Dear Stacey:

I apologize for the long delay in answering.

Of course God speaks to us outside of Scriptures. He speaks to us in the still small voice in our prayers, He can speak to us through other people, He can speak to us through circumstances. Just the fact of His creation, the beautiful nature around us, God speaks to us.

But, as for an infallible and definitive word to us, God speaks to us in three ways:

1) Sacred Tradition

a) Sacred Oral Tradition
b) Sacred Written Tradition (the Bible)

2) His Magisterium (the Pope and Bishops in union with him when they speak infallibly by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

"Tradition" is teaching that is handed down from generation to generation. Thus, the Bible is tradition too. It is handed down from generation to generation.

God has always spoken through Sacred Tradition (this is not [t]radtiion with a small "t", which is man-made custom). Sacred Tradition is God's infallible Word

Before Moses received the Ten Commandments and began writing down the traditions (teachings) of God, those teachings were handed down orally by the elders. After the Books of Moses were written, God's word, was passed down from generation to generation by both by oral tradition (through the prophets and elders) and the written word of the Mosaic Pentateuch and various other texts that were determined to be sacred by the Mosaic Magisterium (the Chair of Moses that Jesus mentioned in Matthew 23:2) that became what we know today as the Old Testament.

In New Testament times there was no New Testament writings of the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles for a couple of decades. All was Oral Tradition. Even after the Apostles began writing things down (that became our New Testament) the process of writing did not finish until the end of the century. So the 1st Century Christians did not have a New Testament Bible that we know. They learned mostly by Sacred Oral Tradition.

Even after the last Apostle finished the last of the New Testament books in around A.D. 100, the correct canon of books, the inspired books that we now compile as the New Testament was not yet decided. There were many manuscripts passed around the Churches and read as "scripture." It was not until around the 4th Century that the Catholic Bishops sat down to decide which of these manuscripts were truly the Word of God and which were not. One of the primary tests applied to these manuscripts under consideration was whether or not what the manuscript taught was consistent with what the Church was already teaching in Oral Tradition.

We need to note that even the Bible says that not everything is written down in the Bible (John 21:25) and that we are to obey both Oral and Written Traditions (2 Thess 2:15; 1 Cor 11:2; 2 Thess 3:6).

Oral Tradition became the test to whether a manuscript was included in the New Testament.

For the next 1100 years there was no dispute over what constitute the books of the Old and New Testament until the 16th century when Martin Luther ripped out seven books from the Old Testament and wanted to rip out the New Testament books of James, Hebrews, and Revelations.

Because of this attack upon the Sacred Bible, the Catholic Church had to take action. The Bible must be protected against all those who would rip it apart. So the Council of Trent, which consisted of God's New Testament Magisterium (from the Chair of Peter), infallibly declare which books are contained in the Old and New Testament.

God is not so cruel as to leave us without a definitive authority to settle disputes like this. God has ALWAYS had His Magisterium (His supreme court appointed on earth) to protect the faith and settle disputes. In the Old Testament Times the Magisterium Pope Moses and his successors who sat on the chair of Moses. In New Testament times the Magisterium was Pope Peter and his successors who sat on the Chair of Peter.

Without this Magisterial authority we can never exactly know what God is actually saying, even in the Bible. St. Peter once said that St. Paul's writings were hard to understand (2 Peter 3:15-16), thus the need for an official interpretation and not a private interpretation (2 Peter 1:20).

But, because of Martin Luther' arrogant rebellion, today there are more than 25,000 non-Catholic Christian groups out there all claiming to interpret the Bible correctly, but most often contradicting each other. There can be only one correct interpretation, not 25,000. That is why God established His Magisterium -- to protect the faith, to guard the faith, to officially interpret the faith, to teach the faith, to defend the faith, and to settle disputes in the faith.

In this way, we can know for sure the correct interpretation of the faith.

Thus, God speaks primarily through Sacred Oral Tradition, through Sacred Biblical Tradition, through official teachings and interpretations of His Magisterium under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Secondarily, God also speaks directly to your heart -- but never says anything that contradicts the primary ways of His word in the previous paragraph.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary