Predestination: What is it & how do we understand it?

Luke: 00:05

Welcome to the uncut podcast. I'm

Cameron: 00:08

pastor Luke. And I'm pastor Cameron.

Luke: 00:10

And this is the uncut podcast where we have honest uncut conversations about faith, life, and anything. Cameron.

Cameron: 00:19

You could probably dub me. You probably could. That one. You have to you have to check the footage on that one. Yeah.

Luke: 00:27

Don't don't don't, tempt me, what I could do with AI.

Cameron: 00:31

That's true. Yeah. That's getting scary.

Luke: 00:36

Yeah. Yeah. We talked about AI a long time ago.

Cameron: 00:39

Yeah. Well, I was reading an article just this morning as I was trying to, like, force my eyelids to stay open.

Luke: 00:47

Mhmm.

Cameron: 00:47

You know? I was reading an article just this morning about how a really, I don't know if you call it college basketball at all or No. I don't. Women's college basketball. You know, one of the biggest stars out there in women's college basketball, Paige Bunkers.

Cameron: 01:05

She's fantastic, fantastic athlete. By all accounts, really, like, stand up girl and

Luke: 01:13

Mhmm.

Cameron: 01:13

You know. Anyway, there was, like, some leaked AI pornographic images

Luke: 01:20

Oh, yeah.

Cameron: 01:20

Of hers. Like or not of hers

Luke: 01:22

Right.

Cameron: 01:23

But, like Faked. Faked.

Luke: 01:25

Right.

Cameron: 01:26

And they like it created a lot of issues. Yeah. I mean, I mean, that's an understatement.

Luke: 01:35

Yeah.

Cameron: 01:35

But I was I didn't even read the article because I was like, I don't wanna click on that. Right. I don't wanna I don't wanna even click on it. But was enough. The headline was enough to be like, what are we doing here?

Cameron: 01:49

Mhmm. What are we doing?

Luke: 01:51

Yeah.

Cameron: 01:53

And, it's just scary to me. Like, when you as like, because you can be a person that works so hard Mhmm. To maintain or to build your integrity, your reputation

Luke: 02:08

Yep.

Cameron: 02:09

And have it just completely destroyed Yeah. Because someone knows how to use AI. Right.

Luke: 02:19

Free software.

Cameron: 02:20

Yeah. It's really scary

Luke: 02:21

to me. It's, I was listening to 2 authors who were kind of discussing AI and its implications in the writing world. And they're both prolific and resourced enough that they were able to get a hold of an AI and have the AI train itself on their already published works and writings and papers. Mhmm. And then ask that AI to respond as they would to questions and topics that they have never written about.

Luke: 02:56

And then they're reading the response and they're like, yeah, that's actually what I would say. Crazy. Like, whose whose work is that? Like, who does that, like, belong to?

Cameron: 03:08

Well, I was in a, I was in a, Zoom yesterday. Yeah. Yesterday. I mean, it feels like a long time ago. I was in a Zoom yesterday.

Cameron: 03:19

It was a group Zoom. And the,

Luke: 03:24

the

Cameron: 03:26

guy that organized the Zoom was like, okay. I'm gonna turn on Zoom's AI feature, which takes what is said and Like transcribes it? Transcribes it and then outlines it and then creates, like content guide, like an outlined content guide. Yep. Basically, we just like crowdsourcing information.

Cameron: 03:53

Yeah. Without any, like, work. Right. So to speak. Yeah.

Cameron: 04:02

You know? And so in in some ways, I'm like, there's gotta be, like, okay, I can definitely see that I could probably use AI in terms of, like, to create some efficiencies in my life.

Luke: 04:19

Yeah.

Cameron: 04:22

We're doing stuff like that. Yeah. Right. Like, you know, what we could do,

Luke: 04:29

we should

Cameron: 04:29

do this. We should say we should tell AI to write a book Yeah. Based off of our 10 most viewed or interacted with podcast episodes.

