Free Will?

The issue of free will came up in Sunday School; clearly, there were differences in understanding/belief about what this means. What my wife and I believe is nicely covered in Ch 9 of the 1689.

The issue of our calling came up also. I mentioned the effectual call as opposed to the general call of the Gospel. I wasn't sure if the class understood what I meant, because the teacher brought up Jesus' parable of the wedding feast. I don't see this parable relating to effectual calling.....which likely means I was unclear in my remarks.

I love Sunday School. We have a great guy who leads our class, and yesterday, we were looking at 1 Pet 2:1-12. I don't generally like the SS quarterlies the Convention provides, but the version we're using is among the best I've seen. In that passage is a very difficult statement of Peter in v 8b. This is one of the "tough sayings" in the Bible, and I believe this is one of the proof texts Calvin used in defending the doctrine of reprobation, along with Rom 9:22. These are tough Scriptures to deal with, but deal with them we must, although it's probably wise to not plumb such deep theological depths in a SS class. Southern Baptist theologian Millard Erickson does a fine job in discussing these issues in his excellent work "Christian Theology." This was one of my college textbooks, and I still refer to it frequently. While I don't agree with Erickson about everything, what I like about his work is he does a great job in presenting all sides fairly. I have to put a plug in for John MacArthur's treatment of Romans 9 here. Although he seems to be stumbling a bit at the moment, he did a first-rate job when he preached through this difficult passage some years ago. His series "Putting God in His place" is fabulous. I highly recommend it. I own it, and have listened to it many times. Anyone is free to use it, although it's in cassette tape format, and I'm not sure if anyone can play those anymore. :)

The other difficulty which we didn't have time to get to is Peter's use of the OT in v9-10. Peter took several OT Scriptures and combines them here. He also, under the Holy Spirit's leading, changes the meaning. For example, v10 is a quote from Hos 1:9. Hosea was speaking of Israel; Peter is applying the same verse to the Church. This device is used elsewhere in the NT, so it shouldn't trip us up. Dr. Robert Thomas of The Master's Seminary wrote a piece on this a few years ago entitled "The New Testament use of the Old Testament" which is interesting and the subject of considerable debate. Suddenly, SS was over and it was time to go home....