Election and evangelism

[GodsGrace101]

Well, scripture actually explicitly speaks of election more than once.

Scripture does not explicitly speak of free will at all. In fact, scripture denies free will.

So if you make it a binary either/or proposition, election would have to be it.

How about some scripture please?

You say free will does not exist when in reality it is all over the Old and New Testament.

How would you explain
Philemon 1:14?
14but without your consent I did not want to do anything, so that your goodness would not be, in effect, by compulsion but of your own free will.

Paul is explicitely saying that Philemon has free will.

 

[Apologetic_Warrior]

Why "nice try"? You're the one who said that whole world does not mean the whole world. Now above you say that it DOES mean the whole world because Jews and gentiles comprise everyone. Confusing.

You yourself said that It is possible for ME to now go and find some commentator that does NOT agree with John Gill.

Am I speaking to YOU or to commentators?

Maybe YOU could explain this verse for me since you don't believe in free will:

Philemon 1:14
New American Standard Bible
but without your consent I did not want to do anything, so that your goodness would not be, in effect, by compulsion but of your own free will.

Why does Paul speak of free will if it does not exist?

As for the meaning of "world", interpret world in this passage:

Luke 2:1 "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed."


As for free will, I subscribe to the Westminster Confession (1643) which I quoted the section pertaining to free will, and in addition to ignoring that, evidently you did not take the time to look up the word "compatibilist". I can only lead you to water, I cannot make you drink, sorry.

and as for the Phil 1:14 quote, the more accurate English word is "willingly"

Strong's
ἑκούσιον
hekousion
hek-oo'-see-on
Neuter of a derivative from G1635; voluntariness:—willingly.

I understand you had to cherry pick through many English translations to find the phrase (been there done that), but I sent you down the rabbit trail despite the fact I believe in free will, not in the same way or extent that you do, but nevertheless I do not deny a limited freedom within a will.

 

[GodsGrace101]

As for the meaning of "world", interpret world in this passage:

Luke 2:1 "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed."


As for free will, I subscribe to the Westminster Confession (1643) which I quoted the section pertaining to free will, and in addition to ignoring that, evidently you did not take the time to look up the word "compatibilist". I can only lead you to water, I cannot make you drink, sorry.

and as for the Phil 1:14 quote, the more accurate English word is "willingly"

Strong's
ἑκούσιον
hekousion
hek-oo'-see-on
Neuter of a derivative from G1635; voluntariness:—willingly.

I understand you had to cherry pick through many English translations to find the phrase (been there done that), but I sent you down the rabbit trail despite the fact I believe in free will, not in the same way or extent that you do, but nevertheless I do not deny a limited freedom within a will.

Back to square one.
In some instances the word world means the world which was know at that time.

I replied to you that in John 3:16 God means ALL THE WORLD.
God loves all His creation. Jesus said John 3:16. God loves all men and desires all men to be saved and it depends on their acceptance of our Savior.
1 Timothy 2:4

I can't remember where you posted the Westminster Confession but it is not free will as understood by most Christians, only reformed Christians. It sounds nice when you read it, but it does not explain free will as being able to CHOOSE. Choice necessarily requires a free will, not forced by any outside force.

As to Philemon and the word "willing".
What's the difference? If one is WILLING, it means he can choose to do something or not to do it.

 

[GodsGrace101]

As for the meaning of "world", interpret world in this passage:

Luke 2:1 "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed."


As for free will, I subscribe to the Westminster Confession (1643) which I quoted the section pertaining to free will, and in addition to ignoring that, evidently you did not take the time to look up the word "compatibilist". I can only lead you to water, I cannot make you drink, sorry.

and as for the Phil 1:14 quote, the more accurate English word is "willingly"

Strong's
ἑκούσιον
hekousion
hek-oo'-see-on
Neuter of a derivative from G1635; voluntariness:—willingly.

