Jun 29, 2012 -- 5:44AM, smcisaac wrote:

Let me rephrase that:  In the 2000 years from Abraham to Jesus, according to the Bible witness, God spoke to people and through people all the time.  Are you saying that after Jesus he suddenly stopped, and hasn't done so again in the 2000 years since?

Sorry, let me rephrase....  God now is these last days (since the first coming of Jesus) speaks to us through Him. (His written word, the New Testament via the Holy Spirit.) See John 14; 16; and 20... also see Acts 1; and 2

I do not think God speaks directly to us in these last days.

Jun 29, 2012 -- 2:08PM, smcisaac wrote:

...

what is the source of their authority?

...

... the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I [Jesus] said to you.

Jun 29, 2012 -- 5:20PM, smcisaac wrote:

Jun 29, 2012 -- 4:06PM, dblad wrote:

Jun 29, 2012 -- 2:08PM, smcisaac wrote:

...

what is the source of their authority?

...

... the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I [Jesus] said to you.

But that would be divine inspiration that continued after Jesus.  And Jesus himself gives us reason to believe that the "all things" yet to be taught by the Holy Spirit goes well beyond "remembrance" of only the things he said to the disciples:

"I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now." John 16:12

Yes, that is truth which pertained to the establishment of the Christian system, which they were not then prepared to hear. That they would be inspired and guided in founding the new church.

Jun 28, 2012 -- 3:30PM, smcisaac wrote:

Jun 28, 2012 -- 2:57PM, dblad wrote:

Heb.1:1 In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets  at many times and in various ways,   ² but in these last days   he has spoken to us by his Son,  whom he appointed heir ^F)">  of all things, and through whom   also he made the universe.   ³ The Son is the radiance of God’s glory   and the exact representation of his being,   sustaining all things   by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins,  he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.   ⁴ So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.

Thos "last days" were almost 2,000 years ago now.  Has God been silent ever since?

I'm going back to your original objection to my post (quoting) Heb.1:1-4

I never argued that God has been "silent ever since." I believe Heb. 1:1-4 simply says that  

God in these last days - In this the final dispensation; not implying that the world was soon coming to an end, the "last" dispensation, the "last" period of the world. There had been the patriarchal period, the period under the Law, the prophets, etc., and This was the period during which God's "last" method of communication would be enjoyed, and under which the world would close. It might be a very long period, but it would be the "last" one; and so far as the meaning of the phrase is concerned, it might be the longest period, or longer than all the others put together, but still it would be the "last" one. God did not fall silent, It means that God had now communicated his will to man by his Son, and revelation has been gradual.

That is all i was trying to say... why all the straw men?

Not intentional straw men, but perhaps inadvertent confusion.  I may have misunderstood you, but it seemed to me that you were saying that Jesus was the last instance in history of God revealing truth to us.  If so, my rebuttal to that argument is that we have evidence such as the Pentecost account at Acts 2, the vision of Paul on the road to Damascus, the visions of John of Patmos, and the doctrine of scriptural inspiration to demonstrate that such communication (or inspiration, or revelation, or epiphany, or other words to that effect) continued to occur long after Jesus's death, and there is no reason to suppose that it would not have continued uninterrupted even after the closing of the scriptural canon. 

Everyone who has ever felt a vocation believes they have received a direct divine communication.  Moreover, to me, there is a sense in which Augustine, Aquinas, Copernicus, Luther, Newton, Darwin, Einstein, Martin Luther King, and many other latter-day prophets and truth-disclosers are equal in inspiration and revelatory authority to any of the ancient canonical authors.