Ship of Fools: Acts 13:48

Thread: Acts 13:48 Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and praised the word of the Lord; and as many as had been destined for eternal life became believers.

My Bible study group came across this today, and we're having trouble with it. It sounds as if the people who accepted Paul's message did it because God had destined them, and not because they had acted from their own initiative. And what about those who didn't accept the message?

Any thoughts?

Moo

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

This is precisely where Lutheran theology gets most criticized. On the basis of passages like this one (there are tons of them), we believe that everyone who is saved gets that way solely through the work and will of God, so God gets all the credit and we get all the benefit. [Big Grin]

But this does NOT mean that the converse (reverse? obverse? whatever) is true. Rather, anyone who is damned gets that way not by God's doing, but by their own damned fault and choice. And again, there is support for this all over Scripture.

Logical? No. But is it what Scripture teaches? Yes.

So at this point, Lutherans say "to hell with logic" and start humming "La la la LA, I can't hear you!" to the great frustration of our Calvinist and Arminian brothers and sisters.

Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :

So does Lutheran theology say that there is any element of a person having to choose to accept God's salvation?

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

We say that the Holy Spirit creates faith within a person and brings them to Christ. So what is done, is ultimately done by God. And therefore his is the glory.

Again, this does not mean that the reverse can be assumed. Nobody can safely say, "Oh, fine, since God does everything, I'll sit on my kiester and ignore every freaking thing Jesus ever said since Year One." It's the same paradox that Paul noted in Philippians 2, when he said, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." And similarly in Ephesians 2,

quote:
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 ... 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.

Look particularly at the contrast between the bolded bit and the italicized bit. Logically the two seem to conflict. But in daily faith and practice you can really see the paradoxical truth of it. Though I'm still no nearer to a logical explanation.

ETA: This becomes an issue in preaching as well. For we do indeed blame the sinner for his (our) sins, and urge him to repent, and yet how sensible is it to say to the spiritually dead, "Rise up and walk?" And yet we get this kind of preaching all through the Scriptures. So we do it too, logic be damned.

[ 22. October 2014, 01:38: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]

Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :

It reminds me of Twelve Step spirituality. People have the disease of addiction. One needs to call on the Higher Power to detach from it, but one also has to take responsibility for the hurt done in the throes of addiction. So in sin, we have a sinful nature we can't shake on our own. We ask the Godhead to take charge of it. Yet we are the ones that are on earth that have to own it and to ask God to help us repair the damage we've done and to help us refrain from messing up in the future.

Posted by Chief of sinners (# 8794) on :

For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?

Read a Spurgeon sermon on this verse, he pointed out that if you came to faith, you may have thought you made a good choice, but who created you and gave you the kind of mind that would respond to the message? Destined for salvation by design

Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on :

'As many as had been destined for eternal life became believers.'

If it had said 'Many became believers and they are now destined for eternal life' would this be a problem?

We might attach predestination or even double-predestination to it, but I don't think that is what it's meant to convey to us.

Yes, God is instrumental in causing every single conversion, as God is extending a permanent invitation to everybody through Christ to accept the intimate eternal relationship he is ready to give us through the Holy Spirit. if not today, tomorrow, or even on our death beds. How was God served and glorified during all of those pre-conversion years?

We must consciously and willingly accept the invitation ourselves. It can't be done for us. We can't do it under duress.

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :

I really struggle with passages like this, and any that seem to imply predestination. I can't just be as Lutheran as Lamb Chopped and say "God predestines certain people to be saved but we ourselves choose to be lost, and I'm OK with that being illogical." That doesn't work for me; it's like thanking God for finding me a parking space but letting Him off the hook for Ebola (to my way of thinking anyway). If God pre-selects people to be saved, God also pre-selects people to be lost.

I do think passages like this make more sense if you view them in historical context, as writers of the time trying to make sense of what was happening around them, rather than as people writing theology for us to understand and apply centuries later. Most of the early Christians were either Jewish or familiar with Judaism, so they were already working within a framework of what we would call "predestination" -- God had foreordained and chosen, not individuals, but a specific nation to be His people and enter into a covenant with Him. Then Jesus comes along, suggesting that the covenant is bigger than just the nation of Israel, and then the Gentile converts start pouring in.

Surely some of them (including Luke who presumably authored this passage) must have asked themselves, "How did we get so lucky? Why were we included in the covenant which we'd previously thought was only for the Jews? And if God's calling Gentiles, why me and not the centurion down the road?" I sometimes think the passages that we identify as "pro-predestination" come from an early Christian sense of "Isn't God's grace amazing, to call all these new people into His covenant?!"

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
I really struggle with passages like this, and any that seem to imply predestination. I can't just be as Lutheran as Lamb Chopped and say "God predestines certain people to be saved but we ourselves choose to be lost, and I'm OK with that being illogical." That doesn't work for me; it's like thanking God for finding me a parking space but letting Him off the hook for Ebola (to my way of thinking anyway). If God pre-selects people to be saved, God also pre-selects people to be lost.

