Bible Discussion Thread

The fact that God repents proves He does not determine from the beginning every aspect of our lives but leaves room for us to make decisions according to our own will regardless of His will.

Hi Marke , I've been enjoying your posts a lot lately , thankyou . A thought that I find quite awesome is that not only did all the events depicted in the Bible actually happen and exactly as the narrative tells us , but that every bit of these events , God caused to be written and preserved for us , you and me , right here right now , to learn from . God is beyond all space and time . All of the Bible , every bit of it , is for us to learn from . There is not one extraneous sentence ( unlike most of the novels I've read ) . Its mind boggling to me how awesome God is , He gives us free will but He already knows how we will use it . He leaves nothing to chance , we are all exactly where he wants us to be , we always have been and we always will be . This is why we must submit to Him in our day lives . In submitting to His Will for us we are showing our faith in Him and in His love and mercy towards us and in His righteousness in knowing what is best for us . God doesn't just teach us through the Bible . I firmly believe that He teaches us the lessons that we , as individuals need to learn in order for us to be better Christians and therefore acceptable to Him in the day of judgement . I believe that in our daily lives we need to be alert to where we are and who we are with and what we are witnessing , as all of these things may be pertinent to our development as Christians . I also believe that if we are closed off to learning we shall die spiritually . Keep your heart and mind open , open to God and His Word and His Word made flesh and what is going on in your life and how you can learn to be a better Christian through your day to day life experiences . Thanks again for your excellent posts .

Thanks Marke. That's a difficult concept for us to properly grasp. On the one hand, we have an Omniscient God ( Psalm 147:5; Psalm 139:1-4; Isaiah 40:28), and then we see as in Jeremiah 18:8-10, "If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them": occasions when God 'repents' (or, is sorry, changes His Mind) when 'a nation obeys or disobeys Him'.

I agree with you, God does give us free Will, but also the wherewithal to make proper decisions based on our knowledge of Him & His Word. Though He knows ultimately what we will do at the time of our decision, seeing Him 'repent' could indicate that His change of Mind is at the physical/material level: that of altering the course of events based on man's decision. I never see that God is caught by surprise by man's good or evil acts, rather that He deliberately acts according to man's actions. His Omniscience never changes, but His Acts for or against man are made as a result of man's decisions.