Interesting article in The Federalist which highlights the problems associated with conducting our ‘forever wars’. Forever wars are forever producing refugees from those wars.
Priorities? The message disseminated here by Obama is how dare you not vote for a black “sista”!!! Look past her bad politics/morals/trajectory for this nation.
Former President Barack Obama on Thursday chastised black men who have not been all-out in their support of Vice President Kamala Harris, claiming it is sexism that is keeping many of them from supporting the Democratic presidential nominee.
Obama shared his feelings with a small group of voters during a surprise stop at a local Harris campaign office in Pittsburgh.
He said the lack of energy around Harris’s campaign “seems to be more pronounced with the brothers.”
I remember back when people were actually defending the company, and saying the workers weren’t being exploited because they worked for less. Remember they got these jobs because the company closed up facilities with legal workers. So why is anyone shocked?
And your govt subsidizes this garbage of taking jobs from US workers and giving it to in many cases, illegal migrants.
Push, push, push that race card . . . doubling down a bit late as she and the administration favored immigrants over her base for higher paid jobs. She and admin took the base for granted. It’s sad that someone who is suppose to be smart enough to be President has alienated so many.
Kizzie, just wondering about when you spoke of praying to God and getting an answer about how to vote, I think it must be an impression on your heart based upon and aligned with Scripture that you receive in answer? I am still seeking to understand differences.
I expressed previously how I feel led by God’s love for children, the least among us, and what would be best for their future in this nation. Since the current Dem running is now saying she basically remains the same and would not change what has been done while VP despite ads stating otherwise at times, I can’t fathom a continuation of letting so many criminals enter our nation and enticing them to do so with freebies. So many children are missing already. How many criminals have commited atrocities unchecked with the missing children? I have heard of no plans on her part to fix that crisis. These are the world’s children. God’s word says Jesus loves the little children. That alone, simple as it may be, drives me.
I feel there is something driving you, and I seek understanding. God calls to you to do a different thing. So how is His word and Jesus’ example directing you to a diametrically opposed position? I am not asking in anger or sarcasm, but only in thinking that you must have a more important priority driving you.
Janice @12:36, good and legitimate question but one that requires much more time and thoughtfulness than I can give on a work day. I’m also somewhat enjoying a fast from this particular thread, to be honest.
The tenor and emotion here has become a bit too contentious of late, so if I’ve contributed to that — my absence will be a good thing. 🙂
:–) Fiddle faddle. We play just fine together. None of us like it when we don’t get our own way. That’s life. Suck it up, buttercup. We all have to. Or better yet, use the discomfort to infuse your prayers with fervency. I’ve found that’s when prayer most effectively changes ME.
As for free will and predestination, those are both concepts that pepper the Scripture. We’ll just have to hold loosely to what we do not and cannot fully understand and trust the Lord to make up the difference. The problems seem to only compound themselves when we begin to be dogmatic about things we don’t/can’t fully understand. It might be fruitful to have a discussion about those things at some point. Election season is probably not the best time.
About the election—I do empathize with those who don’t feel like they can vote this season. And even for some who will vote for Democrats. I believe God does lead people differently. What I truly despise are those in leadership who have used the issue of abortion to whip the evangelical vote and NOW are voting for Democrats. The David Frenches and Cheneys of politics are beyond the pale in my mind.
Janice – Yes, the “answer” is definitely an impression in my heart/conscience.
In saying that, though, I want to be clear that I am not saying that how I believe God is working in my conscience has to be the very same way for others. For example, a person may feel convicted by the Holy Spirit to stop watching TV because they have become addicted to it. But that person cannot then tell other Christians that they, too, have to give up watching TV. (I know that doesn’t sound related, but the main idea behind it – that God leads different people in different ways – does seem to be related.)
A personal example is that Hubby gave up drinking because he had become an alcoholic. (Praise God that He delivered Hubby from the desire to drink shortly after he gave it up.) Out of respect and care for my husband, I knew that drinking alcohol was wrong for me, too, at that time.
Sometime after his death, Nightingale served wine or some other alcoholic drink, and I “felt a release, ” as some might put it, to imbibe. Since then, I have felt free to occasionally enjoy a margarita or some other kind of drink. (As for wine, apparently, I am some kind of Cretan for only liking the sweeter wines. 😀 )
I would not say that the way God is leading me is “diametrically opposed” to how God is leading you. If I were to say that I thought He was leading me to vote for Harris, then that phrase would fit. But, to be clear, I am not being led to vote for Harris, but merely to not vote for the presidential ticket.
ps I plan to vote for Trump and my Republican senator who is up for re-election. I will NOT be voting for my Republican representative because he is too much a war monger for me to swallow this time around. He will probably win anyway, but if my vote were the deciding vote, he still wouldn’t get it. If I thought there was a peace-loving, life affirming Democrat on the ballot who was not perverted in some way or another I would consider voting for that person. Unfortunately every year it becomes harder and harder to find a Democrat of that description. Actually, it’s not as easy as we’d like to think to find a Republican of that description either, imo. So there we are. Play nice, kids. :–)
Thanks, Dj, and Kizzie. I hope you take my questions in the manner in which I think I am asking. It is out of respect and knowing y’all have been Christians longer than I have been.
I am wondering if I am missing something that is guiding y’all from Scripture. Trying to distinguish if your individual choices are based on Scripture or more based on feelings?
At my church the guidance is to vote Biblical values but it is not expounded upon except with issues of abortion and marriage. Never is it mentioned about party platforms. The expectation is people are smart enough to figure it out for themselves.
I definitely understand that God leads different people in different ways, even the closest of people.
I am listening to the news.They said 25 countries have compulsory voting. I had no idea.
Janice – I know that this will not be a satisfactory answer, but I will say that I believe that the leading of the Holy Spirit backs up what I see in scripture in a general sense, with at least a couple specifics. My experience here tells me that if I get any more specific, it would not end well. 🙂
Janice it is upon biblical truth we should be thinking upon while casting our vote I agree. Somehow that gets lost on some as I attempt to explain it is not politics for me. May we continue to walk the path He has set before us and trust Him through it all.
Okay, Kizzie. I am thinking perhaps you are getting at a more liberal type of reading the Bible than a literal reading of it? That is where my liberal friends differ from me. If that is what you are getting at then I understand better as to your choice. Otherwise, I am clueless. But thanks for trying to explain something while walking on eggshells on this thread.
My eighteen year old son is in the process of getting his new library card. We got one when he was four but because he refuses to use his real name, the librarian could find no evidence of him having one. Anyway, though it is a small library in a small community, they require him to bring photo ID and a piece of mail. “Hi, Tony, good to see you! How are your folks? Your sister? Your grandfather? Still have raccoons getting your chickens? I was out your way the other day and saw your neighbor moving his cows. So, you want a library card? Let me see your photo ID so I know who you are, and a piece of mail so I can confirm your address.”
I am fine with that. Why isn’t voting at least as important?
Hey, Janice, the news thread isn’t where I usually look for theological questions, but I saw yours above and looked back at yesterday’s.
