Why do you say Christ’s encounter with the people on the road to Emmaus is a master class in learning to hear God’s voice?

The Lectio Course focuses primarily on learning to hear God’s voice through lectio divina, an ancient way of reading the Bible. Pete explores this practice in greater detail in his book, How to Hear God, which is a rich supplementary resource if you want to go deeper.

And do you know what? The real aim of this book isn’t just to teach people how to hear God in religious contexts, like prayer and Bible study, important as those things are. What happens when we start to hear God in all of creation? Like when we switch on the normal radio? When we go for a walk? When we talk to a non-Christian who doesn’t believe God exists, and yet we start to hear God in what they’re saying? That’s when one day the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. That’s what it says in Habakkuk (2:14). As a book, this is a simple read, but this is not a negative on the book, but rather it corresponds well to readers who may be new to the faith, new to spiritual disciplines – or are emerging form foundational programs such as Alpha. In many ways, this book is an authoritative collective of the wisdom and works of some of the greats of the faith but it includes the insight, commentary and stories from Pete’s experiences and life. Fellow Author, Shane Claiborne, comments similarly, saying that “this book draws from the well of wisdom that has nourished the faithful for centuries.” Though this is not some new deep academic and intellectual read on the desert fathers or the spiritual disciplines, it certainly could be seen as one of the best introductory looks at spiritual disciplines – and it’s well done. For this reason, I see it as a Spirit-focused and spirit-renewed version of Richard Foster’s classic, Celebration of Discipline. I suspect Pete Greig’s work in How to Hear God will now be the book I refer others to first in conversations around spiritual disciplines. How to Hear God is published by HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc., the parent company of Bible Gateway. When it comes to hearing God, the Bible is the language of his heart. Nothing he says in any other way, or in any other context will ever override, undermine or contradict what he has said in the scriptures. 2. Prayer Pete Greig: Nothing God says in any other way, in any other context, will ever override, undermine, or contradict what he has said in the Scriptures. Ultimately, the Bible is the language of God’s heart because it communicates with us its very nature. In reading the Bible we receive truth and sound doctrine, but we also encounter the love and life of God himself. It is a “ living book.”

And it’s the key to discipleship. Jesus says in John 10:27, he says, “My sheep know my voice. They listen to me. I know them and they follow me.” And so the key to Christianity is to listen to God. So it’s massively, this is probably the most important thing you’ll ever learn to do, to listen to God.In Partnership with St Martin-in-the-Fields. This series of nine lectures is inspired by the words of Martin Luther during the Reformation. Distinguished speakers investigate those things in which we believe deeply – and for which we would be prepared to make a costly stand.

Christin Thieme: Yep. And your new book, “How to Hear God: a Simple Guide for Normal People,” is brilliant. Thank you for giving this gift to all of us. And we’re going to talk more about how God does speak, because you said it’s not always audibly. But one interesting thing about the book that is kind of a thread throughout the whole thing is Jesus’ encounter with a couple on the road to Emmaus, which you said in the book is a masterclass for anyone seeking to learn to hear his voice. Can you share a little bit more about that encounter? Christin Thieme: And you write that it can all be condensed into four words, listen and follow Jesus. So, finally, question for you, what happens when we learn to live in this way?There is no aspect of God’s creation through which he cannot and does not speak. We must learn to discern the voice of God in the whole of life, not just in religious contexts. We must learn to listen more carefully to those people our culture ignores, because God speaks most consistently from the margins – through children, through the poor, through those who suffer. Rarely in any of our lifetimes have we so acutely needed to hear the Lord’s voice: both his word, so that we as hisChurch might navigate such dangerous days with clarity and courage, but also his whisper, so that we as individuals might know the particular guidance and comfort of his presence day by day. We live in noisy and bewildering times, full of distractions. Things are moving fast all around us. And I believe that now, more than ever, we need to learn how to be still, how to slow down, how to plug ourselves in to hear the voice of God more clearlyamid the clatter and clamour of the world.