How you answer my first question will probably depend a lot on where you live and what kind of church you go to - or used to go to. I have no statistical evidence to back up what I'm about to say but I guess that there would be some Christians who would say they were definitely Calvinists. Others would say that they were not - and some of these might describe themselves as Arminians. There would be some who might have a vague notion about what I was asking. And then there would be others who would look blankly and ask whether that has anything to do with a small boy with spiky hair and a toy tiger.
This week we began a new Sunday morning teaching series looking at the second half of Romans - chapters 9-16. I admit I was tempted to make this a slightly shorter study and just look at chapters 12-16...
There are a number of questions that are raised in chapters 9-11 that I don't feel particularly qualified to tackle. Ask me whether I am a pre-millennialist, an a-millennialist or a post-millennialist and I will have something to offer - because I spent a whole term at Bible college reading around the subject and then had to write a 5000 word essay on the subject. I'm sure there were subjects and courses that I could have taken that looked at Calvin - but I took something else instead - but maybe that was just meant to be.
One of the questions that Romans 9:1-29 raises for us is the question of God's sovereign choice - God chooses some people - are therefore rejects others. Very simply (overly simply) this is Predestination - as opposed to Free Will. On one side God has already determined how we will respond in any given situation - on the other side we have free will to choose for ourselves.
I am not going to argue one way or the other here. There are Christians on both sides of the argument who believe the Bible teaches one or the other. They are able to quote verses that seem to clearly state one point of view or the other. That's why it remains such a divisive topic - if it was clear cut and obvious then it wouldn't be an issue.
So how should we approach issues or passages in the Bible that we find difficult to accept or understand?
I think one of the keys is that we do it with humility.
Whatever we think it says - we might be wrong.
And even if we're right - if that's the way we're thinking about things (I'm right and you're wrong) then our attitude is almost certainly wrong anyway.
We need to remember that it is God who is God - there are going to be things that I won't understand - but am I prepared to obey and submit?
We need to pray that God will help us to understand more.
One conclusion I have come to as I've looked at Romans 9 - I should have started this series at chapter 12.
