“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth” (1 Corinthians 3:6). On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10). The reason for this is so that when we have thought and planned and worked, God will get the glory for all the good that comes: “Whoever serves let him serve by the strength that God supplies-in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 4:11). Therefore, he means for us to think in dependence on his enabling grace, and plan in dependence on his amazing grace, and act in dependence on his amazing grace. “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD” (Proverbs 16:33). And God is absolutely sovereign over the smallest aspects of our lives. He means for us to use them to discern his will and do it (Romans 12:2). “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). “The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but victory belongs to the Lord” (Proverbs 21:31).
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How should one balance this equation, once Scripture recommends that we plan our lives? You have challenged man’s tendency to make plans in light of God’s desire that we should not trust in our own means and ways. The body of Christ will make that assessment in the short run, and Jesus will in the end.ģ. I want the overall balance of my ministry to be defined by the overall balance of Scripture. Being “entrenched” or “fundamental” or “Calvinistic” is quite secondary. The question is: Over 30 years of pastoral life and public witness and steady publication, do most healthy Christians get helped or get hurt by what I do and say? You will know them by their fruit. Labels of this sort will stick or not, in the long run, because of what we say and do, not by how we answer our critics. I deal with this kind of criticism mainly by a steady output of sermons and books and articles that are based as explicitly on the Bible as I can make them. How does one deal with this type of aggressive reaction from the Church’s own ranks? In Brazil some proponents of Open Theism have called you an “entrenched fundamentlist neocalivinist”. Neither of these denies the foreknowledge of God the way Open Theism does.Ģ.
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Most believers find it more hope-giving to make peace with the problem of evil through God’s wise sovereignty (Reformed), or God’s concession to man’s self-determination (Arminian). And the pastoral implications of Open Theism are not felt by most Christians as comforting-namely, that the evil you experienced may have surprised God as much as it shocked you. The exegetical case that Greg Boyd and Clark Pinnock and others tried to make did not convince most careful Bible readers. They know intuitively, God is not God, if he cannot know all that will come to pass. Most biblically informed people find the denial of God’s exhaustive foreknowledge spiritually and intellectually repugnant. Unless I am missing something, Open Theism did not get significant traction in America. What is your view on this current theological trend? This statement contrasts with Open Theism, which posits God’s incapacity to interfere in these situations. After the latest earthquake in Japan, you stated that every calamity is a call from God for the living to repent.