MSI Press Blog

  If you ask ten people who believe they have heard God's voice what it sounded like, you may receive ten different answers. Some describe an audible voice. Others speak of an inner conviction, a dream, a Scripture passage that suddenly came alive, or a deep sense of peace directing them toward a particular choice. Throughout Christian history, the descriptions vary considerably. That raises an important question: If God's voice can sound so different from one person to another, what exactly does it sound like? The surprising answer is that many people say it does not sound like a voice at all. Sometimes It Sounds Like a Voice The Bible contains several examples of God speaking in ways that appear unmistakably audible. Moses heard God from the burning bush. Samuel heard his name called during the night. Paul heard Christ speaking on the road to Damascus. These stories shape our expectations. We imagine that hearing God involves words arriving from somewhere outside ourselves. Y...

  Years ago, I attended a party in Moscow with a Russian friend and her circle of friends. At one point, after a particularly risqué joke circulated through the group, my friend looked at me and laughed. "You are definitely one of us! You turn bright red at our dirty jokes, like we do." At first glance, the comment seemed trivial. It was merely an observation about embarrassment.  Or was it? The more I have reflected on that moment, the more I have come to see it as a profound lesson about language learning and cultural competence.  Most language learners focus on the visible markers of success. We measure vocabulary size. We celebrate mastering verb forms. We work on pronunciation. We practice reading, writing, listening, and speaking. All of these skills matter. Yet none of them fully explains why a group of native speakers might unexpectedly perceive a foreigner as "one of us." The answer lies deeper than language itself. Beyond Knowing the Rules Beginning learne...

  A question occasionally surfaces in language-learning circles: Can deaf people learn a foreign language? The short answer is yes. The longer answer reveals something important about language itself. Many hearing people unconsciously equate language with speech. They imagine that learning a language means listening to conversations, imitating pronunciation, and speaking with native speakers. Since deaf individuals may have limited access to spoken input, some assume foreign language learning must be impossible. But language and speech are not the same thing. Speech is one way to express language. Writing is another. Signing is another. Reading is another. Human beings communicate through multiple channels, and deaf learners have been successfully acquiring additional languages for generations. In fact, deaf people may learn foreign languages in ways that challenge common assumptions about what language learning requires. Consider a deaf user of American Sign Language (ASL) who wis...