Introduction

every day, and my friend was right. God did speak to me through the Bible. The Bible made sense out of my life. God’s voice came to me through the Bible giving me direction and hope, and increasing my faith. So I became a very serious student of the Bible.

Sometime during my first year of reading the Bible, I began to wonder about all the supernatural phenomena in the Bible. I asked a teacher about the miracles in the Bible and about the dreams and visions of the prophets. Should we expect these things to happen today? Not really, was the answer. Why? Because now we have the Bible, God’s complete Word, and we no longer need these things. And that was fine for me. The Bible had done so much for me already, why would I want anything else?

I went to the university and got my first degree in philosophy. Some students lose their faith in God when they take courses in philosophy. My faith in God was strengthened. There is a reason that the Bible outsells all of the philosophy books ever printed. There is a reason that the Bible is the bestselling book of all time. It makes sense out of life and helps people discover their purpose in life. Man’s best thinking without God leads to confusion and despair.

I did my masters and doctorate degrees in theology. My professors also shared my love of the Bible. They also told me that we no longer needed the supernatural experiences of the Bible now that we had the completed Bible. They told me that the only way God spoke to us these days was through the Bible. They also told me that dreams and visions were dangerous because the devil used those means of communication now. They told me that if I tried to hear God speak outside the Bible that this was “subjective,” and that subjective revelation would lead us away

from the Bible. And my trusted teachers gave me a number of theological arguments against God ever speaking outside the Bible. They also pointed to historical example of Christians falling into traps when they tried to hear God’s voice outside the Bible.

Then I became a Professor of Old Testament Exegesis and Semitic Languages and repeated all these arguments to my students. But the one thing I could never find was even a single text in the Bible that stated God no longer spoke to people in any of the “old” ways. I could not find a text that said God only speaks through the Bible. After I had been a theological professor for ten years, I decided to study God’s voice in the Scriptures. In the Scriptures, God spoke in many ways: an audible voice, complete sentences forming in the mind, impressions, dreams, visions, trances, angels and in other ways as well. He did this in the OT, during Jesus’ ministry, and in the NT churches. He spoke like this to apostles, to prophets, and to ordinary Christians. The Bible shows that we should pursue the gift of the prophecy (1 Cor. 14:1) and that prophecy should be a normal part of the NT church service (1 Cor. 14:29-33). Ultimately what I discovered from this study was that the Bible teaches that God is still doing miracles today. He is still speaking outside the Bible, though never in contradiction to the Bible. After I made this discovery, I actually began to experience a whole new supernatural dimension in my relationship with the God of the Bible. In the last twenty years, I have seen many other Bible believing Christians make a similar transition.

In 1984-85, I had the wonderful experience of going to Germany and living in the Black Forest while on an academic sabbatical. In Freiburg I went to the same church as Marianne and Wolly Peuster. At that time, neither of

us believed that God spoke outside the Bible. But then Marianne and Wolly went through a change very similar to mine. When I met them again in Anaheim, California April 1991 I had a very new understanding of prophetic gifting and found out that Marianne is a seer. So during a conference with John Wimber in Switzerland in that summer I asked her to join our ministry team. Whenever praying for people she received such profound revelations that people would burst into tears and be convinced that God had spoken to them. In this book they both describe how the gift of prophecy developed and impressively changed their lives. Marianne and Wolly are not professors of theology, but they are thoroughly grounded in the Bible. Again and again they prove from the Bible that God is still speaking in the same supernatural ways. Both of them offer many fresh insights to familiar passages. They tell amazing stories of people hearing God’s voice today. They answer many practical questions. What are the different ways in which God speaks to His people? How can I know that it is God’s voice and not the devil’s? How can I get God to speak to me? There is so much in this book that will help readers to become better friends with Jesus.

I have known Marianne and Wolly for over 25 years. They have the highest integrity and a great love for God’s Son. I am honored to write the introduction to such an important book, and I recommend it to you without any reservations.

Dr. Jack Deere

International speaker and author of Surprised by the Voice of God and The Beginner’s Guide to the Gift of Prophecy, Fort Worth/Dallas, Texas.