{"id":2221,"date":"2012-10-02T17:04:36","date_gmt":"2012-10-02T21:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oldsandals.net\/?p=2221"},"modified":"2012-10-03T17:22:06","modified_gmt":"2012-10-03T21:22:06","slug":"actually-saying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/?p=2221","title":{"rendered":"Actually saying?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying:\u00a0\u201cBefore I formed you in the womb I knew you. Before you were born I sanctified you. \u00a0I ordained you a prophet to the nations&#8230;.Do not say, \u2018I am a youth,\u2019 for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak.\u00a0Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you to deliver you.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Jeremiah 1:4-5,7-8<\/em><\/p>\n<p>These verses, and others like them, are often used by Bible teachers of the reformed persuasion to demonstrate that the Lord sovereignly chooses whom He will, apart from any human choice.<\/p>\n<p>But is this what these verses are actually saying?\u00a0 The Lord <em>knew<\/em> all of us before any of us were formed.\u00a0 He knows the end from the beginning.\u00a0 He knew us, i.e. He knew the choices each of\u00a0us would make, whether for Him or against Him.\u00a0 And based on that foreknowledge, He ordained this one and that one to serve Him in a particular way.\u00a0 Isn&#8217;t that a very plausible interpretation?\u00a0 It certainly seems to accord with the interpretation of the church during at least the first few centuries&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><em><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying:\u00a0\u201cBefore I formed you in the womb I knew you. Before you were born I sanctified you. \u00a0I ordained you a prophet to the nations&#8230;.Do not say, \u2018I am a youth,\u2019 for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and whatever I command &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/?p=2221\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Actually saying?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2221"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2221"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2222,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2221\/revisions\/2222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}