As an early promotion of our upcoming stepfamily conference I wanted to let you know that Focus on the Family will be airing three radio broadcasts next week, Nov. 15-17 on the topic of becoming a smart stepmom. Laura Petherbridge and Ron Deal are featured in at least two of the broadcasts (there is a panel of stepmoms for the third) and the book is the featured product. Also, next Wed, Nov. 17 she and Ron will doing a live webcast with Focus on the Family.
To help our community as well as church members get excited about our upcoming conference, I want to you let them know about the broadcasts.
To listen to the audio broadcasts, listen online or get info: http://listen.family.org/daily/A000003006.cfm
To watch the live webcast (or watch on demand later): http://www.focusonlinecommunities.com/community/webcasts
To learn more about The Smart Stepfamily conference that is coming to CBF in April, visit www.successfulstepfamilies.com
Start spreading the word of this great upcoming resource for families! Questions are welcome.
--Barry
What a great Sunday this past week! If you missed the “boxed” announcements by Cody Van Scyoc, then you missed a “never seen before at Cornerstone” moment! Be sure to check the web site for the specifics of Operation Christmas Child! (And then be sure to ask someone who was here about the shoe-box announcements!)
I’ve received a several questions from last Sunday’s message (titled: "I Lived a REAL Horror Story!") that I have answered personally and wanted to pass on for all who may have similar questions. Feel free to add to the questions or discussion below. Thanks to those who asked these because in the words of your first grade teacher, “there are no bad questions!”
Q1: Was Pharaoh predestined to be a unbeliever? "But I have raised you up for this very purpose,..." did he stand much of a chance, if demonstrating this lesson was God's purpose for his existence?
A1: This issue is directly related to the issue in Dave’s message from a week ago: Who hardened Pharaoh’s heart? God?(As is indicated 10 times in early Exodus) or Pharaoh himself (as is indicated 9 times in early Exodus). The answer we are left with is “yes”. God hardened it and Pharaoh hardened his own heart and how those two co-exist is one of the mysteries that is unrevealed to us for now.
“That the Bible teaches the doctrine of election/predestination (henceforth, election) is not at issue for the Christian. All Christians believe in election. After all, it is in the Bible! The question is not, Does the Bible teach election? but, What does election mean?
There are two primary positions with regard to the doctrine of election:
Conditional Election: God’s election is based on the foreseen faith of the individual. God “elects” people because they first choose him. (There are other variations, but the essence is the same.)
Unconditional Election: God’s election is not based on anything in the individual, but on God’s mysterious sovereign choice. This choice is not without reason but is unconditioned with regard to any foreseen goodness in the elect.”
For centuries, Christians have taken one side or the other on this question. As Dave pointed out last week, there are problems with both views if either is taken in the extreme.
A problem believing only in conditional election is that it seems to leave God out of the equation. According the strict adherents of this view, He simply set up the terms of the deal and individuals either accept it or not and that choice is totally up to us and every person ever created has the exact same ability and choice. People were all created with the same opportunity to believe, the difference being what each one does with that opportunity. With only this perspective, we can end up on one end of the spectrum which is “open theism”, the idea that the future is totally dependent, and only dependent, on mankind’s choices. In this extreme, we are either the all-stars and think way too much of ourselves and our choices, or we are totally depressed because we can’t do anything good enough to change ourselves or the world!
The problem with unconditional election is that is seems to leave any individual choice out of the equation. According to this view taken in its extreme everything about the world and the individuals who inhabit it has been predetermined before the world began. Therefore everyone who believes does so not because they made any choice to believe, but only and solely because God chose them. Conversely, those who don’t believe (i.e. Pharaoh) were never given any opportunity to believe, never had and never will have any ability to believe. People were created to believe and be saved or they were created to not believe and be condemned, neither of which has anything to do with their own choice. This can lead to “fatalism” which means the belief that nothing any of us does matters at all because God has predetermined it all and He’s responsible, not us. Those on this extreme can get apathetic about everything and just say “It doesn't matter what I think or do because God's will is being played out and I have no choice or influence on anything”, or very prideful because they have been chosen (and therefore must be more loved by God) and others weren’t.
Q2: Here's a question born from Sunday's message from Exodus 9:6 from "The Plague on Livestock":
6 And the next day the LORD did it: All the livestock of the Egyptians died, but not one animal belonging to the Israelites died. and 9:9-10 from "The Plague of Boils": 9 It will become fine dust over the whole land of Egypt, and festering boils will break out on men and animals throughout the land." 10 So they took soot from a furnace and stood before Pharaoh. Moses tossed it into the air, and festering boils broke out on men and animals.
and 9:20-21, 25-26 from "The Plague of Hail":20 Those officials of Pharaoh who feared the word of the LORD hurried to bring their slaves and their livestock inside. 21 But those who ignored the word of the LORD left their slaves and livestock in the field. 25 Throughout Egypt hail struck everything in the fields—both men and animals; it beat down everything growing in the fields and stripped every tree. 26 The only place it did not hail was the land of Goshen, where the Israelites were.