Just a note, that while someone spoke of those on the God’s sovereignty side of the equation as being haughty, in your own words, “Eventually after reading the Bible I had more understanding.” That sounds like you have a “better,” superior, more biblical answer, right? All of us do tend to think our own perspective is the correct one. Also, “their actions are more of a deciding factor in how God acts or accepting that inaction is okay because God is gonna do what He’s gonna do”–that isn’t the viewpoint of anyone I’ve ever met, and I’ve met a large number of (conservative) Presbyterians, including fellow members of three churches.
Two of those three churches (all but the one with only about 20-25 adult members) have had the most active “volunteer” force I’ve ever seen, people volunteering with the homeless or inner-city children, people taking a second job on the college campus to be a witness there, etc. This is a strawman argument. We do believe that God is sovereign (biblical) but that He uses His people (also biblical).
A bit about how I came to that biblical understanding in a separate post, later. For now, it’s 79 and sunny and I want to go find some butterflies and wasps, if I can!
Yeah, Kizzie, wasps too. Once I started photographing them, I found them fascinating. They come in a lot of different colors and sizes, and they also do a lot of interesting things, so they’re a good photographic subject. And while photographing a nest of bald-faced hornets may be risky, taking photos of wasps on flowers isn’t a risky thing to do (I was a bit nervous at first, but I’ve shoved my camera into the face of a lot of wasps at this point, and though I’ve been “buzzed” by a couple of them in one species, generally the worst they do is get annoyed and leave.
Cheryl, interesting how you took it, that I had a better understanding, lol. I just meant a better understanding than I had before, not comparing myself to anyone but to myself.
I personally know a PCA missionary and know how wonderful and active they are. No need to defend the PCA. I think very highly of the ones I know. One of the nearby churches is very active in the Prison ministry I support. We attended a PCA for a time and our son has been a member of more than one as he has moved around. Sorry if I somehow stepped on your toes with my comment. If I did not attend a Southern Baptist, I might attend a PCA, if they’d have me, lol. My Word Weavers group meets at a PCA church.
OK, the free will / predestination question is a big topic. I grew up in more or less Arminian churches that basically taught an aggressive appeal (“please believe in Jesus! do it tonight or you might die on the way home and go to hell”) with multiple verses of a hymn as background.
I have a brother who is a traveling evangelist, and he told me about one meeting where he knew there were a number of unbelievers present, and only one person responded. He turned to the pastor and begged him to give a second invitation, because he figured he must have been “saying it wrong.” This brother was known to delay going to family emergencies because if he cancelled a night of meetings, people might go to hell (and it would be his fault).
Twenty-five years ago or so I was intrigued that when I heard the name of Charles Finney, it was in two very different ways. Some spoke about him as a wonderful evangelist, and some spoke of him as a heretic. I decided to order a book he wrote and read it myself. Unknowingly, I ordered a book that was actually a compilation of his writings. I started reading, and initially didn’t see anything very exciting or controversial. (He’s actually a Pelagian and doesn’t believe in substitutionary atonement, but again at that point I knew almost nothing about him and I wasn’t Reformed.)
But then I got to a place in the book where he was telling people to claim their neighbors and friends for Christ, and he made the statement that he believed there would be “millions of souls in hell” because individuals had never “prayed the prayer of faith” for them. (I’m using quotes because I think these are exact quotes, but I am going from memory.)
I realized that’s what it actually comes down to. We either believe that people are saved because they make the choice to be saved or because God makes the choice to save them. And if we believe that individuals make their own choice, well . . . it really comes down to whether or not they ever heard an “effective” gospel presentation, saw Christians who really act like Christians, lived in a country where there are other Christians around, etc.
In a sense, we don’t really believe it is up to the unbeliever at all. We believe it is up to us to be effective salesmen. If they see us sin, or we sin against them, or we present the gospel badly, or they never hear us witness at all, then they are likely not going to be saved. They are going to go to hell, but really and truly it is actually our fault. But we won’t be punished for it, because we’re already safe. (Eternal security being the one element that doesn’t align with Arminianism in what I was taught.)
That is all a practical discussion, not a theological/biblical one, but it was what convinced me that it wasn’t really that some of us (graciously) believe that individuals have a free choice and others believe (ungraciously) that God is willy-nilly choosing to save some people and not save others. Basically the free-will argument has been treated as the “kinder” option. And there’s also the unstated assumption that people don’t actually deserve hell, or at least that they “deserve” to be told there is another option, and so of course we get a little squeamish when we think about those people who have never heard the gospel at all, or who have heard an inaccurate version of it, or have only heard about Christianity from people who turn out to be adulterers or guilty of other heinous sins. That seems “unjust” somehow, because deep down we believe that everyone deserves to hear a carefully presented, accurate gospel message.
And we have to come to grips with the fact that only a tiny, tiny percentage of human beings have a “fair” chance of salvation if that is what is required to make it fair.
I’ll leave the discussion of the biblical argument for another day, but I’ll leave it at that for now.
And Janice, I know you were saying you had a “better” understanding than previously. But you still are saying your current understanding is more accurate, more biblical than the one you used to hold. That’s all I’m saying, that believing our own position to be the accurate one doesn’t necessarily make us proud or haughty. All of us (I think) are trying to be more biblical in our understanding. Presby folks sometimes get accused of being arrogant in our understanding, and obviously pride is something that can accost any of us. I think that often Presby folk talk about theology more, and read about it more, and can be more passionate about it. But that isn’t automatically arrogance and pride–though of course it can become that.
As to the discussion on choose or chosen: somebody on here told me an excellent coverage on how those two fit nicely together when I was discussing with a grandson, but I just downsized notes in my Bible and it seems hers was one that went. I had meant to keep it. So I hope she will speak up again so I can write it down again. But I leave it to her to be named.
The doctrine I had initially been taught was the one that is referred to as Arminian, but it was not like the stereotype of Arminian theology that some Reformed folks seem to think it is. (At least, not as I was taught. Not to say that other churches might teach it closer to the stereotype.)
I first encountered Reformed/Calvinist theology on the World Mag Blog, and it really surprised me, and bothered me a bit, too, initially.
Sometime in those early days of the WMB, I was in a discussion with a couple of Reformed men who were trying to explain it to me. Since I was still not at the place to fully grasp it, one of the men said that it was pointless to keep responding to me because I was “unteachable”. Well, that’s not the way to win someone over to your theology!
What was ironic (and wrong) about his comment was that not long before that, my then-pastor’s wife had told me that she found me to be very teachable, and appreciated that about me.
Through the years of reading more on Reformed theology, and of course, reading the Bible, my personal view changed gradually. One thing that stood out to me as I read the Bible was how many times there are references to God’s choosing or to us as “the elect”.
Coincidentally, this piece came up in my reading yesterday:
And yet, even in having said all that, there is still a little room in my thinking to wonder if, as I said above, there is some kind of mixture of the two views that we cannot fathom.