I understand you had to cherry pick through many English translations to find the phrase (been there done that), but I sent you down the rabbit trail despite the fact I believe in free will, not in the same way or extent that you do, but nevertheless I do not deny a limited freedom within a will.

P.S. I don't cherry pick.
The entire bible speaks to free will.
We can go through ALL the scripture if you so wish.

Mathew 23:37
37“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.

Willingness again...it encompasses the attribute of free will.
JESUS is saying that Jerusalem was not willing to come to Him.
This means they could have CHOSEN to either come to Him or not to come to Him.

When did the human race lose their free will if Adam and Eve had it?
Genesis 2:16-17
16The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

God told Adam not to eat of the forbidden fruit, but he did, of his own free will.

We are made in the image of God...God has free will and gave us that attribute.

 

[Apologetic_Warrior]

P.S. I don't cherry pick.
The entire bible speaks to free will.
We can go through ALL the scripture if you so wish.

Mathew 23:37
37“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.

Willingness again...it encompasses the attribute of free will.
JESUS is saying that Jerusalem was not willing to come to Him.
This means they could have CHOSEN to either come to Him or not to come to Him.

When did the human race lose their free will if Adam and Eve had it?
Genesis 2:16-17
16The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

God told Adam not to eat of the forbidden fruit, but he did, of his own free will.

We are made in the image of God...God has free will and gave us that attribute.

Here we go in circles, around and around we go where we stop nobody knows!

The words choice, choose, willing, etc. do NOT speak to ability or inability of a choice, which is always governed by the nature of the will, whether it be in bondage to sin, or free in Christ. Obviously not all choices are spiritual, some are natural like supplying the body with food and drink for survival from the desires of hunger and thirst. The natural man does not desire the things of God, they are foolishness to him, the natural man is unwilling to choose Christ, the desire is not there, the natural mind is hostile to God, it seeks to hide from God, suppress the truth in unrighteousness, loves darkness, flees from the light.

The Bible is not about the free will of man, it is about God, it is about His sovereignty over His creation, and it is about His glory for His purposes. The problem with so much free will theology, is that it leads to man centered theology, sorry but it is true. Listen closely and read the words to modern "praise songs" and ask yourself if the song is not more about "me" and "I" and not really singing praise to God at all. This is the overflow of man centered theology, the application of it. The next time you pray, think about whether the prayer is more about your will or the will of God.

 

[RDKirk]

How about some scripture please?

You say free will does not exist when in reality it is all over the Old and New Testament.

How would you explain
Philemon 1:14?
14but without your consent I did not want to do anything, so that your goodness would not be, in effect, by compulsion but of your own free will.

Paul is explicitely saying that Philemon has free will.

Umm, no. "Explicit" would be a quote saying, explicitly, "free will" or at the very least explicitly saying "Philemon can do whatever he wants to do."

But Paul did not say that. Paul said that Philemon had a moral duty to act in a certain way. He did not say Philemon was free to do as he wished--"free to do as you wish" meaning there are no constraints or consequences to one's choice.

If there are moral constraints or consequences--if there is a cost--then it's not "free."

What Paul did say explicitly is this:

But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
....
The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so

Paul does not describe us as free at any point in time, but always as slaves, either to sin or to righteousness.

A slave does not have free will (that had been a philosophical point long before Paul's time, the question being --and Paul answered this for Christian slaves--whether the acts of obedience performed by a slave, toward good or evil, accrued to his morality or that of his master) and the slave to sin cannot choose to be righteous. He has no ability to make that choice.

What a Christian has is a single choice, whether to be a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness, and that choice only by the grace of God. A single choice of who will be one's master is not "free will." It is "bound will."

 

[GodsGrace101]

Here we go in circles, around and around we go where we stop nobody knows!

The words choice, choose, willing, etc. do NOT speak to ability or inability of a choice, which is always governed by the nature of the will, whether it be in bondage to sin, or free in Christ. Obviously not all choices are spiritual, some are natural like supplying the body with food and drink for survival from the desires of hunger and thirst. The natural man does not desire the things of God, they are foolishness to him, the natural man is unwilling to choose Christ, the desire is not there, the natural mind is hostile to God, it seeks to hide from God, suppress the truth in unrighteousness, loves darkness, flees from the light.