Luke: 04:47

Oh, yeah. Mhmm.

Cameron: 04:51

Like, create the content for a

Luke: 04:52

book Mhmm.

Cameron: 04:54

Off of the 10 most viewed or interacted with, episodes of our podcast. Yeah. It's it's stuff like that. Right. You're like because you sit down, like, and you're right.

Cameron: 05:04

You know, like, how do we know what I would write about? It's stuff like so some efficiencies. Yeah.

Luke: 05:11

Well, for our our our devoted listeners and and watchers out there, if you ever look at our podcast descriptions, sometimes that is AI. So, like, we use a service where, like, I it up upload the audio of this podcast and the video of this podcast, and it, like, cleans it all up, makes us sound better than we actually do. It gets rid of the echo in the room and everything. And then it also comes with a free service where it will create chapters for the video and it will make a summary description. Yeah.

Luke: 05:46

Now sometimes the summary description is so horrific that I just have to delete the whole thing and make my own summary description. But sometimes it's good enough that I'll just copy and paste it and put it in there and change a sentence or 2 and then let it go. Because I'm like, well, it's good enough description. Right. Like, and I copy copy edit work is, like, the, like, it's the most boring thing in my mind.

Luke: 06:11

I hate, like, trying to figure out it's not that I can't do it. It's just that it takes too much brain power sometimes to, like, sit there and, like, alright. I gotta create a compelling description for this video or whatever. So, I don't know. Maybe I'll, maybe I'll run it through AI, and I'll put the unedited, like, AI description in the bottom of this video or audio, and you guys can look and see what AI popped out.

Cameron: 06:34

I mean, obviously, we've talked about, like, the what we think is the the theological limits of AI in terms of preaching Yeah. And stuff like that. We have. But, and maybe we could link that previous episode to this one or something like that if you're interested in that. Haven't heard it before, but there yeah.

Cameron: 06:50

There's gotta be efficiencies out there that can be leveraged for just life in general. Yeah. Like, now you're thinking about my home life. Like, oh, boy. Okay.

Cameron: 07:04

Anyway, we didn't really have a topic to discuss today. We thought we'd maybe hit a few different, topics that we've been talking about lately in life and in ministry and Yeah. Whatever. We here at Conduit, if you're not if you don't attend Conduit, or not familiar with the church at all or anything like that, you can find us on the on the the world wide web, the www. World wide web, the conduit min conduit ministries.com.

Cameron: 07:35

Right? Yeah. Or is it org?

Luke: 07:37

It's dotcom.

Cameron: 07:37

Dotcom. Conduit Ministries dotcom. Sermons that are there. Obviously, we're on all the major, social media platforms. You can check out weekly services there as well.

Cameron: 07:50

But we just started a a sermon series this past week, in going through the letter to the Ephesians. We did. And it'll be an 8 week series, And I preached this first sermon, and I preached on the first 14 verses of Ephesians. And if you re I've you ever read Ephesians before, you'll know that kind of the the the topic of conversation when someone reads Ephesians and wants to have theological conversation about it, at least the first 14 verses, is Paul's use of the words predestined and chosen. Yep.

Cameron: 08:29

And, immediately our minds go to or a lot of minds go to like, oh, he's talking about the argument between whether or not particularly in terms of salvation, but it's predestination versus free will is a conversation that spans all theological. Yeah. All the theological things.

Luke: 08:50

Mhmm.

Cameron: 08:51

But in particular, it's focused around the soteriology, like the theology of salvation and all that. So are we predestined? Meaning does has God predetermined our salvation and we essentially don't even have a choice whether or not we choose to follow Jesus? Or do we ultimately have a choice and it really has nothing to do with God's influence upon our lives Yeah. Is anything we are free to choose or not to choose.

Cameron: 09:18

Yeah. And so the sermon was both about that, but also not about that. Yep. Because it's not the context.