“Video has been released showing former New York Gov. David Paterson, who is blind, being beaten with his stepson in Manhattan:”
—–
“Five black and Latino suspects are wanted over the street beating of former New York Gov. David Paterson and his stepson in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Two black youths have been arrested. Paterson was New York’s first black governor in 2008. Read:”
Wow! Thanks, Cheryl for sharing your experience. I can understand how you feel based on your experience and your reading. I never had any such encounters regarding free will or the type church you were in.
I was in a mainline Presby with mo talk of a personal relationship with Jesus. I said I was a Christian but did not have a clue.
I only encountered free will through my Bible reading and the appeal of Jesus to my heart. I chose to accept Him into my heart. I had to choose to accept Him or reject Him. I chose Him, but He of course, chose me first. The sovereignty and predestination came into play long before I was physically born. He knew my heart and what I would choose from His point of view. But I did not know I would ever choose Him. No one saved me through any method other than through the original source. He alone gets the credit. No better appeal than His.
Thanks Cheryl, Kizzie and Debra for chiming in — Free will / God’s sovereignty, these are just not easy issues to grasp but are important to probe. Good discussion and points brought out.
There are SO many butterflies in my yard (front and back) right now, I have flowering bushes that attract them and it’s delightful to see them all flitting about.
Kizzie, @10:30, yes, I believe we all pray about these matters and that is always the right thing to do. Especially in these political matters, I think it’s very possible/even likely (obviously) for believers to arrive at different conclusions. We shouldn’t be judging one another.
It’s mixing “politics” with the faith in a very rigid and inappropriate, even dangerous, way. I don’t have a direct line to God who says “Vote for X/Y/Z.” We make the best choices we can, informed always by Scripture. None of it’s perfect.
How is standing against abortion, gender mutilation of children, homosexual rights… mixing faith and “politics”? Those are not political issues. They are moral issues yet some say it’s political….😢
Did anyone even see my post (10:20) and how I view free will? I thought someone would at least say if I have a wrong understanding of it. I knew nothing of these more worldly and theological versions and experiences. I guess I just have a childlike view of it. It’s not about salesmanship or lording it over God from my point of view.
We are called to have a childlike faith Janice. Luke 18:17. ❣️
There are so many who feel they have all the answers to somehow show their intelligence and how much they know. But there are indeed mysteries that are not revealed to us…we accept them by faith. No one has all the answers but Him. He looks upon the heart and He says His sheep know His voice and He knows us! We rest in the knowing.
It might be a good time to go through just one of the elements of Reformed faith, TULIP. By the way, “presbyterian” only refers to a form of church government. The NAPARC presbyterian churches (PCA, OPC, RPCNA, and a few others) have very little in common with the PC(USA) churches and shouldn’t be considered in the same discussion. We have more in common with faithful Baptist churches than with them.
T: total depravity, which doesn’t mean we’re as bad as it’s possible to be, but that we are totally unable to save ourselves
U: unmerited favor, which all of us more or less agree with (some people do talk as though they were smart enough or humble enough to choose Jesus, but most of us don’t think we really “add” anything to our salvation, though in one sense the belief that we are Christians because we chose Christ does do so; we are seeing our faith as somehow a merit)
L: limited atonement, that Christ died only for the elect, which is a controversial point, but logically necessary. The alternative is either that Christ died for everyone, and therefore everyone is saved. Or that Christ died for everyone, but He still chooses to damn some–why? I have heard it explained that Christ died for everyone but we still have to choose to accept it. But if someone pays off your mortgage, it has been paid off and you no longer owe it. And if Christ died for all of us, but applies that salvation only to those who “accept” Him, in effect Christ died for every sin but one: the choice not to accept Him. All other sins you commit have been atoned, just not that one.
I: irrestible grace, that all whom God calls to Himself will come to Him. The Bible has many, many places where this is taught, and I’ll look at some of those in a separate post (my hubby is inviting me to go for a walk, and this will be long enough anyway).
P: perseverance of the saints, the only one of these that Arminian-lite Baptists and Baptistic folk tend to agree with, only under the name “eternal security.” That those who have been saved by Christ are fully saved and cannot lose their salvation–that it didn’t come by our merit and cannot be lost by our demerit (but those who wander away and reject Christ were never truly saved).
All right, now for a little bit of the biblical argument. First off, some background. My husband and I were raised in pretty much the same kind of churches; neither of us came from a Reformed background. Like many others, we were convinced by seeing that what we were taught growing up is at odds with Scripture. And it isn’t that we want to be seen as more intelligent or whatever, but that we want our understanding to be based on Scripture, not on how we feel or what we were taught growing up. We can never know all there is to know about God, nor can we ever be completely accurate, but there is nothing more important to study. It isn’t arrogant to seek to know more about poetry or biology, nor is it arrogant to seek to know more about God.
My husband was married to his first wife, not long in fact before she was diagnosed with cancer, and he wasn’t attending a very good church (more a social one). The Sunday school was going to be studying a book, and he started looking through the book and determined it wasn’t very biblical. Then he realized he wasn’t really well versed in Scripture himself, and decided to study it more deeply. He had somewhere heard the suggestion to go through a single book of the Bible, read it all the way through in one sitting, and read the same book several times. He decided to start with the book of Romans. I think he read it six times in a sitting each. After a few readings, he began to realize, “That isn’t what has been taught in any church I’ve attended,” so he started looking online to see “Who actually believes this?” and he found the Reformed faith. He had just started catechizing the girls when their mother was diagnosed with cancer. She died a year later, and all of them feel that God was preparing them for her death by getting them to a more biblical understanding than their church had. (My husband preached his one and only sermon, his wife’s funeral.)
Years later he was talking to his parents, and his dad left the room. After a while, his father came back into the room and admitted, “I went looking in Scripture for ‘free will’ to show you from Scripture, and I couldn’t find it. It isn’t in there!”
I have not read past the TULIP post but wondered how it goes along with the “unpardonable sin” in regards to limited atonement.
I found a Gospel Coalition article about that sin which gives four views. Basically I understand that the sin is the rejection of the Holy Spirit’s teaching or leading one to know Christ and His salvation.
We receive the gift of faith from God so no one can boast. But do people accept or reject that gift? It seems many might receive the basic gift and put it on the shelf never to use it or develop it. Others might say, “I want none of that.”
I am not trying to change any minds that are made up, but I do appreciate that Kizzie is open to one not canceling out the other though she said she leans one way.
My father grew up Hard Shell Baptist and I think they did not get involved with missions because of strong opinions about predestination. I have not researched that, but it is the impression I got.
I actually got involved in the PCA through a Mother’s Morning Out program at the P(USA) in our neighborhood. The PCA moms had their children in the program and I worked unknowingly with the PCA pastor’s wife on a shift with the children. In talking, I said we were looking for a church. She invited me to her church but never said she was the pastor’s wife. What a surprise when we visited! We considered attending but Art could not commit to their very heavy time requirements for groups one had to be involved with.
Janice, I don’t really understand the unpardonable sin. Ultimately it is rejecting Christ. God gives us the faith to believe; faith is also His gift (we are saved by grace through faith, not by faith). And now for a bunch of passages from Scripture (all ESV, with a brief note at the beginning of each one of how I think it relates to the topic). I’ve chosen fairly long passages at times in order to be sure to give enough context.
