Liberating you from bad ideas about God
What does Paul mean about divine election in Romans 9 when he writes about God loving Jacob and hating Esau, making what he wants from clay, and hardening Pharaohs heart? This article answers these questions from Romans 9, and also looks at what Romans 11 teaches about divine election.
The biblical teaching on election is a controversial issue in the church. But it need not be so. By carefully defining our terms and then looking at how the word election is used in context, we see that what the Bible teaches about election is not something to be debated, but celebrated.
While the Gospel of John shows that eternal life is the free gift of God to anyone who believes in Jesus for it, it also shows that the path of discipleship has numerous other conditions and requirements. The Gospel of John does a great job showing the different conditions and results between eternal life and discipleship.
It is critical to recognize that the Sermon on the Mount does not contain the offer of eternal life, because if we get confused on this fact, we will think that one gains eternal life by fulfilling the conditions and requirements Jesus talks about in this Sermon.
Did the flood of Genesis 6-8 actually happen? I believe so. I believe that Genesis 6-8 is an inspired and inerrant account of an actual event in history. Yet it does not reveal what many Christians think. It does not reveal that God is out to punish, kill, and destroy sinful human beings. When read through the lens of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, we see a completely different truth emerge through the flood account of Genesis 6-8.
Here is a truth that will help you unpack many tricky and often-misunderstood Bible passages: Though all believers have eternal life, not all believers are disciples, and not all disciples are believers. Once you understand the difference between believing in Jesus for eternal life and becoming a disciple of Jesus during this life, many tricky Bible texts will make a lot more sense.