Luke: 09:30

Mhmm. You

Cameron: 09:31

know, that's not the context of Ephesians chapter 1. You know, Paul is already established that the letter is to those who have faith in Jesus Christ.

Luke: 09:42

Mhmm.

Cameron: 09:43

Not a question of, like, a, hey. Ephesians, are you predestined? Are you not predestined? Are you chosen by God or are you not chosen by God? Yeah.

Cameron: 09:51

No. They they they've already accepted

Luke: 09:54

Right.

Cameron: 09:54

Faith in Jesus Christ.

Luke: 09:56

Yep.

Cameron: 09:57

So whether or not they were predestined or not or they freely chose is, like, wait 3 miles back down the road of a conversation that they could have had. He's talking to the fact that, okay, now that we know that you are in the kingdom of God, what are you predestined for?

Luke: 10:19

Mhmm.

Cameron: 10:19

What are you chosen for?

Luke: 10:21

Right.

Cameron: 10:21

So you were you you are the family of God. What does that even mean now?

Luke: 10:27

Mhmm. Yeah. Well, predestination is almost all is almost always offered as a comfort to those who already have faith in Christ. Like, it's and, you know, one of the things that, like, is is that predestination, free will, all of that. A lot of times, I think it gets ballooned out into this, like, what was I predestined to go and get this tea from Crown Street today or coffee shop?

Cameron: 10:59

Like No one's predestined to get tea. That was your own choice,

Luke: 11:04

my man. That was my own sinful choice.

Cameron: 11:08

We are we are predestined to get coffee. Anyway

Luke: 11:14

Anyways, and, you know, the Bible doesn't, like, it doesn't apply predestination to all things. It applies it to some things. And so even the extremes of, yeah, I think the conversation balloons out into this philosophical space that I don't think the Bible ever puts it into. No. Definitely not.

Cameron: 11:40

No. Yeah. Would you say that you are Armenian? Or are you wrong? Which one of those are you?

Luke: 11:50

Well, I was telling you the other day. I did, like, a Google search once upon a time. And it might have been because Google knew who I was at that time. But I, like, googled why are Calvinists? And it was like, why are Calvinists angry?

Luke: 12:02

Why are Calvinists militant? Why are Calvinists right? Why are Calvinists you know, all that stuff. And then I googled why are Armenians? And it only gave one, like, suggested Predicting.

Luke: 12:14

And it was why are Armenians wrong?

Cameron: 12:19

So funny. Maybe it's only funny to us, but I think it's funny.

Luke: 12:23

Well, it just kind of typifies the general, like, statement of like, and and I was talking, my wife pointed this out, and she's like, really? Sometimes it just feels like it's a personality test. Like, there is, like, a certain personality or type that tends towards the one and a certain personality type that tends towards the other.

Cameron: 12:48

And so I wonder which one comes first.

Luke: 12:51

What do you mean?

Cameron: 12:51

Is it a chicken or the egg type of thing?

Luke: 12:53

Oh, like the personality or do you

Cameron: 12:55

develop personality based on your theology of or does your personality kind of make you lean towards one way or another? That's an interesting question. Yeah.

Luke: 13:05

I mean, that's kind of

Cameron: 13:06

because I'm a teacher. I'm I'm even thinking of some, like, people here at Conduit who I who I know hold different positions considering their personalities. And then they ask you like, oh, yeah. It makes complete sense. It makes complete sense.

Cameron: 13:22

Yeah.

Luke: 13:22

Well, like, the way I describe myself now is I was at once a very staunch Armenian, and then I became a very, very staunch Calvinist. And now I kind of don't really like labeling myself as either because I don't feel like either really describes me very well because they're both systems. And I try and I try and be a little bit more like, what does the Bible tend to say? Where does the Bible tend to stop? I'm not gonna go farther than what the Bible says.

Luke: 13:56

And, and I'm gonna have a healthy dose of mystery and not try and go farther than that. Yep. So I try to approach things from a more biblical like this is I don't mean this to say kind of like high and mighty, but like from a more biblical theological biblical theology framework and less from a systematic framework.

