How to Know the Will of God: Decision Making in Acts

All my books can be read online for free at wayneodonnell.com. “Freely you have received, freely give” (Mt. 10:8). This booklet is included in and comprises several sections in my book “Paul’s Decision Making in Acts: Anti-Charismatic Pro-Jewish Commentary on Acts.”

In 1980, Garry Friesen wrote "Decision Making and the Will of God," a book that debunked the traditional view that God leads by inward impressions into His perfect, specific will. But Bible teachers continue teach prayer is a two-way conversation; churches continue to question pastoral candidates about their ‘call’ to the ministry; and Christians continue to try to discern God’s inner voice to make decisions.

Maybe it would help if we had more scholarly journal articles on the topic. Grudem: I ... categorized the articles published in three refereed evangelical journals for the last five years [before 2000]: Westminster Theological Journal, … Trinity Journal, … and … the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. Not counting book reviews, there were 257 scholarly articles [on all topics]. … [But regarding] God’s guidance in our daily lives. Zero articles. Yet some understanding of God’s guidance affects every Christian every day of his or her life! … Either Garry Friesen is right on that topic, or he’s wrong. … We should expect to see many more scholars contributing articles and books supporting and developing their viewpoints.

Christians in the book of Acts made their decisions by the Word and Wisdom, not by listening for inward impressions. I would love to read an exposition of the Book of Acts that showed Paul, the other apostles, and their co-workers, making most of their decisions by listening for inward impressions, but it would require reading that doctrine into the text, rather than expositing it out of the text.

Friesen. In order to arrive at the conclusion of the traditional approach [to decision-making], it is necessary to water down the biblical examples and spice up the biblical teaching. Examples [like in Acts] are watered down to be less miraculous than they really are [so we can think we’re doing them too]. Biblical teaching [like in the epistles] must be spiced up to be more specific than it really is [for example, a promise to Israel to “guide you continually” (Is. 58:11), doesn’t actually say anything about Christians being guided by ‘inward impressions’].

Paul made most of his decisions by the Word and Wisdom, not by inward impressions, and only rarely by direct revelation, even though he was the apostle on the cutting-edge of Jesus’ mission to bring the gospel to the Gentiles. Most of Paul’s decisions in Acts can be explained 17 principles he followed.