Ephesians 1:3-14 (we were chosen before the foundation of the world)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
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Ephesians 2:1-10 (before God saves us, we are dead, not just spiritually asleep, but dead)
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
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John 17:6-10, 20-24, Jesus praying for His people (and only His people, those the Father has given to Him)
“I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. . . .
“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”
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John 10:1-18 (He calls by name His own sheep, not all the sheep)
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”
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Romans 5:9-11 (we were enemies of God; we were reconciled while still enemies, not because we reached out and chose God)
Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
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Matthew 13:10-17 (purpose of the parables: to limit understanding of those who are not elect, but also to teach the elect)
Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says:
“‘“You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive.” For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.’
But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. For truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.
*****************
Romans 9:10-27 (election is not injustice, but God’s prerogative)
And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? As indeed he says in Hosea,
“Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’” “And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”
And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved, for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.”
Not raised in a believing home, started acknowledging God’s call from VBS in a Baptist church, attended a Methodist and then Presbyterian but did not learn much the first years. Read a lot of free books from Jim Wilson’s bookstore. Started as free will, of course, but reading through the Bible, especially Ephesians turned me around. I don’t know if there is a balance but God knows and I am confident He will not lose any.
But I do believe He wants us involved in doing the works He has given us to do. He chooses to use us for His purposes.
My eyes can’t read that much at one sitting, Cheryl, but thanks for posting.
Funny that I was brought up from POV of predestination only but opened to realizing there was something more that applied to me based on my reading and understanding of Scripture. Maybe there is simply a growing out of what one was brought up in. Not saying I am special in any way other than God made each of us special in how He reaches out to us individually to bring us to faith. I don’t have time or energy to find an overwhelming number of Scriptures to support free will but I still believe there is more to it than simple predestination. I am not inclined to argue about it. I don’t think it is the make or break deal about salvation. It might be something that is required to believe for membership in certain churches.
Janice @12:26 — our denomination actually started over a disagreement on missions: whether preaching the gospel should come first, or providing material aid should be the priority.
The mainline Presbyterian church was siding with providing aid; so our Presbyterian denomination was started (this was in the 1920s) out of that with the conviction that preaching the gospel needed to be paramount.
We don’t believe one doesn’t preach and share the gospel, far from it. Our church is very active on that front — a couple of our outreach-oriented members head out to the pier each week to “cold call” folks out there with discussions.
It is through the preaching of the word that we come to faith, the Scripture teaches. But that is not inconsistent with God’s sovereignty in election; preaching and sharing the gospel is the most common means used by God (though not the only ones) to reach those called by God in eternity past.
Cheryl, I was out for the morning but will go back to read your more recent post. Thanks for your participation.
And no, we don’t require new members to accept “predestination” – our questions new members are asked to affirm are ones that Christians everywhere should be able to say “yes” to:
1) Do you believe the Bible, consisting of the Old and New Testaments, to be the Word of God, and its doctrine of salvation to be the perfect and only true doctrine of salvation?
2) Do you believe in one living and true God, in whom eternally there are three distinct persons—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—who are the same in being and equal in power and glory, and that Jesus Christ is God the Son, come in the flesh?
3) Do you confess that because of your sinfulness you abhor and humble yourself before God, that you repent of your sin, and that you trust for salvation not in yourself but in Jesus Christ alone?
4) Do you acknowledge Jesus Christ as your sovereign Lord, and do you promise that, in reliance on the grace of God, you will serve him with all that is in you, forsake the world, resist the devil, put to death your sinful deeds and desires, and lead a godly life?
We subscribe to the Westminster standards and the understanding of God’s sovereignty in faith, as taught through the scriptures; but we also recognize that the understanding of these things (and all of scripture) is certainly a process in this life.
Janice I once would listen to RC Sproul every afternoon on tv. He was a good teacher and taught with understanding and humility. I respected him very much. Here is a link to a teaching of being chosen by God.
And churches are all different. A rpcna church we attended for 2 years as adherents turned cold once we completed the member class. We were told yes there are people created to go to hell. I disagreed and said if God could save me He can save anyone. After we spoke with two elders about our not agreeing people stopped talking to us….we left. It was a sad time for us as we had forged relationships there.
NJ, what an awful experience, I’m sorry. Not a good example to set for any church.
We’re extremely warm, I’d say 🙂 — not everyone who joins understands or agrees with issues like infant baptism, but that’s OK.
When it started, our church (back long before I transferred in from another OPC church) was independent, more along the lines of Baptist theology, a loose plant of the Hope Chapel movement popular in the beach cities at the time.
At some point, challenged by some members about what we believed and how that connected with sound church history, the elders began studying the Westminster standards and the other documents, doctrines and the history of the Protestant Reformation – and in time the church went through the process to join with the OPC denomination.
I think many of us have had the experience of saying, “Where has this teaching been all my (Christian) life?” Sproul via Ligonier is an excellent teacher and there are many others.
Wandering Views 
“So much lefty writing amounts to “I admit I’ve lost control of my emotions but please take me seriously anyway””
“
https://x.com/rkylesmith/status/1844710392351621197?t=XoOjCfgHSsI3zphQo-MJyg&s=19
Stop laughing! The struggle is real for these poor things.
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Interesting article in The Federalist which highlights the problems associated with conducting our ‘forever wars’. Forever wars are forever producing refugees from those wars.
https://thefederalist.com/2024/10/11/neocons-imported-the-afghan-man-who-plotted-an-election-day-terror-attack/
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Priorities? The message disseminated here by Obama is how dare you not vote for a black “sista”!!! Look past her bad politics/morals/trajectory for this nation.
Former President Barack Obama on Thursday chastised black men who have not been all-out in their support of Vice President Kamala Harris, claiming it is sexism that is keeping many of them from supporting the Democratic presidential nominee.
Obama shared his feelings with a small group of voters during a surprise stop at a local Harris campaign office in Pittsburgh.
He said the lack of energy around Harris’s campaign “seems to be more pronounced with the brothers.”
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This is what election interference looks like. Why hide that they’re running?
https://x.com/loganwashburn76/status/1844755750100365521?t=Gy5ncpudfGnAetQI4I-AOw&s=19
“Oregon does not list @realDonaldTrump or @JDVance as candidates for president on the secretary of state’s website.
They are also absent from county voter pamphlets, though they still appear on the official candidate list.”
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I remember back when people were actually defending the company, and saying the workers weren’t being exploited because they worked for less. Remember they got these jobs because the company closed up facilities with legal workers. So why is anyone shocked?
And your govt subsidizes this garbage of taking jobs from US workers and giving it to in many cases, illegal migrants.
https://x.com/Cernovich/status/1844768038895096268?t=efIFy7p92TE_rQ8KF8cx4w&s=19
“It’s slave labor. Companies like Tyson don’t pay fair market wages. They rely on government welfare to make up the gap.
Tyson executives need to be sent to prison.”