Cameron: 14:18

Yeah. Which is which is, like, it's hard to even say that because Calvinists would both Calvin Calvinists and Armenians would be like, well, I'm biblical.

Luke: 14:30

Right. And I'm not saying

Cameron: 14:31

I'm not biblical. But what often happens is that we get sucked into camps. Think about it. Like, if you're having a hard time because not everyone knows the nuances of the the debates between Calvinism and Armenianism and all of that and why it would make a difference that you sat on one side of the fence or the other. But take it's the it's really the same argument for people who are like, you know, I I am a Republican.

Cameron: 15:02

No, like the right political party is Democrat. No, the right one is Republican. And what we're saying is we're not because I hold the same thing. Like I probably know. I don't probably I lean heavier Armenian.

Luke: 15:21

And Eileen have for sure. Calvist.

Cameron: 15:25

But what I'm saying what we're saying is, like, I prefer not to, like, just jump in the whole pool of Armenian and say no matter what the the theological system says

Luke: 15:38

Mhmm.

Cameron: 15:39

Or the implications of any of it, I am I am like I'm buying into all of it. All my eggs in that basket or all my eggs in the Calvinist basket.

Luke: 15:48

Mhmm.

Cameron: 15:49

And it's the same with, like, political beliefs. It's like you might be a democrat or you might be a republican, and you might feel like because you have some republican ideals, you have to like everything now of the party is yours. Yeah. Right. Where you can say, like, I'm kind of neither.

Cameron: 16:10

I'm a moderate and I vote based on principles and policies rather than parties.

Luke: 16:16

Yes.

Cameron: 16:17

And that's where I think what you're saying, correct me if I'm wrong, and where I kinda am too is like I'm just not gonna go all in with either group. I'm gonna say, like, there are principles and policies and practices. Yeah. Or there are beliefs within each of them that I do find within scripture.

Luke: 16:35

Mhmm.

Cameron: 16:36

And that there are also like really troubling aspects to them. Yeah. So because the

Luke: 16:44

the this this is one like, there's a lot of gifts that systematic theology gives. But one of the weaknesses is that systematic theology, because it brings in an element of philosophical thinking, begins to answer questions the Bible never intended to answer. And so what that leads to is, well, we've got this question that we feel like we must answer, and now I'm going to try and be kind of Scooby Doo and detect where the answer to that is in the Bible. And we might come up with an answer that's so extrapolated that are we doing injustice to the context to the Bible and to what it's actually teaching? Yeah.

Cameron: 17:29

Well, and what I what I would say to kinda you had modified what you just said is not that it seeks to find answers that the Bible never answers. It seeks to find answers to to the where the Bible doesn't even ask the question. Mhmm.

Luke: 17:43

Yeah.

Cameron: 17:43

You know, let's find an answer for whether or not we're predestined or whether we have free will. That's not even a question the Bible asks.

Luke: 17:51

Right. It doesn't. It never asks it. Right. Right?

Cameron: 17:57

And so, yeah, I think while, you know, if you're I don't even have we talked about the difference between biblical and systematic theology?

Luke: 18:08

It's, like, come up on occasion, I think. Usually, when this conversation kind of, like, rears its head every once in a while, we've talked about it.

Cameron: 18:16

So a systematic theology would be like looking at the whole All of scripture. All of scripture, the whole council of scripture and saying, like, okay. If we were to if we were to summarize everything that it said the the scripture said about salvation Yeah. Here here is how we would systematize Yeah. The message of salvation in

Luke: 18:39

scripture.

Cameron: 18:40

Do you Whereas, like, Romans Mhmm. The book of Romans, if we studied Romans and say what does Romans say about salvation, that would be a biblical theology. Mhmm. The study of the actual text

Luke: 18:54

Yeah.

Cameron: 18:54

As in a in a singular unit

Luke: 18:56

Yes.

