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 1 Timothy 4:1–3?
“…in the later times some will renounce the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared with a hot iron. They forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods…”
New Testament authors considered themselves to be living “in the later times” (e.g. Acts 2:17; 1 Pet. 1:20; Heb. 1:2). This doesn’t mean they were wrong; it just means that the period of these “later times” was longer than they initially anticipated (cf. 2 Pet. 3:7–10). In any event, it is clear that Paul is referring to conditions that were abounding when he wrote this epistle. Thus, despite the fact that defenders of the classical view of foreknowledge sometimes appeal to it in support of their position, it has no bearing on the issue.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism, Responding to Objections
Verse: 1 Timothy 4
Related Reading
What is the significance of Psalm 106:23?
“Therefore he said he would destroy them— had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him, to turn away his wrath from destroying them.” Moses (on several occasions, we have seen) persuaded God to change his mind regarding his plan to judge Israel. This inspired verse explicitly says that God “would destroy…
What is the significance of Hosea 8:5?
The Lord asks, “How long will they [Israel] be incapable of innocence?” The Lord’s continual striving with Israel regarding their lack of innocence suggests that this question was not merely rhetorical. If God knows the future to be eternally settled, however, he could not in earnest ask this (or any other) question about the future.…
Free Will: What does Quantum Theory suggest?
Bet you didn’t think we’d be going here. Greg discusses how quantum theory supports the idea of free will.
Did God use Satan to test Job?
Question: In Job 1:21 and 2:10, Job seems to accept “adversity” from God while continuing to trust him. Job blames his troubles on God (i.e. “He shattered me” [16:12], “He breaks me down on every side” [19:10], “For he performs what is appointed for me” [23:14]). In Chapters 1 and 2, God even seems to…
Terror in the Night
I’ll never forget the night it first happened to me. I was thirteen, sharing a bedroom with my older brother. I woke up in the middle of the night and felt as if something was pinning me to the bed, choking me, and electrocuting me, all at the same time. The wind was blowing through…
Is it true you’re an “Open Theist” and that you don’t think God knows the future perfectly?
I am an “Open Theist” – though I honestly don’t care for the label, because as I’ll show, the uniqueness of this view isn’t in what it says about God but in what it says about the nature of reality. (I think it would be better to call us something like “Open Futurists.”) In any…