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https://x.com/KamalaHarris/status/1114567522240671744?t=YlOD1HGppdThKlRMbaouBw&s=19
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Push, push, push that race card . . . doubling down a bit late as she and the administration favored immigrants over her base for higher paid jobs. She and admin took the base for granted. It’s sad that someone who is suppose to be smart enough to be President has alienated so many.
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Yesterday I asked, “Dj, do you feel that free will is not evident to you in reading Scripture?”
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Kizzie, just wondering about when you spoke of praying to God and getting an answer about how to vote, I think it must be an impression on your heart based upon and aligned with Scripture that you receive in answer? I am still seeking to understand differences.
I expressed previously how I feel led by God’s love for children, the least among us, and what would be best for their future in this nation. Since the current Dem running is now saying she basically remains the same and would not change what has been done while VP despite ads stating otherwise at times, I can’t fathom a continuation of letting so many criminals enter our nation and enticing them to do so with freebies. So many children are missing already. How many criminals have commited atrocities unchecked with the missing children? I have heard of no plans on her part to fix that crisis. These are the world’s children. God’s word says Jesus loves the little children. That alone, simple as it may be, drives me.
I feel there is something driving you, and I seek understanding. God calls to you to do a different thing. So how is His word and Jesus’ example directing you to a diametrically opposed position? I am not asking in anger or sarcasm, but only in thinking that you must have a more important priority driving you.
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Janice @12:36, good and legitimate question but one that requires much more time and thoughtfulness than I can give on a work day. I’m also somewhat enjoying a fast from this particular thread, to be honest.
The tenor and emotion here has become a bit too contentious of late, so if I’ve contributed to that — my absence will be a good thing. 🙂
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(Besides, I think mumsee is calling us all inside. We don’t appear to be playing well together?) 🙂
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:–) Fiddle faddle. We play just fine together. None of us like it when we don’t get our own way. That’s life. Suck it up, buttercup. We all have to. Or better yet, use the discomfort to infuse your prayers with fervency. I’ve found that’s when prayer most effectively changes ME.
As for free will and predestination, those are both concepts that pepper the Scripture. We’ll just have to hold loosely to what we do not and cannot fully understand and trust the Lord to make up the difference. The problems seem to only compound themselves when we begin to be dogmatic about things we don’t/can’t fully understand. It might be fruitful to have a discussion about those things at some point. Election season is probably not the best time.
About the election—I do empathize with those who don’t feel like they can vote this season. And even for some who will vote for Democrats. I believe God does lead people differently. What I truly despise are those in leadership who have used the issue of abortion to whip the evangelical vote and NOW are voting for Democrats. The David Frenches and Cheneys of politics are beyond the pale in my mind.
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Janice – Yes, the “answer” is definitely an impression in my heart/conscience.
In saying that, though, I want to be clear that I am not saying that how I believe God is working in my conscience has to be the very same way for others. For example, a person may feel convicted by the Holy Spirit to stop watching TV because they have become addicted to it. But that person cannot then tell other Christians that they, too, have to give up watching TV. (I know that doesn’t sound related, but the main idea behind it – that God leads different people in different ways – does seem to be related.)
A personal example is that Hubby gave up drinking because he had become an alcoholic. (Praise God that He delivered Hubby from the desire to drink shortly after he gave it up.) Out of respect and care for my husband, I knew that drinking alcohol was wrong for me, too, at that time.
Sometime after his death, Nightingale served wine or some other alcoholic drink, and I “felt a release, ” as some might put it, to imbibe. Since then, I have felt free to occasionally enjoy a margarita or some other kind of drink. (As for wine, apparently, I am some kind of Cretan for only liking the sweeter wines. 😀 )
I would not say that the way God is leading me is “diametrically opposed” to how God is leading you. If I were to say that I thought He was leading me to vote for Harris, then that phrase would fit. But, to be clear, I am not being led to vote for Harris, but merely to not vote for the presidential ticket.
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ps I plan to vote for Trump and my Republican senator who is up for re-election. I will NOT be voting for my Republican representative because he is too much a war monger for me to swallow this time around. He will probably win anyway, but if my vote were the deciding vote, he still wouldn’t get it. If I thought there was a peace-loving, life affirming Democrat on the ballot who was not perverted in some way or another I would consider voting for that person. Unfortunately every year it becomes harder and harder to find a Democrat of that description. Actually, it’s not as easy as we’d like to think to find a Republican of that description either, imo. So there we are. Play nice, kids. :–)
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Thanks, Dj, and Kizzie. I hope you take my questions in the manner in which I think I am asking. It is out of respect and knowing y’all have been Christians longer than I have been.
I am wondering if I am missing something that is guiding y’all from Scripture. Trying to distinguish if your individual choices are based on Scripture or more based on feelings?
At my church the guidance is to vote Biblical values but it is not expounded upon except with issues of abortion and marriage. Never is it mentioned about party platforms. The expectation is people are smart enough to figure it out for themselves.
I definitely understand that God leads different people in different ways, even the closest of people.
I am listening to the news.They said 25 countries have compulsory voting. I had no idea.
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Janice – I know that this will not be a satisfactory answer, but I will say that I believe that the leading of the Holy Spirit backs up what I see in scripture in a general sense, with at least a couple specifics. My experience here tells me that if I get any more specific, it would not end well. 🙂
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Janice it is upon biblical truth we should be thinking upon while casting our vote I agree. Somehow that gets lost on some as I attempt to explain it is not politics for me. May we continue to walk the path He has set before us and trust Him through it all.
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Okay, Kizzie. I am thinking perhaps you are getting at a more liberal type of reading the Bible than a literal reading of it? That is where my liberal friends differ from me. If that is what you are getting at then I understand better as to your choice. Otherwise, I am clueless. But thanks for trying to explain something while walking on eggshells on this thread.
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My eighteen year old son is in the process of getting his new library card. We got one when he was four but because he refuses to use his real name, the librarian could find no evidence of him having one. Anyway, though it is a small library in a small community, they require him to bring photo ID and a piece of mail. “Hi, Tony, good to see you! How are your folks? Your sister? Your grandfather? Still have raccoons getting your chickens? I was out your way the other day and saw your neighbor moving his cows. So, you want a library card? Let me see your photo ID so I know who you are, and a piece of mail so I can confirm your address.”
I am fine with that. Why isn’t voting at least as important?
mumsee
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Hey, Janice, the news thread isn’t where I usually look for theological questions, but I saw yours above and looked back at yesterday’s.
Just a note, that while someone spoke of those on the God’s sovereignty side of the equation as being haughty, in your own words, “Eventually after reading the Bible I had more understanding.” That sounds like you have a “better,” superior, more biblical answer, right? All of us do tend to think our own perspective is the correct one. Also, “their actions are more of a deciding factor in how God acts or accepting that inaction is okay because God is gonna do what He’s gonna do”–that isn’t the viewpoint of anyone I’ve ever met, and I’ve met a large number of (conservative) Presbyterians, including fellow members of three churches.
