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 John 21:18–19?
Jesus says to Peter, “‘[W]hen you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’ (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, ‘Follow me.’”
For providential reasons (undoubtedly connected with the encouragement of martyrs in the early church) God determined that Peter would suffer the same sort of death Christ suffered. Now that Peter had been humbled and had learned how to love and serve as Jesus loved and served (see How do you respond to Matt. 26:36) Jesus was going to teach him to die as Jesus died.
This prophecy suggests that by this time the Lord was going to providentially ensure that Peter would not die in any other fashion. This would obviously be a small feat for the Lord of the universe. But it does not suggest that everything else about Peter’s future was settled, still less that everything about the future of the world is settled. We only need to resort to the “crystal ball” understanding of omniscience when we lose our confidence in the Father’s providential wisdom in history and his ability to creatively achieve his objectives while allowing creatures to be free.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: John 21
Related Reading

How do you respond to Acts 2:23?
Peter preaches to the crowd on the day of Pentecost, “[T]his man [Jesus], handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law.” Jesus’ death was certainly planned and foreknown by God, as the previously discussed verses have repeatedly demonstrated.…

How People Misunderstand Open Theism
Open theism holds that, because agents are free, the future includes possibilities (what agents may and may not choose to do). Since God’s knowledge is perfect, open theists hold that God knows the future partly as a realm of possibilities. This view contrasts with classical theism that has usually held that God knows the future exclusively as a domain…

What is the significance of Matthew 26:39?
Jesus threw himself on the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.” Scripture indicates that much about the life and death of Jesus Christ was foreordained and thus foreknown long before it came to pass. Given that this…

When Did Jesus Bind the Strongman?
Question: In Luke 11:21-22 Jesus said: “When a strong man, with all his weapons ready, guards his own house, all his belongings are safe. But when a stronger man attacks him and defeats him, he carries away all the weapons the owner was depending on and divides up what he stole.” My question is, when…

Greg Boyd Chats with Thomas Jay Oord (podcast)
Greg talks with Thomas Jay Oord about what God can and can’t do. Episode 674 http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0674.mp3

When God Discovers
Scripture consistently portrays God’s knowledge as conforming to the ways things really are, and part of the way things really are is temporally conditioned. Scripture never expresses the commonly-held sentiment that time is somewhat illusory. God “remembers” the past and anticipates the future. Insofar as he empowers humans to freely determine the future, this means…