Cameron: 18:57

Rather than as a comprehensive and now systematized form.

Luke: 19:00

Yeah. Some of the definitions of systematic theology that I've heard in the past is that system systematic theology also includes other sources of truth as well. So like they try to be more integrative of like historical theology and, like, philosophical and and and things like that. Do you think that's do you think that's true of systematic theology, or do you think that there is a systematic that kind of avoids that? I I can.

Cameron: 19:37

No. I've I I think there's just a systematic that can avoid that. Yeah. I do think that in particular, systematic large volumes of systematic theology have to work in historical theology. Mhmm.

Cameron: 19:51

Meaning, like, specifically how a theological concept or how a particular belief has changed or evolved over the centuries.

Luke: 20:02

Yeah.

Cameron: 20:05

And, you know, like, for instance, it's it's really difficult to talk about ecclesiology or the study of the church or the people of God without taking a really hard look at historical theology because of how much the church has changed Yeah. In the course of 2000 years. There really is not much in the way of systematic theology that is only has its as its source material, the scripture

Luke: 20:30

Right.

Cameron: 20:31

Without doubting Because then

Luke: 20:32

it would be biblical theology.

Cameron: 20:33

Because then it would be biblical theology. And the reality is is that there's not a whole lot in biblical theology to systematize a good ecclesiology. Yeah. It's just it would it or I should say, it's just a lot harder, a lot thinner than most people want. Yeah.

Cameron: 20:51

Most people want a very, very detailed account of what the scripture says the church should be. Yeah. And while there is a lot there, you really got to take you really got to make inferences based on context. Scripture speak for itself.

Luke: 21:13

Yeah. Mhmm. Because

Cameron: 21:15

if the scripture just speaks for itself in terms of the ecclesiology, specifically, the book becomes really thin.

Luke: 21:25

Mhmm.

Cameron: 21:26

So but you bring in historical theology, the way in which the church has changed and transformed over time and the theological movements within different eras of the church and like Protestant Reformation, for instance, or the crusades, or the post, you know, the Seeker sensitive. Secret sensitive. Yeah. Right?

Luke: 21:46

It's

Cameron: 21:46

now part of history. Yeah. Post enlightenment, pre enlightenment changes in the way that churches like, then you have, like, just more volumes than you could fit in a whole library.

Luke: 21:58

Yeah.

Cameron: 22:00

So I I think that I I will say personally speaking, I look for a systematic theology that comes almost as like from as my I I don't know that for my for the way in which I use systematic theology volumes.

Luke: 22:22

Mhmm.

Cameron: 22:23

I don't always have a lot of I don't wanna say appreciation because I appreciate the hard work that people put into that stuff. But I don't have a whole lot of application for it in my context. I'm looking at it from a pastoral sense.

Luke: 22:38

Right.

Cameron: 22:39

And I have a conviction that the word of God is the authority. And so despite maybe historical transformations of theological concepts throughout time, I'm more concerned with, like, okay, how can I use the how can the authority of God's word speak to this thing to the congregation Mhmm? Or the people that I'm serving. And so while I appreciate the historical or traditional perspectives, I just don't like my my context is different.

Luke: 23:08

Well, because, like, as a pastor, we we interact with the Bible, like, because like, directly because we preach it. Right? Like, that's our task is to open up the Bible and to preach it. And so a lot of our our theology has done passage by passage, book by book. Mhmm.

Luke: 23:28

And it's not a lot of, like, I don't know. It's not a lot of well, I guess we do sometimes have these bigger, larger questions to try and answer, and that's where sometimes a more systematic type of thinking comes in. But

Cameron: 23:44

The more I think the the type of systematic theology that I have a bigger problem with is not so much the ones that integrate historical, theology or tradition or even, like, contemporary understandings of sociology or anthropology or anything like that or history even, is things where, like, good good amounts of systematic theology is built off of small amounts of biblical theology. Yes. Yeah. Like like demonology Yeah. Angelology.

