spirit of God?
• You'll go to London - The autobiography of Lionel Ball
• Rainbows and promises
• Is that you Lord? - Hearing the voice of the Lord
• Foundations of the Christian faith
• Don't panic - The ultimate exam survival kit
• Leviticus
• Praying the Psalms - Engaging Scripture and the life of the Spirit
• Elisha - Encountering the messenger of salvation
• Nahum and Obadiah
• What are we waiting for? - Christian hope and contemporary culture
• Doing the right thing - 10 issues on which Christians have to take a stand
• Economic parables - The monetary teachings of Jesus Christ
• Beyond the edge - One woman's journey out of post-natal depression and anxiety
• Rediscovering Paul - An introduction to his world, letters and theology
• A thorn in the flesh - Finding strength and hope amid suffering