In Divine Company: Growing Closer to the God Who Speaks
DETAILS: Publication Date: June 7, 2018 Format: Kindle Edition Length: 43 pg. Read Date: June 5, 2022
God is a communicative being who speaks with himself in three persons and speaks to his creation by way of revelation. This communicative nature of God is utterly critical. The moment we say God does not speak in any recognizable sense is the moment we throw our theology in the wastebasket, along with any hope of relationship. Speech is at the core of who God is, and it’s how we come to know him.
What’s In Divine Company About?
Like many, Hibbs sees a problem in the prayer life of most Christians, and it plays a significant role in the feeling too many have of being distant from God. He calls this a “communicative malnourishment.”
His treatment for CM is two-pronged:
predictable, I think, but I hope to look at it in fresh ways: (1) following God’s voice in Scripture and listening to what the world is saying about him (hearing from God), and (2) praying to the Trinity (speaking with God).
This short booklet looks at God (and then His people) as communicative beings, as language as communion behavior. God’s communication comes from General and Special Revelation, ours is in prayer.
What did I think about In Divine Company?
If you read this book and change nothing in your life, then either I have failed as a writer or you have failed as a responsive reader…I want to be forthright in saying change is the most important measure of value for this book. So, I encourage you to read and grow, not merely to read and know.
If it’s the most important measure of value for the book, it’s really the best way to evaluate the book. It’s too soon for me to say how much this book has changed me, it’s only been a week—but I think the potential is there.
I love this approach to thinking about prayer and the problems with our prayer life. By better understanding the nature of our communicative God, we better understand our need (as image-bearers) to communicate with Him. Communication is part of our nature as it is His nature, how can we not communicate with him, and seek to find more ways and more time to do so? To be better listeners and better talkers?
Hibbs has got to be my favorite theological writer today. There are theologians that I learn more from, but none that I enjoy reading like him—it only makes sense, he cares a bit more about language and writing than your typical theologian.
This is good for the mind and offers plenty of tools to use for change. The rest is up to the reader.
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