If I were to come to you with something the Spirit laid on my heart for you that required an action on your part, then wouldn’t it be honorable and biblical to “search the scriptures” and see if it was so? Acts 17:11
We are to consult the scriptures to verify any supposed new “revelations,” correct? More commonly stated, “we are to filter everything everyone says, including the Spirit, through the Bible, because God will never contradict Himself.” Some of you, at this moment may emphatically being saying “YES!” others may just as emphatically saying “NO!” and some of you may simply be unsure.
No matter what stance you take, you will face problems Here are some examples:
If you say that everything must be filtered through the scriptures, and God will not contradict His word, then what more does God have to say that hasn’t already been said? Some would say that God indeed has “said it all” and base their conclusions are passages like this:
He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. Ephesians 1:9-10 ”All things have been summed up.”
If you say that that there is continuing revelation in addition to what has already been revealed which doesn’t need to be filtered through the scriptures, then you will never be able to declare with authority or objectively that it is true.
Some tout that they are led by the Spirit and not “some book.” Others say that since the scriptures were “breathed” by the Spirit Himself, they are led by the Spirit “through the book.“
Is there any middle road here?
Must I check everything the Spirit tells me against the Bible?
Does the Spirit supersede what’s written?
Missionary in the Andes Mountains Cloud Forest Region of Ecuador. My last name, "Labrador," is the word that's used for "Vine Worker" in the Spanish Bible, and it's OK with me. 
Tom Schultz on I'm 76.5% Completely Sold Out To Jesus! 
Jonathan on Evangelization or Mission? 
Our experience has been that if the whole congregation is walking in the love of Jesus, that collectively, we have the mind of Christ. He leads us individually and collectively in the same direction, and the scriptures open to our understanding once we are in one accord.
Greg
For me, the Spirit’s leading right now has more to do with immediate actions–”talk to that person” or “offer to pray for that person” or “do _x_” rather than some new revelation. When someone comes to me with a word I always check it with Scripture, and then just record it and wait to see what happens.
I like this-interesting. I like what Jack Deere said in his book ‘Surprised by the Voice of God’. He used to think that God didn’t speak today, and went through a long journey of discovery to find out that He does. He said that with his children, if they have needs, even though they are adult, he is still happy to help with things like moving house; so why wouldn’t our heavenly father want the same?
I love these challenging thoughts. I would call this and other explorations like it; an introduction to real life in Christ, where the rubber meets the road. Safety is the question that would naturally come up in a discussion like this. Learning to hear the Lord’s voice is natural and progressive. When we were children we talked like children, we understood like children. When we grew up we came to understand on a different level.
The whole idea of the Gospel is a return trip to the Garden of Eden, paid for on the back of our Savior. What happened in the Garden was intimate fellowship, the Greek koinonia. You can not have this type of fellowship with a book, only a person. The institution offers you a book in place of a real relationship.
Now when a parent speaks to a small child, the child doesn’t understand what the parent is saying. As the child grows (if the child grows) the child comes to understand what the parent is saying. This comes about in continual daily relationship, over a period of time. It is natural and reliable. Now if the child spends little time with the parent, but spends time in an institution, the child will learn not the language of the parent, but the language in the institution. The child may never be able to understand the voice of the parent, so sad.
As for other persons, getting a word from God for us… I would say not so fast. In Hebrews says we have an altar that no one else has the right to eat from.
What role does the scripture play in our hearing from God? Almost none, Jesus threw that idea out when He told His disciples to eat His flesh and to drink His blood. Again in John chapter 5 Jesus said “You diligently pour of the scriptures because in them you think that you have eternal life, but they tell you about me, and you refuse to come to me…”
One might ask, “Then what good are the scriptures?” They are good in so many ways, I view them like a data base that God gave us. We learn of the history of the Lord and His dealings and purposes for mankind. We gain a great understanding of the Old and New Covenants, and what Jesus accomplished for us in His perfect sacrifice, the beginning and how all of human history will end up back in Christ, and they are a perfect place for the Holy Spirit to bring a verse or Biblical situation to us in a current situation for instruction today.
