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 1 Chronicles 21:7–13?

The Lord gives David three options of how Israel may be judged. “Three things I offer you; choose one of them, and I will do it to you.”

Paralleling 2 Samuel 24:12–16, this passage reveals that the Lord gives people genuine alternatives and then responds to their choices. If the future is unalterably settled in God’s mind, however, these alternatives are merely charades. God could just as well have unilaterally declared the curse he knew David would choose.

Category:
Tags: ,
Topics:
Verse:

Related Reading

Will people get married in heaven?

Question: I lead a Bible study group for teenagers. One recently asked a question: “Will there be marriage in Heaven? And if not, why? God created marriage when He created the perfect earth, so why won’t there also be marriage in the New Earth after the resurrection? Surely the New Earth will be a restored…

Topics:

Loving a Twilight Zone God?

David D. Flowers posted this insightful reflection over on his blog about an episode of The Twilight Zone and what it says about some pop views of God. Can we really love a God that exercises this kind of random control just because he can? We can certainly fear a God like this, but can…

Terror in the Night

I’ll never forget the night it first happened to me. I was thirteen, sharing a bedroom with my older brother. I woke up in the middle of the night and felt as if something was pinning me to the bed, choking me, and electrocuting me, all at the same time.   The wind was blowing through…

Hearing and Responding to God: Part 2

In this video, Greg continues his thoughts about the difficulties we can encounter when we try to hear God speaking to us. You can view the first part here.

Hearing and Responding to God: Part 1

A reader contacted Greg asking about making “right decisions” assuming an open future and in light of the fact that God seems to rarely speak clearly. In this first response, Greg acknowledges that even with the best of intentions, our decisions can have outcomes that are unexpected even to God! How can we move forward…

What is the significance of 2 Kings 20:1–7?

The Lord tells Hezekiah “[Y]ou shall die: you shall not recover” (vs. 1). Hezekiah pleads with God and God says, “I will add fifteen years to your life” (vs. 6). If everything about the future was exhaustively settled and known by God as such, his prophecy to Hezekiah that he was going to die would…

Topics: