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 Joel 2:13–14?

“Return to the Lord your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and relents from punishing.
Who knows whether he will not turn and relent,
and leave a blessing behind him…?”

As we have seen, God’s willingness to alter his course of action—even after he’s prophetically announced it—is portrayed as an attribute of greatness in the Bible (cf. Jon. 4:2). God doesn’t change in any respect in which it is wrong to change, but he does change in every respect in which it is good to change. His magnificent flexibility is evident throughout Scripture but is incompatible with the belief that God’s knowledge of future free actions is exhaustively settled.

Category:
Tags: ,
Topics:
Verse:

Related Reading

Free Will: What is a free agent?

What does it really mean to be a free agent? In this reflection, Greg offers some thoughts on free agents and how it can be that they are not exhaustively determined.

What is the significance of Numbers 14:12–20?

In response to Israel’s bickering the Lord says “I will strike them with pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you [Moses] a nation greater and mightier than they” (vs. 12). Moses asks the Lord to forgive the people, and the Lord eventually responds, “I do forgive, just as you have asked” (vs.…

Topics:

How do you respond to 2 Timothy 1:9–10?

“…this grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus…” Those who hold that the future is eternally settled and that God knows it as such sometimes argue that God had to foreknow who would believe in order…

How do you respond to John 6:44?

“No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me…” Calvinists sometimes argue that this passage teaches that the Father chooses and then “draws” certain people to Christ. Those who are “drawn” certainly come to Christ (John 6:37) while all who are not drawn remain in their sin. In short, this…

The Cosmic Dance: Why Will This Book Benefit Me?

Greg took a few moments to describe how he hopes you’ll benefit from The Cosmic Dance. Discover how various branches of science demonstrate that life itself is a delicate dance between order and chaos. You’ll find that we’re wired to live on the edge in a place of creativity, spontaneity and significance in the adventure…

Podcast: Is an Open Future World a Logically Possible World?

Greg gets technical in this abstract, yet profound, introduction to an open theist’s interpretation of the square of opposition. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0217.mp3