We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
How do you respond to Acts 13:48?
“When the Gentiles heard this [preaching], they were glad and praised the word of the Lord, and as many as had been destined for eternal life became believers.”
Luke does not specify when the Gentiles who believed were “destined for eternal life.” Calvinists rightfully point out that the Gentiles’ faith followed their being “destined for eternal life” but mistakenly assume that this “destiny” was decided by God from before creation. The text only requires us to believe that the Spirit of God had been at work preparing the hearts of all who did not resist him to accept the Gospel when they heard it.
God knows our heart before we express it through our words or through our decisions (Ps. 139:2–4). On this basis the Lord could assure Paul before his missionary endeavor at Corinth that “there are many in this city who are my people” (viz. whose hearts have been opened and who will therefore believe your message) (Acts 18:10).
So too, Lydia listened intently to Paul’s Gospel because the Lord had already “opened her heart” (Acts 16:14). Those Gentiles who did not resist the Spirit’s work in their life were “ripe” for the message of Paul and Barnabas. They were already “destined for eternal life” and thus accepted the Good News when it was preached to them.
In my opinion, this is also how we ought to interpret Jesus’ words when he tells certain Jews, “you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice…and they follow me” (John 10:26–27). Jesus isn’t implying that God unilaterally decides who will and will not be sheep, as Calvinists teach. And he certainly isn’t suggesting that this matter was decided before any of these people were born.
Jesus’ words only imply that at the time of his speaking some people were sheep and therefore believed while others were not and therefore did not believe. We create impossible problems for ourselves—such as how God can love all and want all to be saved while predestining many to hell—when we go beyond what Scripture teaches.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Q&A, Responding to Calvinism
Topics: Providence, Predestination and Free Will
Verse: Acts 13
Related Reading
How do you respond to 1 Timothy 1:9?
“[God] saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began…” Compatibilists sometimes appeal to this verse to support the view that God determined who would (and thus who would…
How do you respond to Acts 13:48?
“When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and praised the word of the Lord; and as many as had been destined for eternal life became believers.” If the individual Gentiles who believed were “destined for eternal life” before they “became believers,” some may argue, they obviously were foreknown by God before they became believers.…
How can you believe Matthew’s report about the Jewish cover up of the resurrection?
Question: In Matthew it’s reported that Jewish authorities tried to cover up the resurrection of Jesus by saying the disciples stole the body while the guards were sleeping. I don’t buy it. How would Matthew know about this story, since it was a secret conversation the authorities had with the guards? And how could they…
What is the significance of Deuteronomy 9:13–14, 18–20, 25?
The Lord tells Moses “Let me alone that I may destroy them [the Israelites] and blot out their name from under heaven…” (vs. 14). Moses later says to the Israelites, “the Lord intended to destroy you” (vs. 25). Moses interceded for forty days and then tells the Israelites, “the Lord listened to me…” (vs. 19).…
Revelation 17:8 refers to people whose names haven’t been written in “the book of life from the creation of the world.” Doesn’t this conflict with open theism?
As in Revelation 13:8, the clause “from the foundation” (apo kataboleis) need not mean “from before the foundation” but simply “from the foundation” (= since the foundation). It’s not that names either were or were not written in the “book of life” before they were ever born. Rather, throughout history, in response to the choices…
How do you respond to John 6:64, 70–71?
Jesus told his disciples, “‘But among you there are some who do not believe.’ For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him” (vs. 64). Jesus continued, “‘Did I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.’…