If "All the livestock of the Egyptians died", in the "Plague of the Livestock", then how is it that more animals died in the next two plagues? The notes in the NIV Application Bible asks the same question of verses 20, 21 and proposes an answer "If all the Egyptian livestock were killed in the earlier plague, how could the slaves of Pharaoh put their cattle inside? The answer is probably that the earlier plague killed all the animals in the fields, but not those in the shelters."
But this doesn't seem to be consistent with the word "All" in verse 6. I wondered if maybe the Egyptians confiscated at least some, maybe most, but probably not all of the Israelites livestock after "The Plague on Livestock" and before "The Plague of Boils"?
A2: I have come across 3 possible answers to what seems like a contradiction in terms related to livestock left alive after Exodus 9:6. (Yours, that they may have confiscated some from the Israelites is now 4!) They are:
Time – The plagues probably took at least 9 months from the first to the last, plenty of time for a wealthy country to replenish their livestock (only to have the Lord decimate them once again in another plague.)
2. The Hebrew word kol (“all”) shouldn’t be taken to mean every single one, but rather as a from of “all over the place” or “all sorts of”. (See commentary notes below). So the livestock not in stables at the time died, those stabled for weather or other reasons were unaffected.
3. "Livestock” is different and less broad than the later referenced “beasts”. (See commentary quote below.)
I really appreciate the detailed reading of the text from last Sunday! What a great example to us all to meticulously comb through God’s word for all that He would teach us through it!!
Barry
Notes from selected commentaries on question Q2:
“This apparent contradiction is not due to inconsistency among the plague accounts, multiple contradictory sources for them, or any similar cause. It is due simply to the fact that the Hebrew word kol, usually translated “all,” can mean “all sorts of”88 or “from all over” or “all over the place.”89 In this verse the better translation of the full expression would be “all sorts of Egyptian livestock died” or “Egyptian livestock died all over the place.” - [1] Douglas K. Stuart, vol. 2, Exodus, electronic ed., Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2007), 223-24.
“There is no need to press the expression “all the livestock” (v.6) to mean each and every one and then find there are no Egyptian cattle left for the seventh plague (vv.19, 25), for it is already plain in v.3 that the plague affected only those cattle “in the field.” Normally the Egyptian cattle were stabled from May to December inclusive, during the flood and the drying-off periods when the pastures were waterlogged. Thus some of the cattle were already being turned out to pasture down south; so it must have been sometime in the month of January.” - Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., "Exodus" In , in The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Volume 2: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1990), 357.
“The speculation that this sixth mighty act is somehow a variant account of the one preceding it and the question whether there would be any animals left outside Goshen for this infection (cf. Rylaarsdam, “Exodus,” IB 1:903; Hyatt, 115) are likewise beside the point at hand. Even the terminology employed in the two accounts, מקנה “livestock” (9:3–4, 6–7) and בהמה “beast” (vv 9–10) denies a discrepancy; the former refers to domesticated grazing animals of the species listed in 9:3, the latter to beasts of all kinds (BDB, 96–97). But more important still is the cumulative sequence of theological assertion. The point of these narratives, both singly and in compilation, is not animal husbandry and stylistic verisimilitude, but their declaration of the Is-ness of Yahweh.” - John I. Durham, vol. 3, Word Biblical Commentary : Exodus, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002), 122.
88 That כול/כל can mean “all sorts of” or the like is well known. E.g., it is usually translated either “all sorts of” or “all kinds of” in modern Eng. translations in the following sampling of contexts from early and late biblical Hebrew: Gen 4:22; 24:10; 40:17; Exod 35:22; Lev 19:23; Deut 6:11; 2 Kgs 8:9; 1 Chr 18:10; 22:15; 29:2; 2 Chr 2:14; 32:27–28; Neh 9:25; 13:15; 13:20; Ps 45:13; Prov 1:13; Eccl 2:5; Ezek 8:10; 27:22; 39:20; 47:12. The semantic range of nt Gk. πας is similar: more often than not it means “all,” but in a wide variety of contexts it means “all sorts of” or “all kinds of,” one of the most important being in 1 Tim 6:10, which does not say that the love of money is the root of all evil but the root of all sorts of evil. Plenty of evil has nothing to do with the love of money; but there are few evils that people will not resort to if the money for doing them is great enough.
89 So commonly in the Hb. expression “all Israel,” which in many contexts refers only to representatives (e.g., 1 Sam 12:1; 1 Kgs 18:19; 1 Chr 11:1; 15:3) or soldiers (Josh 8:24) or leaders from all segments of the nation (2 Chr 1:2) or the like, not literally to “every single Israelite.”
IB The Interpreter’s Bible, ed. G. A. Buttrick (12 vols.; Nashville: Abingdon, 1951-57)
BDB F. Brown, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs (eds.), Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford/New York: Clarendon/OUP, 1907; reprints with corrections, 1955; corrected ed., 1962)
