I have been fortunate to have joined this church in 2004 and began leading the men's Sunday School class in 2005. I have experience teaching Bible Studies for over 15 years, having worked as a layperson with the Navigators in the 1980s and 90s. I was blessed to have attended Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for 2 full years.
Romans 10:9-10 "that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation."
Ephesians 1:4-5 "just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will"
Can the doctrine of God's election and predestination coexist with our responsibility to confess and believe?
Can you believe in predestination without being a fatalist?
And then, when you come upon verses that say, "it is God's will that none should perish but all should have everlasting life" it is hard to see how God would predestine people for damnation, if it is his will that none should perish.
Is that supposed to be an exact quote James? I can't find that. The reason I ask is the first part - being God's will. When Jesus is talking to Nicodemus he says: Joh 3:14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, Joh 3:15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. Joh 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Which leaves the choice up to us.
For the most part, God simply knowing what's going to happen doesn't bother me - that's NOT predestination. There are a few verses I've seen that bother me though, but can't find them at the moment.
dennis. Saying that God knows everything but does not predestine them is difficult to merge. In other words, if God knows everything that I am going to do before I do it am I not predestined to do everything?? Do I really have any choice? Can I do anything beyond what I am predestined to do?? And if God made every part of me, and is sovereign over the universe, how can we escape the idea that the universe that God created is predestined by God to act in accordance with his divine will and knowledge??
You ask if you really have a choice. I say Yes. Does God know how you're going to choose? Yes. Do I? No. If we accept God as all-knowing, all-powerful, etc, seems like it shouldn't bother us - He's _supposed_ to know. To me, predestination is God calling the shots, putting the decisions in our head for us. At that point we would be nothing more than robots with skin. But we do choose. Eve chose the apple, the Israelites chose to fall away, Jesus chose to die on the cross. We choose to believe.
5 comments:
Romans 10:9-10
"that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation."
Ephesians 1:4-5
"just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will"
Can the doctrine of God's election and predestination coexist with our responsibility to confess and believe?
Can you believe in predestination without being a fatalist?
And then, when you come upon verses that say, "it is God's will that none should perish but all should have everlasting life" it is hard to see how God would predestine people for damnation, if it is his will that none should perish.
Is that supposed to be an exact quote James? I can't find that. The reason I ask is the first part - being God's will. When Jesus is talking to Nicodemus he says: Joh 3:14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
Joh 3:15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
Joh 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Which leaves the choice up to us.
For the most part, God simply knowing what's going to happen doesn't bother me - that's NOT predestination. There are a few verses I've seen that bother me though, but can't find them at the moment.
dennis. Saying that God knows everything but does not predestine them is difficult to merge. In other words, if God knows everything that I am going to do before I do it am I not predestined to do everything?? Do I really have any choice? Can I do anything beyond what I am predestined to do?? And if God made every part of me, and is sovereign over the universe, how can we escape the idea that the universe that God created is predestined by God to act in accordance with his divine will and knowledge??
You ask if you really have a choice. I say Yes. Does God know how you're going to choose? Yes. Do I? No. If we accept God as all-knowing, all-powerful, etc, seems like it shouldn't bother us - He's _supposed_ to know. To me, predestination is God calling the shots, putting the decisions in our head for us. At that point we would be nothing more than robots with skin. But we do choose. Eve chose the apple, the Israelites chose to fall away, Jesus chose to die on the cross. We choose to believe.
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