The Bible is not about the free will of man, it is about God, it is about His sovereignty over His creation, and it is about His glory for His purposes. The problem with so much free will theology, is that it leads to man centered theology, sorry but it is true. Listen closely and read the words to modern "praise songs" and ask yourself if the song is not more about "me" and "I" and not really singing praise to God at all. This is the overflow of man centered theology, the application of it. The next time you pray, think about whether the prayer is more about your will or the will of God.

How can you say that CHOICE has nothing to do with free will?

choice
tʃɔɪs/
noun

1. 1.
   an act of choosing between two or more possibilities.
   "the choice between good and evil"
   sinonimi: option, alternative, possibility, possible course of action;

It absolutely has to do with the ABILITY to choose either good or evil. If the N.T. exhorts us to choose good, it means we have a choice, if we have a choice we have free will -- the freedom of the will to choose either of two options.

We are free in Christ and if He has made us FREE, we are free indeed!
John 8:36
36“So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

In verse 34 Jesus is saying that if we do not belong to Him we are slaves to satan in the sense that we will always tend to lean toward our sin nature. Once we have become born again, we will tend to lean toward our spiritual nature. But WE CAN STILL SIN. This is because we can CHOOSE to sin or not to sin although the Holy Spirit will always be with us to help us.

In Acts 10:34-35 Peter tells his listeners that God is NOT one to show partiality (He loves ALL persons)and that in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcomed to Him. It is the man's free will choice to fear (respect) God and to act accordingly and God will welcome Him. In that order.
Romans 10:9-10
9that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

This is the correct order of salvation:
one believes with the heart
the result is righteousness (being right with God)

The bible is about God and what He has revealed to us about Himself. What has He revealed?

God made us in His image:
He is a creator, we can create.
He is love, we love.
He is a social being, so are we.
He has a family (the Trinity), we also desire a family.
He is a spirit being, so are we.
He is truly totally free, we are also free in the moral sense.
(we are not free to be able to fly, God is)

To deny that we have free will is to deny that God made us in His image.
Genesis 1:27

If we have free will, the following cannot be true:
Total Depravity -- we are free to raise ourselves up
Unconditional Election -- we are free to choose to be saved
Irresistible Grace -- we are free to deny God if we so choose
Preservation of the saints, or OSAS as is known today -- we are free to abandon God if we so choose.

This is why free will is so important to understand.

 

[GodsGrace101]

Umm, no. "Explicit" would be a quote saying, explicitly, "free will" or at the very least explicitly saying "Philemon can do whatever he wants to do."

But Paul did not say that. Paul said that Philemon had a moral duty to act in a certain way. He did not say Philemon was free to do as he wished--"free to do as you wish" meaning there are no constraints or consequences to one's choice.

If there are moral constraints or consequences--if there is a cost--then it's not "free."

What Paul did say explicitly is this:

But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
....
The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so

Paul does not describe us as free at any point in time, but always as slaves, either to sin or to righteousness.

A slave does not have free will (that had been a philosophical point long before Paul's time, the question being --and Paul answered this for Christian slaves--whether the acts of obedience performed by a slave, toward good or evil, accrued to his morality or that of his master) and the slave to sin cannot choose to be righteous. He has no ability to make that choice.

What a Christian has is a single choice, whether to be a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness, and that choice only by the grace of God. A single choice of who will be one's master is not "free will." It is "bound will."

So you don't sin anymore because you're a slave to Jesus?

 

[Ron Gurley]

Philemon 1:14 (NASB)
but without your consent I did not want to do anything
, so that your goodness would not be, in effect, by compulsion
but of your own "free will".

your own free will....Greek 1595...hekousios...I.voluntary, willingly

God's will is Sovreign. He allows Mankind to exercise our innate "free will" within His. A&E were given this spiritual gift in the beginning.