Two of those three churches (all but the one with only about 20-25 adult members) have had the most active “volunteer” force I’ve ever seen, people volunteering with the homeless or inner-city children, people taking a second job on the college campus to be a witness there, etc. This is a strawman argument. We do believe that God is sovereign (biblical) but that He uses His people (also biblical).
A bit about how I came to that biblical understanding in a separate post, later. For now, it’s 79 and sunny and I want to go find some butterflies and wasps, if I can!
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Cheryl – I can understand why you would want to find butterflies, but wasps, too?!
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Janice – No, I assure you that I do not take a theologically liberal view of the Bible. It is God’s Word.
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Yeah, Kizzie, wasps too. Once I started photographing them, I found them fascinating. They come in a lot of different colors and sizes, and they also do a lot of interesting things, so they’re a good photographic subject. And while photographing a nest of bald-faced hornets may be risky, taking photos of wasps on flowers isn’t a risky thing to do (I was a bit nervous at first, but I’ve shoved my camera into the face of a lot of wasps at this point, and though I’ve been “buzzed” by a couple of them in one species, generally the worst they do is get annoyed and leave.
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Cheryl, interesting how you took it, that I had a better understanding, lol. I just meant a better understanding than I had before, not comparing myself to anyone but to myself.
I personally know a PCA missionary and know how wonderful and active they are. No need to defend the PCA. I think very highly of the ones I know. One of the nearby churches is very active in the Prison ministry I support. We attended a PCA for a time and our son has been a member of more than one as he has moved around. Sorry if I somehow stepped on your toes with my comment. If I did not attend a Southern Baptist, I might attend a PCA, if they’d have me, lol. My Word Weavers group meets at a PCA church.
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Oh, I definitely believe in the sovereignty of God, without a doubt. But I believe in free will, too.
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OK, the free will / predestination question is a big topic. I grew up in more or less Arminian churches that basically taught an aggressive appeal (“please believe in Jesus! do it tonight or you might die on the way home and go to hell”) with multiple verses of a hymn as background.
I have a brother who is a traveling evangelist, and he told me about one meeting where he knew there were a number of unbelievers present, and only one person responded. He turned to the pastor and begged him to give a second invitation, because he figured he must have been “saying it wrong.” This brother was known to delay going to family emergencies because if he cancelled a night of meetings, people might go to hell (and it would be his fault).
Twenty-five years ago or so I was intrigued that when I heard the name of Charles Finney, it was in two very different ways. Some spoke about him as a wonderful evangelist, and some spoke of him as a heretic. I decided to order a book he wrote and read it myself. Unknowingly, I ordered a book that was actually a compilation of his writings. I started reading, and initially didn’t see anything very exciting or controversial. (He’s actually a Pelagian and doesn’t believe in substitutionary atonement, but again at that point I knew almost nothing about him and I wasn’t Reformed.)
But then I got to a place in the book where he was telling people to claim their neighbors and friends for Christ, and he made the statement that he believed there would be “millions of souls in hell” because individuals had never “prayed the prayer of faith” for them. (I’m using quotes because I think these are exact quotes, but I am going from memory.)
I realized that’s what it actually comes down to. We either believe that people are saved because they make the choice to be saved or because God makes the choice to save them. And if we believe that individuals make their own choice, well . . . it really comes down to whether or not they ever heard an “effective” gospel presentation, saw Christians who really act like Christians, lived in a country where there are other Christians around, etc.
In a sense, we don’t really believe it is up to the unbeliever at all. We believe it is up to us to be effective salesmen. If they see us sin, or we sin against them, or we present the gospel badly, or they never hear us witness at all, then they are likely not going to be saved. They are going to go to hell, but really and truly it is actually our fault. But we won’t be punished for it, because we’re already safe. (Eternal security being the one element that doesn’t align with Arminianism in what I was taught.)
That is all a practical discussion, not a theological/biblical one, but it was what convinced me that it wasn’t really that some of us (graciously) believe that individuals have a free choice and others believe (ungraciously) that God is willy-nilly choosing to save some people and not save others. Basically the free-will argument has been treated as the “kinder” option. And there’s also the unstated assumption that people don’t actually deserve hell, or at least that they “deserve” to be told there is another option, and so of course we get a little squeamish when we think about those people who have never heard the gospel at all, or who have heard an inaccurate version of it, or have only heard about Christianity from people who turn out to be adulterers or guilty of other heinous sins. That seems “unjust” somehow, because deep down we believe that everyone deserves to hear a carefully presented, accurate gospel message.
And we have to come to grips with the fact that only a tiny, tiny percentage of human beings have a “fair” chance of salvation if that is what is required to make it fair.
I’ll leave the discussion of the biblical argument for another day, but I’ll leave it at that for now.
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And Janice, I know you were saying you had a “better” understanding than previously. But you still are saying your current understanding is more accurate, more biblical than the one you used to hold. That’s all I’m saying, that believing our own position to be the accurate one doesn’t necessarily make us proud or haughty. All of us (I think) are trying to be more biblical in our understanding. Presby folks sometimes get accused of being arrogant in our understanding, and obviously pride is something that can accost any of us. I think that often Presby folk talk about theology more, and read about it more, and can be more passionate about it. But that isn’t automatically arrogance and pride–though of course it can become that.
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Cheryl, well said at 8:37.
As to the discussion on choose or chosen: somebody on here told me an excellent coverage on how those two fit nicely together when I was discussing with a grandson, but I just downsized notes in my Bible and it seems hers was one that went. I had meant to keep it. So I hope she will speak up again so I can write it down again. But I leave it to her to be named.
mumsee
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The doctrine I had initially been taught was the one that is referred to as Arminian, but it was not like the stereotype of Arminian theology that some Reformed folks seem to think it is. (At least, not as I was taught. Not to say that other churches might teach it closer to the stereotype.)
I first encountered Reformed/Calvinist theology on the World Mag Blog, and it really surprised me, and bothered me a bit, too, initially.
Sometime in those early days of the WMB, I was in a discussion with a couple of Reformed men who were trying to explain it to me. Since I was still not at the place to fully grasp it, one of the men said that it was pointless to keep responding to me because I was “unteachable”. Well, that’s not the way to win someone over to your theology!
What was ironic (and wrong) about his comment was that not long before that, my then-pastor’s wife had told me that she found me to be very teachable, and appreciated that about me.
Through the years of reading more on Reformed theology, and of course, reading the Bible, my personal view changed gradually. One thing that stood out to me as I read the Bible was how many times there are references to God’s choosing or to us as “the elect”.
Coincidentally, this piece came up in my reading yesterday:
https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/does-free-will-exist
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And yet, even in having said all that, there is still a little room in my thinking to wonder if, as I said above, there is some kind of mixture of the two views that we cannot fathom.
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I found a transcript of an interview with John Piper on the topic of free will.
https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/does-free-will-exist
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It’s weird how people often feel “led” to do or not do what they had already decided to do anyway.
