{"id":3462,"date":"2014-06-09T07:04:58","date_gmt":"2014-06-09T11:04:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oldsandals.net\/?p=3462"},"modified":"2014-06-10T08:58:31","modified_gmt":"2014-06-10T12:58:31","slug":"rather-than-debating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/?p=3462","title":{"rendered":"Rather than debating"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>I Timothy 2:4<\/em><br \/>\n<em>[God] desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>John Chrysostom begins his exposition of this verse by saying, &#8220;Imitate God!&#8221; If God is willing, so should we be willing&#8212;in our prayers, in our outreach, excluding no one, for no one is beyond the reach of God&#8217;s love and forgiveness.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps this ought to be our reflection on this verse, rather than debating how to intimately reconcile the sovereignty of God and the freedom of man, a thing impossible to do this side of eternity.<\/p>\n<p>Prosper of Aquitaine, a disciple of Augustine, reflecting on this verse, said this:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We must most sincerely believe and profess that God wills all men to be saved. \u00a0For this, indeed, is the mind of the Apostle, who most urgently commands, what is a most devout custom in all the churches, that suppliant prayers be offered to God for all men. \u00a0That many of these perish is the fault of those who perish: that many are saved is the gift of Him who saves.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I Timothy 2:4 [God] desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. John Chrysostom begins his exposition of this verse by saying, &#8220;Imitate God!&#8221; If God is willing, so should we be willing&#8212;in our prayers, in our outreach, excluding no one, for no one is beyond the reach &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/?p=3462\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Rather than debating&#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\/3462"}],"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=3462"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3472,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3462\/revisions\/3472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldsandals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}