Cameron: 24:15

Yeah.

Luke: 24:15

I just bought a book on demonology, by the way.

Cameron: 24:17

Yeah. Which, I mean, some would say, oh, there's a lot in scripture about demons. I'm like, is there though?

Luke: 24:24

Right. We talked about that maybe a couple months ago.

Cameron: 24:27

Yeah. I mean, we see the presence of demons and evil spirits and particularly the New Testament all the time. Yeah. Yes. But the focus is almost never on them.

Cameron: 24:36

It's always on Jesus. Right.

Luke: 24:38

Yeah. So I remember I was part of a small group once that was doing a study on heaven and.

Cameron: 24:44

That's a good one too. Yeah.

Luke: 24:45

And I was like, there were some like they were quoting half of a verse to make this, like, massive claim. And I was like Yeah. I don't know about that. Yeah.

Cameron: 24:57

It just goes down like a big Alice in Wonderland type of bunny hole. Mhmm. And I maybe it's more like a wormhole. I don't know. But I I I just I don't I can never find myself being even really wanting to read that kind of stuff.

Cameron: 25:14

Like, I'm just like, I don't know. I not that I feel like it's a waste of my time, but I just get really frustrated reading it because of, like, just the massive inferences that are made. Not even inferences, but, like, conjectures that are being made, like, huge leaps Yep. Off of small content. Yeah.

Cameron: 25:39

And I just can't get with that.

Luke: 25:41

Yeah. I I hear that. I was so to go back to the Armenian Calvinist debate, I was kinda as I was kinda I hadn't dug into that stuff in a long time. So I was like

Cameron: 25:52

It's been a while for me.

Luke: 25:53

Was like redigging into, like, okay, the 5 points Mhmm. The 5 articles. Mhmm. They're like, what are they how are they, you know, opposed to one another? And I got to the end of the class that I was teaching on it last night because we're running a class that runs parallel with the sermons.

Luke: 26:11

And the class, we get to go a little bit deeper. We get to talk more about it and wrestle with it more than we have the space to on a Sunday morning. And I think that one of probably, it's not the only difference, but one of the major differences when you really get down to it is there's I was I listed a whole bunch of things that Calvinists and Armenians agree on. Like, Jesus is the way that we're saved. Grace, like, we cannot save ourselves.

Luke: 26:41

They both affirm that the big difference is when and how grace saves us. For the Calvinist. Right? It's grace saves us when God encounters us with it and we can't resist it and we say yes to it. Mhmm.

Luke: 27:02

For the Armenian, grace is this gift given to all of humanity to have the ability to say yes Mhmm. To Jesus.

Cameron: 27:13

Yeah. So

Luke: 27:14

we're both saved by grace. It's just when are we saved by it?

Cameron: 27:17

Yep. Mhmm.

Luke: 27:19

Right. That's the difference. Yeah. And largely, like all the other differences are pretty like. Or to

Cameron: 27:25

whom are to whom is grace offered? Right. Or to whom

Luke: 27:28

is yeah. The other way we could say that is, like, to whom? Yeah. Right.

Cameron: 27:34

Which is, like, my big thing. Like that that really is the distinction for me. To whom is grace offered? Right. Calvin would say that grace is offered to those God already pre knew he would save.

Luke: 27:43

Right.

Cameron: 27:44

Right. And so it's grace is then it's no longer a universal concept. Jacob Arminius would say that no grace is preveniently offered to all of creation. Christ died once for all.

Luke: 27:58

Right.

Cameron: 28:00

To deal with the entire body of sin. And so grace is a pool that we decide we learn that we jump into or not. Yeah. For Calvin, the pool's got a fence around it.

Luke: 28:11

Mhmm.

Cameron: 28:14

Maybe again, not a very generous reading of Calvin or No. But, But I just find the idea of grace being comprehensive to be, more palatable for me in regards to God's character.

Luke: 28:43

Yeah. Right. Prevenient grace being the grace that

Cameron: 28:47

Goes before salvation.

