God is still speaking
Acts of the Apostles“God is still speaking” is an expression for the continuing activity of God in the church: in Acts, prophets receive messages from heaven and transmit them to congregations after the resurrection. The phrase points not to permission to accept every claimed revelation, but to the demanding work of discerning which voices accord with the Realm.
Prophecy in the Early Church
When prophets travel from Jerusalem to Antioch, the term describes figures believed to receive messages from heaven and communicate them to the congregation. Their presence reflects the early communities’ conviction that God continued to speak to the church after the resurrection. Prophecy thus belongs to the community’s ongoing life, rather than being confined to the events of Jesus’ ministry.
The account of Agabus gives this conviction a concrete setting. At a meeting of the community, he stands and predicts a severe famine during the reign of Claudius. The prediction is followed by action: the Gentile disciples in Antioch send relief to believers in Jerusalem. The episode joins prophetic speech to practical responsibility across the communities.
Discernment and the Realm
The claim that God continues to speak raises the question of how a congregation should judge new interpretations. The account supplies a theological criterion: prophetic content must be internally consistent with the values of the Realm to be regarded as valid. The authority of a message, therefore, is not established merely by someone claiming to speak for God; the community must consider what the message teaches and what kind of communal response it supports.
That task matters especially amid contradictory voices. The expression “God is still speaking” affirms continuing divine communication while leaving discernment as an obligation, not an optional safeguard. It asks communities to identify which voices have the strongest claim to come from God by testing their teachings against the Realm’s values.
Speech That Becomes Shared Action
The response to Agabus’s warning makes the consequences of discernment visible. The Gentile disciples in Antioch provide for believers in Jerusalem, and their offering recalls the ideal of shared life depicted elsewhere in Acts. Gentiles become instruments through whom God provides for the Jerusalem church; the direction of care demonstrates that the communities’ relationship is not simply one of instruction or dependence.
The gift also signifies a reunion of Jewish and Gentile peoples. In the book’s interpretation, resources sent by Gentiles to serve the God of Israel anticipate Isaiah’s vision of an eschatological world in which Gentiles bring their resources into that service. Prophetic speech, tested in relation to the Realm, therefore issues in material solidarity and gives a present act of aid a wider horizon.
Continuing Relevance
The expression remains a challenge to communities that believe God continues to speak: they must establish criteria for judging fresh interpretations amid the many voices competing for authority. The episode offers a grounded pattern: attend to a claimed message, assess whether it coheres with the values of the Realm, and consider the communal action it calls forth. In the Antioch story, the result is not a claim to authority for its own sake, but relief sent across communal boundaries.