So, those of us who are more experienced in our relationship with the Lord, should teach the younger believers what it is, and what it looks like to know the Lord and to walk in the Spirit with Him.
Yes, revelation via the Spirit is ongoing. Of course God will not contradict Himself and thus ANY personal revelation must not contradict Scripture. So verify everything with the Word.
However, Scripture is strategic and personal revelation is tactical. By this I mean that Scripture often gives the foundational concepts and personal revelation often supplies the details.
So, for instance, Scripture says not to marry an unbeliever. But it doesn’t say who to marry. Scripture says to go out into the world and evangelize. It doesn’t say to become a missionary in Ecuador. Scripture says to keep in fellowship. It doesn’t say to attend a particular church. We can often quickly determine if our desires or another’s word for us or the Spirit’s leading is really from God by looking at Scripture. For example, any “leading” to divorce my wife and marry the pretty young thing down the way is clearly not from God.
Not every decision is so clear cut in Scripture, but attention to the principles therein provides us a framework to build upon with our own spiritual discernment.
Here you have outlined the story of my Christian journey.
1) At my roots was the cessationist idea that God has no more to say…’what more can he say than to you he hath said’…’when that which is perfect is come (the canon of Scripture) then that which is in part will be done away’.
2) On the other extreme you have the ultra-pentecostal groups that even claim broad new revelation (usually under the guise of prophecy) that goes far beyond anything specifically in Scripture. I’ve never known anyone who believed ‘the book’ was actually superceeded (except Mormons), but I can imagine them. Those who wander away from the book are open to all sorts of excesses.
3) Justin (commenting above) seems to present a good middle ground: hear from the Spirit but also check out anything with Scripture. I think that is especially true in evaluating teaching or public ‘words from God’…I know (second-hand) of a church that was so eager to know new revelation in their services they got carried along as their leader ‘got a word’ to leave his wife and go off with, I think it was, the church secretary. Those ‘words’ also had to do with directing major financial sacrifices ‘for the ministry.’
Personally, I am becoming increasingly disillusioned by groups that require fresh words frequently if their ministry is to be validated and they are to believe ‘God is doing something new in this day’.
Tom, On a corporate gathering level I agree 100%. Exceeds and weirdness abound when groups begin relying on individual prophesy, rather than spiritual exposition of the scriptures for guidance, and spiritual words revealed in agreement with the groups as wholes. On a very personal level, as I have grown in the Lord, He consistently tells me things contrary to the scriptures, but never in opposition to His purposes and Divine Nature. As I am sure you know, many of our accepted scriptures are mistranslated, some have been intentionally mistranslated. “Church”, some usages of “obey”, “the office of”, “Bishop”, and others were intentionally mistranslated to support the Kings, Popes, and the false idea of clergy. Second, the scriptures are “static” as Peter points out. They are a snap shot in time, in a given situation. The situations and stories reveal God’s heart, and His thoughts to us.
For those who mature, the voice is as easy to decern as your spouses. Jesus said, “My sheep know my voice, and they follow me, they will not follow another.”
What I observe each year, from place to place, corresponds with Greg, as he has written, “He leads us individually and collectively in the same direction…”
However, “collectively” we do have need to abandon the embedded sectarian/denominational concepts of “our church” or “our circle”. It is possible, and does occur, that a church (say, the ekklesia at Corinth) will stray off. Now if that ekklesia (say, the ekklesia at Corinth) where to maintain an open-active heart of love toward other gatherings (say, the ekklesia at Ephesus, and at Philadelphia), the Spirit is expressed corporately in a larger scope. It is extremely difficult for the world, the flesh, or the Adversary to deceive the ekklesia global; impossible for these to ever defeat the ekklesia local, global & historic. Yes, letters from apostles (sent ones) like Paul can help, while Christ has been gracious to give us one another in Christ — without boundaries — rightly discerning the Body.