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And they’ll be released with no bail, and they won’t go to prison either, even if convicted.
https://x.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1844129737968635920?t=uUVwiMmwG29Xl4gt96EMHQ&s=19
“Video has been released showing former New York Gov. David Paterson, who is blind, being beaten with his stepson in Manhattan:”
—–
“Five black and Latino suspects are wanted over the street beating of former New York Gov. David Paterson and his stepson in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Two black youths have been arrested. Paterson was New York’s first black governor in 2008. Read:”
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“Funniest trailer l’ve seen in 2024😂
@TheBabylonBee Bee made a mockumentary called “January 6th – The Most Deadliest Day” and it’s comedy GOLD
Kamala does not want people seeing this right before the election
Ruins the J6 narrative!”
https://x.com/DC_Draino/status/1844891735018573869?t=z9OLGJC7R9uU2xXHYDrfeA&s=19
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Good Piper article Debra…thanks for sharing it with us.
Christ died…for us all. Whosoever believes upon Him….shall be saved
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Wow! Thanks, Cheryl for sharing your experience. I can understand how you feel based on your experience and your reading. I never had any such encounters regarding free will or the type church you were in.
I was in a mainline Presby with mo talk of a personal relationship with Jesus. I said I was a Christian but did not have a clue.
I only encountered free will through my Bible reading and the appeal of Jesus to my heart. I chose to accept Him into my heart. I had to choose to accept Him or reject Him. I chose Him, but He of course, chose me first. The sovereignty and predestination came into play long before I was physically born. He knew my heart and what I would choose from His point of view. But I did not know I would ever choose Him. No one saved me through any method other than through the original source. He alone gets the credit. No better appeal than His.
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Debra – I shared that same article just three minutes before you did. It must not have shown up for you yet when you shared it. 🙂
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Re: 9:31 – We were having a nice, reasonable discussion here, and then that uncharitable (and wrong, by the way) comment had to be made.
When I said that I considered and prayed about voting for Trump, I was very serious, and open to having my mind changed.
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Thanks Cheryl, Kizzie and Debra for chiming in — Free will / God’s sovereignty, these are just not easy issues to grasp but are important to probe. Good discussion and points brought out.
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There are SO many butterflies in my yard (front and back) right now, I have flowering bushes that attract them and it’s delightful to see them all flitting about.
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Kizzie, @10:30, yes, I believe we all pray about these matters and that is always the right thing to do. Especially in these political matters, I think it’s very possible/even likely (obviously) for believers to arrive at different conclusions. We shouldn’t be judging one another.
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It’s mixing “politics” with the faith in a very rigid and inappropriate, even dangerous, way. I don’t have a direct line to God who says “Vote for X/Y/Z.” We make the best choices we can, informed always by Scripture. None of it’s perfect.
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How is standing against abortion, gender mutilation of children, homosexual rights… mixing faith and “politics”? Those are not political issues. They are moral issues yet some say it’s political….😢
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Did anyone even see my post (10:20) and how I view free will? I thought someone would at least say if I have a wrong understanding of it. I knew nothing of these more worldly and theological versions and experiences. I guess I just have a childlike view of it. It’s not about salesmanship or lording it over God from my point of view.
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I did but I just got here and am off to bed.
mumsee
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Perhaps God simply enjoys feeling chosen by us? He gave us free will so we could choose Him and in so doing we bring Him pleasure?
Think how much we enjoy feeling chosen ourselves. We are made in His image. So perhaps that is one thing we have in common with Him? Being Chosen.
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We are called to have a childlike faith Janice. Luke 18:17. ❣️
There are so many who feel they have all the answers to somehow show their intelligence and how much they know. But there are indeed mysteries that are not revealed to us…we accept them by faith.
No one has all the answers but Him. He looks upon the heart and He says His sheep know His voice and He knows us! We rest in the knowing.
Deuteronomy 29:29
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Getting back to this . . .
It might be a good time to go through just one of the elements of Reformed faith, TULIP. By the way, “presbyterian” only refers to a form of church government. The NAPARC presbyterian churches (PCA, OPC, RPCNA, and a few others) have very little in common with the PC(USA) churches and shouldn’t be considered in the same discussion. We have more in common with faithful Baptist churches than with them.
T: total depravity, which doesn’t mean we’re as bad as it’s possible to be, but that we are totally unable to save ourselves
U: unmerited favor, which all of us more or less agree with (some people do talk as though they were smart enough or humble enough to choose Jesus, but most of us don’t think we really “add” anything to our salvation, though in one sense the belief that we are Christians because we chose Christ does do so; we are seeing our faith as somehow a merit)
L: limited atonement, that Christ died only for the elect, which is a controversial point, but logically necessary. The alternative is either that Christ died for everyone, and therefore everyone is saved. Or that Christ died for everyone, but He still chooses to damn some–why? I have heard it explained that Christ died for everyone but we still have to choose to accept it. But if someone pays off your mortgage, it has been paid off and you no longer owe it. And if Christ died for all of us, but applies that salvation only to those who “accept” Him, in effect Christ died for every sin but one: the choice not to accept Him. All other sins you commit have been atoned, just not that one.
I: irrestible grace, that all whom God calls to Himself will come to Him. The Bible has many, many places where this is taught, and I’ll look at some of those in a separate post (my hubby is inviting me to go for a walk, and this will be long enough anyway).
P: perseverance of the saints, the only one of these that Arminian-lite Baptists and Baptistic folk tend to agree with, only under the name “eternal security.” That those who have been saved by Christ are fully saved and cannot lose their salvation–that it didn’t come by our merit and cannot be lost by our demerit (but those who wander away and reject Christ were never truly saved).
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NJ, I fully agree there are deep mysteries, things we can never get our heads around. We will know someday, but we now see through a glass darkly.
In the meantime, iron sharpens iron and these discussions, when carried out respectfully, are healthy, they should not be seen as threatening.
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Thanks, Cheryl.
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All right, now for a little bit of the biblical argument. First off, some background. My husband and I were raised in pretty much the same kind of churches; neither of us came from a Reformed background. Like many others, we were convinced by seeing that what we were taught growing up is at odds with Scripture. And it isn’t that we want to be seen as more intelligent or whatever, but that we want our understanding to be based on Scripture, not on how we feel or what we were taught growing up. We can never know all there is to know about God, nor can we ever be completely accurate, but there is nothing more important to study. It isn’t arrogant to seek to know more about poetry or biology, nor is it arrogant to seek to know more about God.
My husband was married to his first wife, not long in fact before she was diagnosed with cancer, and he wasn’t attending a very good church (more a social one). The Sunday school was going to be studying a book, and he started looking through the book and determined it wasn’t very biblical. Then he realized he wasn’t really well versed in Scripture himself, and decided to study it more deeply. He had somewhere heard the suggestion to go through a single book of the Bible, read it all the way through in one sitting, and read the same book several times. He decided to start with the book of Romans. I think he read it six times in a sitting each. After a few readings, he began to realize, “That isn’t what has been taught in any church I’ve attended,” so he started looking online to see “Who actually believes this?” and he found the Reformed faith. He had just started catechizing the girls when their mother was diagnosed with cancer. She died a year later, and all of them feel that God was preparing them for her death by getting them to a more biblical understanding than their church had. (My husband preached his one and only sermon, his wife’s funeral.)