Luke: 28:48

Goes before salvation fitting underneath Armenian. Yes. The analog to that in Calvinism would be irresistible grace. Right. Which allows, which allows humanity to respond Yeah.

Luke: 29:01

When they're called.

Cameron: 29:03

Right. So yeah. And then, of course, there is the Kelvin probably the most the most offensive aspect of Kelvin's predestination Mhmm. Is double.

Luke: 29:14

Double predestination, which, like, yes.

Cameron: 29:19

Is So do do you wanna describe what what I mean, give give the reader's digest version of what is double predestination.

Luke: 29:27

Double predestination is that God not only chose, he chose those who he would save, and he chose those he who would not save. Or the better way of even saying that more specifically is he chose those who he would send to hell.

Cameron: 29:45

He would condemn. He would condemn

Luke: 29:47

to judgment. Passages that relate to that would be, shoot. I better make make sure I get this right. Is it Romans 9? Some vessels he, he set aside for For noble purposes.

Luke: 30:00

Noble purposes and some for in noble purposes.

Cameron: 30:02

Who are we to and who are we to question that?

Luke: 30:04

Right. And who I am not God. Right. So Romans 9 would be like the like, a a key passage in that argument.

Cameron: 30:13

Called them objects of wrath. Objects of wrath. And so who

Luke: 30:16

are the objects of wrath? And and and God chose them for that. And so that would be that that's double predest double predestination. Yeah. Yeah.

Luke: 30:30

Yeah.

Cameron: 30:30

Okay. So guy who leans a little bit more Calvinist. Yeah. How how how do you reconcile

Luke: 30:39

that? What's to reconcile is what I would ask.

Cameron: 30:45

Well, I guess the question would be, do, do you believe that No. That there, that there are those whom god has have created to specifically be objects of wrath.

Luke: 31:04

I mean, if I read Romans 9 and I apply it to that, that seems to be like what it says. Mhmm. And my answer then has to be with Paul, who am I to judge what God wills and what he does not will.

Cameron: 31:20

What do you think the implications of that are on our understanding of God's character?

Luke: 31:29

I would say that, like, that's getting into a place where we're beginning to try and say God has to fit into my moral framework. And, like, and to say that I even understand. Right? Like

Cameron: 31:42

Is it though? I mean, aren't we like, don't we have a revelation of God's character?

Luke: 31:48

Mhmm.

Cameron: 31:48

Like, so he's revealed his character to us. So to say, like, we can not necessarily make a value judgment on his character, but we should be able to make a descriptive judgment on his character.

Luke: 31:58

Mhmm.

Cameron: 31:59

And does it change the descriptive nature of his character for us to say, like, that there are, like, there are those for whom God will never offer salvation because he only has offered condemnation.

Luke: 32:13

Mhmm.

Cameron: 32:15

You feel like that changes anything for you?

Luke: 32:22

Like, how how hard do I hold this?

Cameron: 32:26

And I'm I'm not like No. Like Well I I I see the same things that you see in Romans 9 and I it's troublesome for me. Right. Like, those passages are troublesome for me. So

Luke: 32:38

because it's who who who am I to to know, like, what what and why and how God has made that decision? And, yeah, it it like, it for me, like, there's not much at least in my mind, there's not much of a place to go other than to say that, like, it is the way in which God has chosen to particularly display his glory and his mercy. God like, it's not that God God is not being unmerciful by not showing mercy. Like, he's not required to show mercy to anyone. Mhmm.

Luke: 33:21

It's the fact that he shows mercy mercy to anyone at all is what is unique and glorious. And so it's not that I'm, like does does that make sense? I mean, it makes the Intellectual sense?

Cameron: 33:39

It makes intellectual sense. Yeah. Yeah. It didn't feel really good.

Luke: 33:42

No. It doesn't.

Cameron: 33:43

Yeah. But I I I understand that from the text. Yeah. So, like it's not hard to understand why these topics like these then have been so contentious

Luke: 34:02

A 100%.

