Should You Listen To That Voice in Your Head?

Hushed was the evening hymn,

The temple courts were dark,

The lamp was burning dim,

Before the sacred ark:

When suddenly a voice divine

Rang through the silence of the shrine 

The story of the boy Samuel, awakened in the night by the voice of God, is one of the sweetest and most moving tales in the Old Testament. It also introduces one of the most interesting topics in theology, namely, how do we discern the voice of God from the other other voices that clamor for our attention?

We did a close reading of the first few chapters of 1st Samuel, and examined the (sometimes subtle) differences between inspiration, hallucination, divination, and revelation. 

As a special treat, we were privileged to have Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, PhD, professor of history at Harvard and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, as a part of this lesson. Dr. Ulrich’s latest book, A House Full of Females, is a study of polygamy in the early church, and I asked Dr. Ulrich to share some experiences from the lives of these early pioneer sisters, many of whom testified that they were guided by the voice of God.