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 Judges 2:20–3:5?
The Lord did not provide any assistance in Israel’s battles, “In order to test Israel, whether or not they would take care to walk in the way of the Lord as their ancestors did” (vs. 22). The pagan opponents of Israel “were for the testing of Israel, to know whether Israel would obey the commandments of the Lord” (vs. 4).
In the classical understanding of God’s foreknowledge, Scripture’s repeated declarations that God tests people in order “to know” their character cannot be taken at face value. If Scripture cannot err, it seems we must accept that such testing was the means by which God found out how people would freely develop their character. This is explicitly declared in this passage.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: Judges 2
Related Reading
5 Observations about God Changing His Mind
One of the most significant passages that supports the open view of the future is found in Jeremiah 18. This is one of the numerous times where we find God changing his mind in response to events. By definition, one cannot change what is permanently fixed. Hence, every time the Bible teaches us that God…
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…
Is God All-Powerful?
I want to answer yes and no. God is all-powerful in the sense that God originally possessed all power. Before Creation, God was the only being who existed, and thus had all the power there was. He could do anything, and nothing opposed Him. But with the creation of free creatures, I maintain, God necessarily…
How do you respond to the book of Revelation?
“The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place…” (1:1). Because many modern evangelical readers consider almost everything in the book of Revelation to be a sort of “snap shot” about what shall occur at the end of history, it will prove more beneficial to deal…
How do you respond to Judges 9:23?
“…God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the lords of Schechem; and the lords of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech.” (cf. 1 Sam. 16:14; 1 Kings 22:19–23). Some compatibilists cite this passage to support the view that evil spirits always carry out the Lord’s will (though they contend that God is good for willing…
Could the God of Open Theism Have Foreknown the Crucifixion was Going to Happen? (podcast)
Greg talks about a really really really smart and good God in a really really really bad world against a not-quite-as-smart adversary. Episode 540 http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0540.mp3