November 29

Second Letter to the Thessalonians -- 2 Thessalonians 1:1-12, 2:1-17, 3:1-18; Acts 18:12-22; Third Missionary Journey -- Acts 18:23-28, 19:1-22

There are some verses in 2 Thessalonians that might make one believe that God choses or selects us.  A congregation we once attended preached God's Sovereignty to the point and extent that man can do absolutely nothing that God selects us for salvation.  Because of their zealous excitement over discovering a "new" truth in the scripture, they even taught this doctrine to the young people of the congregation.  One of my children was among them.  That child's innocent and believing heart, so wanting to accept what the elders and teachers presented to them, made my precious child miserable because of two concerns that nagged at their soul:  1. Had God selected them? 2. What about others?  Is there nothing they could do?  Didn't God love everyone?  I don't think my child has ever entirely recovered from this teaching.  Should my child fall because of this teaching, I plan to hand out some millstones.  

I think my child's reaction and questions are the best proof and evidence against this teaching.  It goes against the essential fact at the heart of all scripture -- God is love and He sent His son for the whole world.  I know the Sovereign faction has their way of refuting this.  That we don't and can't understand the wisdom of God and God's love and that He sent his son for the whole world that He selected.  Somehow, I laugh, they understand the wisdom of God that man can't understand.  There was always a conceit to their teaching.  It wasn't love.  

But I rest secure in one thing -- God's love.  As does the whole world, whether they know it or not.  They rest in God's love.  And in land's where people are starving and don't have all of the "blessings" we have and seem closer to God, perhaps its because of their faith and the fact they have too little time to think too much.  

I pray for my child.  I pray for those who teach our children.

Speaking of wild teachings, we have the introduction of the prayer cloth in Acts 19.  "God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were take to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them."  Thus, the prayer cloth.  I have a feeling Paul didn't charge for his.  Some how these "free gifts" always come tied to a "free will offering."  And so it goes.