Good analogy. I am one who cannot see how not selecting someone to be saved is any different from selecting them to be lost, if selecting is required to be saved. It's like a father who gave a dollar coin to three of his five children, then blamed the other two for not having a dollar coin, when he was the only source of dollar coins, and he alone chose who to give them to.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
I really struggle with passages like this, and any that seem to imply predestination. I can't just be as Lutheran as Lamb Chopped and say "God predestines certain people to be saved but we ourselves choose to be lost, and I'm OK with that being illogical." That doesn't work for me; it's like thanking God for finding me a parking space but letting Him off the hook for Ebola (to my way of thinking anyway). If God pre-selects people to be saved, God also pre-selects people to be lost.
Good analogy. I am one who cannot see how not selecting someone to be saved is any different from selecting them to be lost, if selecting is required to be saved. It's like a father who gave a dollar coin to three of his five children, then blamed the other two for not having a dollar coin, when he was the only source of dollar coins, and he alone chose who to give them to.

Ah, but there's a number of assumptions you're making there, none of which we can be sure of in God's case. Can you be sure the other two never received a dollar coin, from the mere fact that they don't have it now? And as for blaming (=damning, I suppose), is the father (=God) the one doing this?

If you follow logic far enough, you'll also hit a chicken-or-egg argument, plus a whole mess of issues concerning God's relationship to time. Better to quit while we're behind.

I think we're in an area where we know all too little, and our logic fails us. Which is why Lutheranism refuses to speculate beyond what we see clearly written out in the Scriptures.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Lutheranism refuses to speculate beyond what we see clearly written out in the Scriptures.

With the problem of one person's "clearly written out in the Scriptures" is another's "WTF does this mean????"

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

Well, yeah, but if I'd written so precisely as to avoid that charge, my post would have died the death of a thousand qualifications.

Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :

One way I have usefully heard the apparent teaching of scriptural predestination exegeted is that taking the usual suspects,Romans 8-11, the context is national rather than individual. Rebecca was told that 2 nations struggled within her. This puts a different complexion on "Esau I have hated."
The issue becomes simply that Jacob (Israel) was chosen for God's purposes not Edom.

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
One way I have usefully heard the apparent teaching of scriptural predestination exegeted is that taking the usual suspects,Romans 8-11, the context is national rather than individual. Rebecca was told that 2 nations struggled within her. This puts a different complexion on "Esau I have hated."
The issue becomes simply that Jacob (Israel) was chosen for God's purposes not Edom.

But this passage speaks of individuals who had been chosen, and we never hear what became of them.

Moo

Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:

quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
One way I have usefully heard the apparent teaching of scriptural predestination exegeted is that taking the usual suspects,Romans 8-11, the context is national rather than individual. Rebecca was told that 2 nations struggled within her. This puts a different complexion on "Esau I have hated."
The issue becomes simply that Jacob (Israel) was chosen for God's purposes not Edom.
But this passage speaks of individuals who had been chosen, and we never hear what became of them.

Moo

Gen 25:23

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

Here is Genesis 25:23

quote:
And the Lord said to her,
‘Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples born of you shall be divided;
one shall be stronger than the other,
the elder shall serve the younger.’

My point was that we do not know what happened to the people in the Acts passage who were apparently not chosen. The Acts verse refers to individuals, not nations.

Moo

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

In the run up to Acts 13:48 Paul and Barnabas said to their Jewish critics “It was necessary to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we are turning to the Gentiles” (v.46).

This implies that rejection (something a human can do actively) of God's message is also a rejection of eternal life.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

... though since that speech was clearly meant to be provocative ("You... do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life"), we have to be cautious in just how much doctrine we pull out of it.

Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
Here is Genesis 25:23
quote:
And the Lord said to her,
‘Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples born of you shall be divided;
one shall be stronger than the other,
the elder shall serve the younger.’
My point was that we do not know what happened to the people in the Acts passage who were apparently not chosen. The Acts verse refers to individuals, not nations.

Moo

Yes, if they were not chosen,then contextually, ie in the atmosphere of Antioch where Gentiles were being first reached, then they did not choose to respond to the message of Paul and Barnabas.

To look at the issue of choice or non choice from a wider perspective, then other scripture is necessary, notably Romans chapters 9-11. We find there that where God was said to have hardened Pharoah's heart, it was only after he had already rejected God's word through Moses to let them go.
The other Calvinist chestnut is, "Esau I have hated". Well, this was in the context of nations,not individuals as noted above.

The case then is made from scripture that God elects nations in a Calvinistic sense, but not individuals whose choice determines their eternal destiny and whose fate is 'determined' by God in a negative sense, only if they have rejected his message or 'hardened ' their own heart first.
"Those he foreknew, he also predestined."Romans 8:29, Acts 2:23 (God also both foreknew and foreordained the crucifixion.)

Posted by pimple (# 10635) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
In the run up to Acts 13:48 Paul and Barnabas said to their Jewish critics “It was necessary to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we are turning to the Gentiles” (v.46).

This implies that rejection (something a human can do actively) of God's message is also a rejection of eternal life.

Oddly enough, It was the issue of eternal life that set me on the road to scepticism. And it began shortly after I was baptised (for the second time, as an adult). A religious friend sent me a card congratulating me on having attained (or some such word) eternal life. It sounded like a well-meaning, unintentional insult. Like a Scientologiost, say, being congratulated on "God's gift" of a a million dollar contract, but infinitely worse.

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

The question of God has a nasty habit of creating questions, doesn't it?!

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