I resonate with the expectations language. I think you’re correct to say the OT folks heard from God through priests, judges, prophets more often than directly, while NT folks seemed to have a more conversational engagement as the Spirit moved throughout the Jewish believers. Passages where all of Israel is called “a royal priesthood” seem to point to the new way of God communicating (I Peter 2:5 & 9).

Nevertheless, this 1 Peter 2 passage was the goal of the God of Israel for his people all along. See Exodus 19:6.

Every man and woman of Israel a priest of the God of Israel (accomplished in Acts 2:17).

But here’s a potentially helpful distinction. My view is that these verses, both in the Old and New Testament are speaking to the Jewish people and their experience of the God of Israel.

As Gentiles, what guarantee or expectation can we have that this God of Israel will communicate in the same way with us?
Though we are grafted into the tree of Jesse, God may not speak clearly, history-changingly to us.

My communication with God focuses primarily on him telling me his of his abiding love, not him telling me to go free his people, as he told Moses.

I’m not saying he couldn’t, he just hasn’t.

Should we expect a new level of communication in A.D. Judging by the life of Jesus, he seems quite open to receiving and responding to whomever calls to him in faith. He touched and healed and loved the whole gamut. This seems to fit with Paul’s description of the veil being lifted and the priesthood of believers in Hebrews. I get the idea from these metaphors that our access and communication is more direct than it used to be.

If these comparisons are accurate, I connect more with the former than the latter. God seems to me to speak clearly and directly to specific people at specific times but I don’t feel like I hear him. It makes me wonder how “new” this current experience is.

I believe I see what you’re getting at. What age are we in and what expectations can we have of God speaking to us?

Do you think grumbling is related to hearing or not hearing from God?

Do you think that now that the Holy Spirit has been promised as a seal or downpayment of God’s presence we can expect to hear from God more than OT people’s experience?

Reformed theologian Klaus Bockmuehl has a couple of survey chapters on God speaking in biblical and subsequent history in his 1990 work, *Listening to the God who Speaks.*

When I think of the unexceptional people I don’t think of anyone who gets named in the Bible. I’m thinking more about those who are just listed as “people”. They seem to be grumbling alot which I can sadly relate to.

More often than not, the “people” seem to turn to prophets and priests in order to converse or hear from God. Were the prophets a sort of stop-gap measure? Because no one else was trying to go directly to G-d?

Evangelical tradition’s view of Scripture (which was born from Fundamentalism before it), believed that once the canon closed, then God speaks no more. For to speak was to reveal. And to reveal means we would have more inerrant and infallible scripture than what was recorded. This was in part a response to Catholic theology that says the canon is never closed for God speaks through the Church in “progressive revelation.” The justification for this was Paul’s statement that the “church is the pillar and ground of the truth.” Interesting, Paul doesn’t say Scripture is this pillar and ground. I have a view on why this is so, but that would distract from the discussion.

That canon-closed-God-is-silent attitude continues to linger in some evangelical and in most fundamentalist churches and institutions. In these places, you’ll also find a de-emphasis of the Holy Spirit but to convict of sin (which, ironically, is God speaking new specific revelation about our own personal condition).

These groups also stand up against the spiritual formation movement today. They are suspicious of it. Richard Foster was a forerunning in bringing evangelicals into this conversation, see “Streams of Living Water.” He’s had pushback for decades. Dallas Willard is a larger voice in this… and also has warnings attached to him from the evangelical right.

Why these groups have a pre-motivation to be against God’s speaking to us in intimate ways would be an interesting exploration.