Cameron: 34:03

Over time. Yeah. Mhmm. So anyway, we we talked a little bit. We talked, I would say I wanna say a little bit, but a lot of bit about that.

Luke: 34:12

A lot.

Cameron: 34:13

And, on Sunday and talked a little bit about it again, last night

Luke: 34:19

Mhmm.

Cameron: 34:19

At the the bible study. We're talking this coming Sunday about another, I don't know. I wouldn't say it's not as theologically contentious. It's maybe more culturally misappropriated. We're talking about the in the second chapter of Ephesians verses 1 through 10, how salvation is a is is a gift of God's grace Mhmm.

Cameron: 34:54

Through faith in Jesus Christ and not of works, so that there could be no boasting. And I would say, that what I I was reading and studying a little bit this morning, and it and it was just like I'm I'm again recaptured by the language that Paul uses there. It's like God did, God did, God did. God offered, God made, God set, God set. And it was like, it's not just like the the it's not just the words.

Cameron: 35:30

Like, we're saved by, you know, grace through faith. Not by works, but grace through faith. But it's like, no, God God God God did this and God did this and God did this and God did this and God did this and God did this and like, oh, how merciful is his kindness.

Luke: 35:47

Mhmm.

Cameron: 35:50

And so while it's not really as theologically contentious as the the debate between predestination and free will, I think that it is emotionally Mhmm. And in the his in the history of

Luke: 35:58

a lot of people's walk with Jesus,

Cameron: 35:59

it's probably more heavy Yeah. Than whether or not God chose me or heavy than whether or not God chose me or I had to choose him because of the cultural values that we have of you have to earn everything.

Luke: 36:17

Yeah.

Cameron: 36:18

And in some ways, how that has how the the question of works has seeped its way into our religious life as well. Yeah. You know, look a certain way, talk a little certain way, believe a certain way. Mhmm.

Luke: 36:33

All

Cameron: 36:33

of those things in order to be in Right. With God. Mhmm. So a little bit different theological topic, but I think more important even than what we talked about this past Sunday.

Luke: 36:47

Yeah. I think because it is so I don't know. I just I I talk with people, and I've had conversations with people. They're like, well, you know, I wanna get my life back together. And I just kinda need to get myself cleaned up and get my life back together a little bit, and then I'll come to church.

Cameron: 37:07

Mhmm. Right.

Luke: 37:08

Right? Like, that is a pretty common, like, thought and framework that people have of, like, get yourself together and then you come to church. Church is for the people who have it all together. Mhmm. And we try our best to very much make sure that people understand that that's not what church is.

Cameron: 37:27

Right.

Luke: 37:28

It's for the people who don't have it it together. If someone walks into a church and says, oh, I got life all figured out. I got it locked down. Got it all together. I'm perfect.

Luke: 37:35

Following the lord. Great. They should probably find another church.

Cameron: 37:38

Well, I'd actually, no. Stay here so we can work on your line. Yeah. You know? That's that's more like

Luke: 37:48

Yeah. Stay here and we'll help you with that pride problem.

Cameron: 37:50

Yeah. I know. Exactly. Right. Exactly.

Cameron: 37:55

So anyway, if you're interested in any of that kind of stuff, tune in to the Ephesians series. It's gonna be good. Maybe we can we'll try and keep some conversations

Luke: 38:05

Mhmm.

Cameron: 38:05

Paralleled on Sundays and Wednesday nights, obviously, and then maybe when we sit down usually Thursdays to record this podcast. So you'll get a you'll get a bunch of different, you get a bunch of different maybe maybe maybe next week Luke can push me a little bit on my theological beliefs. Like I pushed him a little bit on his today. Anyway, thanks so much for listening. Appreciate you tuning in.

Cameron: 38:30

Would love it if you would like this. Subscribe to it. Rate it. Share it in whatever way that you can. And we'll, catch you next time.