Revelation 4:11
“Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.”

Deuteronomy 30:19 [Full Chapter]
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants,

Job 34:4
“Let us choose for ourselves what is right; Let us know among ourselves what is good.

The true doctrine of "FREE WILL"??: Biblical examples??

 

[Paidiske]

MOD HAT ON
This thread has had a small clean​

to remove quotes of, and replies to, deleted posts.​

MOD HAT OFF​

 

[Gell]

Could someone please expain how unconditional election and evangelism fit together? Is it the case that of all those that hear the gospel, only the elect would react to it and follow Christ as a result?

You know it’s odd but I remembered that the turning point of my being a born again Christian was not through evangelism. Other people witnessed to me once or twice before I think, but what really stirred me up was the reality of death.
So I guess what I am trying to say is that it was totally God that stirred up my whole being to come closer to Him.

 

[GodsGrace101]

Could someone please expain how unconditional election and evangelism fit together? Is it the case that of all those that hear the gospel, only the elect would react to it and follow Christ as a result?

It can't be explained.
Why should missionaries risk death, besides all the other sacrifices they make, if God is going to save whom He will anyway??

Good question.

 

[RDKirk]

It can't be explained.
Why should missionaries risk death, besides all the other sacrifices they make, if God is going to save whom He will anyway??

Good question.

A. Because Jesus told us to, which is sufficient reason all by itself.
B. Because there is benefit now to finding the mediator that Job was frustrated not to have, and to being a member of the Body of Christ (Job 9, Hebrews 4, Mark 10)
C. For evangelists, the benefit of knowing that there are people who have been enabled gives them confidence that their efforts will not be in vain--there is someone out there waiting to hear the gospel, even if that person doesn't even realize it.

I think Calvinists make more of election than is intended, however.

Paul had to explain to the Gentiles the difference between the God of Abraham and the gods they'd formerly believed in. Their gods were fickle, prone to whimsy. A person might be in Zeus' favor one day, and under Zeus' curse the next. They had had to worry constantly about their position with their old gods, constantly entreating them.

Paul needed to explain to them that the God of Abraham is not a god of whimsy. He is not fickle. Their salvation had been part of His plan from the beginning of creation, and He's not going to change his mind about them on a whim.

 

[GodsGrace101]

A. Because Jesus told us to, which is sufficient reason all by itself.
B. Because there is benefit now to finding the mediator that Job was frustrated not to have, and to being a member of the Body of Christ (Job 9, Hebrews 4, Mark 10)
C. For evangelists, the benefit of knowing that there are people who have been enabled gives them confidence that their efforts will not be in vain--there is someone out there waiting to hear the gospel, even if that person doesn't even realize it.

I think Calvinists make more of election than is intended, however.

Paul had to explain to the Gentiles the difference between the God of Abraham and the gods they'd formerly believed in. Their gods were fickle, prone to whimsy. A person might be in Zeus' favor one day, and under Zeus' curse the next. They had had to worry constantly about their position with their old gods, constantly entreating them.

Paul needed to explain to them that the God of Abraham is not a god of whimsy. He is not fickle. Their salvation had been part of His plan from the beginning of creation, and He's not going to change his mind about them on a whim.

Your answer C is interesting.
But, as I'm sure you know, I don't agree with calvinism at all.
Missionaries go into the field to find and save those that are lost -- all those that want to be saved, can be.

 

[RDKirk]

Your answer C is interesting.
But, as I'm sure you know, I don't agree with calvinism at all.
Missionaries go into the field to find and save those that are lost -- all those that want to be saved, can be.

However, scripture affirms that nobody "wants" to be unless God has enabled them.

It cannot be denied that scripture does say "enabled" and "elect" and "predestined." We can't pretend it doesn't.

OTOH, there is more to how it all works than Calvinists claim, because scripture also says "choose."

I'll only dance with the concepts that Calvinists have married, and go no farther than the three benefits I listed.