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.

What is the significance of Deuteronomy 13:1–3?

Moses tells the Israelites that God allowed false prophets to sometimes be correct because “the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you indeed love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul.”

If God already knows such matters with certainty, Scripture’s inspired description as to why such testings take place (viz. for God “to know…”) cannot be correct. If we believe that Scripture cannot err, it seems we should conclude that God does not necessarily foreknow such matters after all.

Category:
Tags: ,
Topics:
Verse:

Related Reading

How do you respond to 1 Samuel 2:25?

Eli’s sons “would not listen to the voice of their father, for it was the will of the Lord to kill them.” Compatibilists sometimes cite this text as an example of how God determines events for which humans are morally responsible. Eli’s sons were evil in not listening to their father, yet it was the…

What is the biblical basis for “free will”?

Question: Much of your theology depends on a supposed ability humans have to thwart God’s will by our free choices. But what is the biblical basis for your conclusion that people have “freedom”—at least “freedom” in the sense that we can decide to go along with or thwart God’s will for our lives? Answer: Scripture…

Tags: ,

How do you respond to Bart Ehrman’s book, “Misquoting Jesus”?

Question: I just read Bart Ehrman’s book Misquoting Jesus and it’s sort of rocked my world. How can we believe the Bible is God’s inerrant Word when we don’t even know what the original Bible said? Answer: I actually went to graduate school with Bart Ehrman (at Princeton). We used to smoke pipes together up…

An Open Orthodoxy

 Sharon Mollerus via Compfight Our friends Tom Belt and Dwayne Polk recently started a blog called An Open Orthodoxy. This is going to be something you’ll want to follow. Really smart guys with something to say. They posted this clarification on the defining claim and core convictions of open theism that hits the nail on…

What is the significance of Acts 15:7?

At the Jerusalem council, “Peter stood up and said to them, ‘My brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that I should be the one through whom the Gentiles should hear the message of the good news…’” The tense of the verb that locates God’s “choice” in “the…

Topics:

What is the significance of 1 Samuel 15:35?

“…the Lord was sorry that he made Saul king over Israel.” (see 1 Sam. 15:12). Once again, the Lord expresses his regret over having made Saul king of Israel, an emotion which is inconsistent with the classical view of God’s foreknowledge. It’s important to note that Samuel had prayed all night trying to change the…

Topics: