Prayer is of course talking with God: We talk to him and he talks back. It’s not a complicated idea—though Christians obviously overcomplicate it all sorts of ways.
And because it’s talking with God—’cause he talks back—prayer is therefore the most common, usual way God communicates with people.
Yep, even more common than bible. I know; I’m fully aware plenty of Christians claim bible is the only way God communicates with people. They believe this because it’s what they’ve been taught: “God doesn’t talk to people anymore, so stop trying to hear him and read your bible.” And hey, if you shut your ears to everything God tells you in prayer, in dreams, through prophets, or even full-on personal appearances, of course you’re gonna claim he only communicates through bible. It’s like someone who throws out their phone and computer, burns their mail, refuses to interact with anyone in person, and only communicates by carrier pigeon: Okay, guess we’d better get some carrier pigeons. God’s frequently willing to work around our ridiculous arbitrary rules. But for normal people, we pray and he talks back.
I’m also aware there are Christians who insist they don’t hear anything. They’ve tried hearing God, but they got nothing. So they gave up and presume prayer is unidirectional: We talk, he hears, but he says nothing—’cause he doesn’t need to say anything, ’cause he said everything he cares to say in the scriptures. Such people are easily swayed into believing God only talks through bible. You can find whole churches full of people who claim they never, ever hear God in their prayers.
But you’ll also find that’s what they tell you when other people from their church are around. In private, they’ll confess they did hear God once. Or twice. Or all the time.
And hearing God is confirmed by the scriptures. All over the scriptures. ’Cause the guys who wrote the scriptures heard God, and they’re writing about other people who likewise heard God. The whole reason there are scriptures in the first place is because people hear God. Yeah, certain cessationists are gonna claim prophecy doesn’t work that way; that prophets opened their mouths, God took ’em over like a ventriloquist manhandles a puppet, and his voice came out of ’em. Or his words flowed from their pens. Whichever. But that’s more like the mumbo-jumbo we find among Spiritualists and pagan religions; it’s not at all how God works. The prophets came to God with questions—
- Habakkuk 1.2-4 GNT
- 2 O LORD, how long must I call for help before you listen, before you save us from violence? 3 Why do you make me see such trouble? How can you stand to look on such wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are all around me, and there is fighting and quarreling everywhere. 4 The law is weak and useless, and justice is never done. Evil people get the better of the righteous, and so justice is perverted.
—and God responds with answers.
- Habakkuk 1.5 GNT
- Then the LORD said to his people, “Keep watching the nations around you, and you will be astonished at what you see. I am going to do something that you will not believe when you hear about it.”
(Followed by an answer they probably didn’t like at all—if you keep reading Habakkuk.)
This is why prayer and prophecy is so closely connected: It’s how God gives prophets his messages for other people. We’ll ask God questions; he’ll give answers, and add, “Tell this to others.” ’Cause other Christians have the same questions, and God’s answer applies to them too.
But of course if you don’t pray—or you think all your prayers are unidirectional—you’re not gonna get prophecies like this. Or have any prophecies in your church at all. Or you’ll have what your preachers claim are “prophecies,” but they’re all angry, political, fruitless, and otherwise inconsistent with God’s character.