The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

And this is scripture and it is true, but what does it mean about God? I have heard people say that this verse means that God has no control over who goes to Heaven and who goes to Hell. If it was up to God, no one would go to Hell, they say and then are left scratching their heads at the idea of omnipotence.

Becoming a parent has helped clear these thoughts up for me. My son is almost 2½ and while he is a sweet child, he is also a son of Adam and born into sin. Because of this, there are times where I see him being tempted and while it is perfectly within my power to remove him from the temptation or the temptation from him, more often than not, and for a multitude of reasons, it pleases me to watch him struggle, it pleases me to watch him fall, and then it pleases me to spank him. And it pleases me, because by faith, I believe that God is using this process in both my and my son’s life. But at that very same time that I am so pleased, it also displeases me that Gavin has struggled and that he has failed. But consider this: there is no contradiction in my pleasure and my displeasure. Instead they sit very neatly side by side and the one complements the other. And I am just a man. How much more complex must an infinite God be?

We cheat ourselves and God of something when we think of Him so simply. To me, it is no contradiction to say that God has ordained all things for his purposes, to say that He is not willing that any should perish and then to affirm Romans 9:20-23:

Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,

What say you?

Are you still reading this? Sheesh…

Free will is the ability of a man (or woman) to choose what he will do or what he will believe, and while certain situations may limit the number of options he has at any given time (for instance, all men can not choose to be able to dunk a ball, or fly an airplane), there must always be at least two options (one of which may be the choice to do nothing at all).

It will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog that I do not agree with this definition. To those who do hold to this definition I would like to ask the following question:

From where in Scripture is this line of thinking about free will derived?

I will freely acknowledge that Scripture talks about choice, but it doesn’t define choice in such a way that each person must always have two options. When God called Abraham there was no requirement that the possibility of Abraham saying no existed, and it is not obvious from the text that God chose Abraham because God knew Abraham would obey. If anything it makes more sense to say that Abraham obeyed God because God chose him.

Any takers?

Blog Topics Covered: Reformed Theology, current events, quotes, trivia, quality essays on relevant topics, etc.

Frequency Updated: Multiple updates per week

Pros: Dislikes MarkDriscoll, extremely conservative, cynical, and did we mention he’s got a sense a humor?

Cons: Cynical, sometimes spells “rejoiced”, like this: “reioyced”, did I mention that he’s cynical?

Sample posts: Divinely Appointed Means, Food for Thought: Christian Tolerance

The heart of the idea that is being sold is that the scientist deals with the real world, with atoms and energy, with metals and chemicals, with universal laws and cold hard facts, while the Christian is left in the fanciful world of magic and fairies, of gods and miracles, of spiritual and invisible things that are only knowable through that slippery thing called faith. This idea supposes that the theologian who is studying the nature of grace is doing something fundamentally different than the astronomer who is studying the nature of the heavens.

The problem with this is that it is a lie.

The Christian is not barred from the world of the scientist, but quite the other way around. It is scientists (and here I am speaking of scientists who deny faith as an aspect of science) that are limited in the aspects of the world they can understand and address.

The Christian position is that the revealed Word of God is the basis for all that we know about the world and about God. It is because of this, that we take every thought captive and we bring it back to the Word to show us whether it is good or evil. Science is no different. It is not in a category all its own. It does not get a pass on this, but is instead subordinate to the Word of God in very way.

To suppose that a man who is trying to understand the nature of grace is doing something fundamentally different than a man who is trying to understand the natures of the heavens is absurd, for God is the central figure behind both of these pursuits and to remove him from either is to render not just grace but also the heavens, meaningless. For God is either the God of all or He is the God of nothing and His Word is either the basis for all revealed truth or it is the basis for nothing. It is because of this that we must declare both the supremacy and the excellence of God and his Word. To do anything else is to believe in another god altogether.

Blog Topics Covered: Reformed Theology, Puritan writings, the Home, book reviews, American history, church polity, etc.

Frequency Updated: Daily to weekly (Scott travels semi-frequently and sometimes a week or more will pass without an update. Such is life)

Pros: Consistent, high-quality content covering a wide variety of topics, plus, comments are disabled, giving you at least one site that is free from the pressure created by insecure bloggers who constantly beg for comments (why don’t you leave feedback?! why?!?)

Cons: Occasional periods without update. Potent, poignant Puritan posts pierce, prompting penitence. Read at your own… peril.

Feed Url: Get it here.

When people would ask me what sort of church I went to or what sort of religion I was and I would say, “Oh, I’m Reformed”, they would smile and then frown and then look puzzled and ask, “Reformed from what?!?”

Does anyone else have any interesting stories about confusion caused by your faith, or about your own confusion regarding issues of faith?