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: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: Joel 2
Related Reading
How do you respond to Acts 2:23 and 4:28?
Question: Acts 2:23 and 4:28 tell us that wicked people crucified Jesus just as God predestined them to do. If this wicked act could be predestined, why couldn’t every other wicked act be predestined? Doesn’t this refute your theory that human acts can’t be free if they are either predestined or foreknown? Answer: In Acts…
Does the Open View Undermine God’s Sovereignty?
A common objection to the concept of a risk-taking God is that it seems to undermine God’s sovereignty. If any particular individual can opt out of God’s plan, then every individual could conceivably opt out of God’s plan, and it seems that God’s entire plan for world history could ultimately fail. Some have argued that…
How do you respond to Genesis 49:10?
“The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he to whom it belongs shall come and the obedience of the nations be his.” In Exodus 32:10-14 God threatens to destroy the Israelites and start over with Moses. But Moses intercedes and God changes his mind. For Open…
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…
How do you respond to Exodus 4:11?
“The Lord says to Moses, “Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?” According to some compatibilists, this passage teaches that all infirmities are willed by God. This interpretation is not required, however. Three things may be said. First, as a matter of…
Open2013
As I’m sure many of you know, the understanding of the Christian faith and the model of the Christian church is in the process of being transformed. All around the globe, and in a multitude of different ways, we are seeing new wine being poured out and old wine skins bursting apart. Many of us…