Years later he was talking to his parents, and his dad left the room. After a while, his father came back into the room and admitted, “I went looking in Scripture for ‘free will’ to show you from Scripture, and I couldn’t find it. It isn’t in there!”
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I have not read past the TULIP post but wondered how it goes along with the “unpardonable sin” in regards to limited atonement.
I found a Gospel Coalition article about that sin which gives four views. Basically I understand that the sin is the rejection of the Holy Spirit’s teaching or leading one to know Christ and His salvation.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/the-unpardonable-sin/
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We receive the gift of faith from God so no one can boast. But do people accept or reject that gift? It seems many might receive the basic gift and put it on the shelf never to use it or develop it. Others might say, “I want none of that.”
I am not trying to change any minds that are made up, but I do appreciate that Kizzie is open to one not canceling out the other though she said she leans one way.
My father grew up Hard Shell Baptist and I think they did not get involved with missions because of strong opinions about predestination. I have not researched that, but it is the impression I got.
I actually got involved in the PCA through a Mother’s Morning Out program at the P(USA) in our neighborhood. The PCA moms had their children in the program and I worked unknowingly with the PCA pastor’s wife on a shift with the children. In talking, I said we were looking for a church. She invited me to her church but never said she was the pastor’s wife. What a surprise when we visited! We considered attending but Art could not commit to their very heavy time requirements for groups one had to be involved with.
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Janice, I don’t really understand the unpardonable sin. Ultimately it is rejecting Christ. God gives us the faith to believe; faith is also His gift (we are saved by grace through faith, not by faith). And now for a bunch of passages from Scripture (all ESV, with a brief note at the beginning of each one of how I think it relates to the topic). I’ve chosen fairly long passages at times in order to be sure to give enough context.
Ephesians 1:3-14 (we were chosen before the foundation of the world)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
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Ephesians 2:1-10 (before God saves us, we are dead, not just spiritually asleep, but dead)
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
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Romans 8:28-30 (predestined, called, justified, glorified)
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
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John 17:6-10, 20-24, Jesus praying for His people (and only His people, those the Father has given to Him)
“I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. . . .
“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”
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John 10:1-18 (He calls by name His own sheep, not all the sheep)
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”
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Romans 5:9-11 (we were enemies of God; we were reconciled while still enemies, not because we reached out and chose God)
Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
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Matthew 13:10-17 (purpose of the parables: to limit understanding of those who are not elect, but also to teach the elect)
Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says:
“‘“You will indeed hear but never understand,
and you will indeed see but never perceive.”
For this people’s heart has grown dull,
and with their ears they can barely hear,
and their eyes they have closed,
lest they should see with their eyes
and hear with their ears
and understand with their heart
and turn, and I would heal them.’
But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. For truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.
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Romans 9:10-27 (election is not injustice, but God’s prerogative)
And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? As indeed he says in Hosea,
“Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’
and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’”
“And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”
And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved, for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.”
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Well done, Cheryl.
Not raised in a believing home, started acknowledging God’s call from VBS in a Baptist church, attended a Methodist and then Presbyterian but did not learn much the first years. Read a lot of free books from Jim Wilson’s bookstore. Started as free will, of course, but reading through the Bible, especially Ephesians turned me around. I don’t know if there is a balance but God knows and I am confident He will not lose any.
But I do believe He wants us involved in doing the works He has given us to do. He chooses to use us for His purposes.
mumsee
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My eyes can’t read that much at one sitting, Cheryl, but thanks for posting.
Funny that I was brought up from POV of predestination only but opened to realizing there was something more that applied to me based on my reading and understanding of Scripture. Maybe there is simply a growing out of what one was brought up in. Not saying I am special in any way other than God made each of us special in how He reaches out to us individually to bring us to faith. I don’t have time or energy to find an overwhelming number of Scriptures to support free will but I still believe there is more to it than simple predestination. I am not inclined to argue about it. I don’t think it is the make or break deal about salvation. It might be something that is required to believe for membership in certain churches.
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Janice @12:26 — our denomination actually started over a disagreement on missions: whether preaching the gospel should come first, or providing material aid should be the priority.
The mainline Presbyterian church was siding with providing aid; so our Presbyterian denomination was started (this was in the 1920s) out of that with the conviction that preaching the gospel needed to be paramount.
We don’t believe one doesn’t preach and share the gospel, far from it. Our church is very active on that front — a couple of our outreach-oriented members head out to the pier each week to “cold call” folks out there with discussions.
It is through the preaching of the word that we come to faith, the Scripture teaches. But that is not inconsistent with God’s sovereignty in election; preaching and sharing the gospel is the most common means used by God (though not the only ones) to reach those called by God in eternity past.
Cheryl, I was out for the morning but will go back to read your more recent post. Thanks for your participation.
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And no, we don’t require new members to accept “predestination” – our questions new members are asked to affirm are ones that Christians everywhere should be able to say “yes” to:
1) Do you believe the Bible, consisting of the Old and New Testaments, to be the Word of God, and its doctrine of salvation to be the perfect and only true doctrine of salvation?
2) Do you believe in one living and true God, in whom eternally there are three distinct persons—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—who are the same in being and equal in power and glory, and that Jesus Christ is God the Son, come in the flesh?
3) Do you confess that because of your sinfulness you abhor and humble yourself before God, that you repent of your sin, and that you trust for salvation not in yourself but in Jesus Christ alone?
4) Do you acknowledge Jesus Christ as your sovereign Lord, and do you promise that, in reliance on the grace of God, you will serve him with all that is in you, forsake the world, resist the devil, put to death your sinful deeds and desires, and lead a godly life?
We subscribe to the Westminster standards and the understanding of God’s sovereignty in faith, as taught through the scriptures; but we also recognize that the understanding of these things (and all of scripture) is certainly a process in this life.
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Janice I once would listen to RC Sproul every afternoon on tv. He was a good teacher and taught with understanding and humility. I respected him very much. Here is a link to a teaching of being chosen by God.
https://www.ligonier.org/learn/series/chosen-by-god/what-is-free-will
And churches are all different. A rpcna church we attended for 2 years as adherents turned cold once we completed the member class. We were told yes there are people created to go to hell. I disagreed and said if God could save me He can save anyone. After we spoke with two elders about our not agreeing people stopped talking to us….we left. It was a sad time for us as we had forged relationships there.
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NJ, what an awful experience, I’m sorry. Not a good example to set for any church.
We’re extremely warm, I’d say 🙂 — not everyone who joins understands or agrees with issues like infant baptism, but that’s OK.
When it started, our church (back long before I transferred in from another OPC church) was independent, more along the lines of Baptist theology, a loose plant of the Hope Chapel movement popular in the beach cities at the time.
At some point, challenged by some members about what we believed and how that connected with sound church history, the elders began studying the Westminster standards and the other documents, doctrines and the history of the Protestant Reformation – and in time the church went through the process to join with the OPC denomination.
I think many of us have had the experience of saying, “Where has this teaching been all my (Christian) life?” Sproul via Ligonier is an excellent teacher and there are many others.
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