This Will Change How You See God…10 Biblical Proofs God CHANGES HIS MIND

[0:00] the smoke was still clearing from the golden calf incident the people of Israel had betrayed God while Moses was on the mountain with him and God's anger burned hot and he said let me be alone that I may consume them Moses stood between a justifiably Angry God and His sinful people and then something incredible happens after a short conversation with Moses god changes his mind it's plain as day in Exodus 32:14 and the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing upon on his people wait what God changed his mind if you grew up around the church like I did you were almost certainly taught that God knows everything that will ever happen maybe depending on your context you were taught that he predetermined all events and uh he certainly never changes his plans right but if you open your Bible

[0:49] and you turn to any page flip it open doesn't matter and you start reading if you read God's interactions in the pages of scripture it consistently portrays him as a being who genuinely responds to prayer who adapts his plans based on human choices and who enters into authentic relationship with us making different decisions based on emerging circumstances and so today in response to this comment from one of my viewers I'm sharing 10 revolutionary ideas from what theologians call open theism which is a view essentially espousing two key ideas and both of them reflect one Nuance of the meaning of the word open one that God is genuinely open to real relationship with his creation and all of its creatures right now and two that the future is in some sense open-ended

[1:37] whether it possesses actual unknowns or God knows all the possibilities is an open question among open vas but today we're actually going to look at 10 key ideas that are Central to that view of God and of reality that I think are of the most importance when it comes to how we understand what we think we're reading when we are opening up our Bibles I believe that the scriptures reveal a God who is far more relational responsive and personally engaged than many of us were taught and once you see the evidence it might completely transform your understanding of Prayer of suffering of freedom and of how you relate to god so let's dive in together now that we've set the stage a little bit let's dig into the biblical evidence for open theism because honestly this isn't really about philosophical preferences or what makes

[2:24] us comfortable in fact studying this more might make you uncomfortable it's about what the Bible actually teaches so the first key idea that leads to open theism it doesn't mean that this belief is only a part of open theism and it doesn't mean that other people don't affirm this but this is the approach that leads us to this inference and it's that we should read the Bible at face value rather than read through later philosophical Frameworks I'm not saying we don't do any interpretation clearly if it's intended to read poetically we interpret it poetically if it's intended to read hypothetically we read it hypothetically if it's intended to be read as a literal narrative of describing what transpired then we take it as a literal narrative describing what transpired but it doesn't take you long to really think about it and come to the conclusion that the Bible wasn't written by Greek philosophers it was written by Hebrew prophets by fishermen

[3:14] by tax collectors and by Kings who communicated in straightforward narrative language the experiences that they had with Yahweh the god of Israel so when they say that God said or God changed his mind or that God was grieved they meant exactly that the problem is that for thousands of years we've been trained to sort of filter these statements through Greek philosophical Concepts whether you would know to call them that or not things like Divine immutability or impassibility and the issue is that these are ideas that came centuries after the Bible was written we've been taught to say things like Well when the Bible says God repented it doesn't really mean that it just speaking in human terms but this approach undermines the reliability of the scriptures if every time the Bible says something about God that doesn't fit our philosophical framework and we simply

[4:02] allow ourselves to dismiss it as anthropomorphism or anthropopathism or just as an accommodation to our way of thinking more broadly then we're not actually letting God Define himself through his word because if you can explain it that way then why couldn't the spirit explain it that way if that's what the spirit actually meant we're imposing our preconceived notions onto the text rather than letting the text speak for itself rather the Hebrew way of doing theology so to speak was to gather concrete evidence of what Yahweh did in the world and then to draw conclusions about his character and his nature they built their understanding from the ground up from stories and from experiences not from abstract Concepts and ideas and consistently when they recorded those ideas on the pages of scripture those stories reveal a God who interacts and responds emotes and even

[4:51] adapts his plans to emerging circumstances so let's look at a few key passages that explicitly show God changing course and a good place to start is Genesis 66 in which God says that he's sorry or regretted that he had made man couldn't be any more clear the Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth and his heart was deeply troubled the Hebrew word here is or really it's that key part right here which literally means to be sorry or to change one's mind this isn't simply figurative language it's describing God's genuine emotional response to human wickedness then in Exodus 32 we find Moses interceding for Israel after the golden calf incident same story verse 14 so the Lord changed his mind or relented and did not bring on his people the disaster which he had

[5:38] threatened or promised again that's n God literally changed his declared intention in 1st Samuel 1511 God unilaterally says very very clearly I regret that I have made Saul King because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions Samuel was angry and he cried out to the Lord all night God experiences genuine regret over a past decision and outcomes that apparently he was not hoping for if we make our way into some of the prophetic literature I'll take you to Jonah 310 which says when God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways he relented and did not bring on them the destruction that he had threatened when God saw their deeds that they turned from their wicked way then God relented n concerning the Calamity which he had declared he would bring upon them and he did not do it now in my

[6:26] response series to Steve Greg and his disc about the open theist proof text I said that this verse or this passage wasn't really the best proof text for open theism this verse really is quite strong evidence it's maybe not proof it's explicable on other forms and other schemes but this is easily in the passage it's very difficult to interpret it any other way than what it says God turned from what he had planned to do and at the risk of borrowing another word from Steve Greg which I'm so excited about I'm I'm I'm actually having an opportunity to bring him onto the channel and talk to him as well which is going to be just one wonderful but at the risk of borrowing his word that it's a policy God lays out the policy for when why and how he turns from things he planed to do and he explains how this works here I'm actually going to go earlier into the passage this is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord go down to The

[7:14] Potter's House and there I will give you my message so I went down to The Potter's House and I saw him working at the wheel but the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands so the Potter formed it into another pot shaping it as seemed best to him then the word of the Lord came to me he said can I not do with you Israel as this Potter does declares the Lord like clay in the hand of the Potter so are you in my hand Israel and certainly at this point if we were to just hit pause and not keep reading a number of you would say see he does what he wants with the clay what right do we have to speak back certainly these would be Echoes of a calvinist sort of interpretation of Romans 9 but that's not where this passage ends he says if at any time I announce that a nation or a kingdom is to be uprooted torn down and destroyed and if that Nation I warn repents of its evil then I will relent and not inflict

[8:03] upon it the disaster that I had planned to and if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me then I will reconsider the good that I had intended to do for IT God's describing a policy that is what he will do in response to what others do the future can change course based on the outcomes of certain people's actions he's explicitly stating that his declarations about nations are conditional upon their behavior if at any time I announce that a nation is to be uprooted if that Nation I warned repents of its evil I will relent and not inflict on at the disaster IID planned these aren't isolated incidents or anomalies they represent a consistent pattern throughout scripture God genuinely responds to human actions he changes his declared intentions and he adapts his plans accordingly and I want you to notice something else that's

[8:51] crucial in many of these passages there's no indication whatsoever that the authors intended us to take these statements as mere figures of of speech the natural reading is really that God does change his mind in response to prayer and repentance so how on Earth did we get to the point where most Christians alive today believe God cannot change in any way and knows everything that will ever happen with absolute certainty I believe that the answer lies in the early Church's encounter with Greek philosophy this is the next major point when Christianity began spreading into the gor Roman World theologians naturally tried to explain the biblical God to their neighbors using using philosophical Concepts familiar to Their audience as an apologetic and Evangelistic strategy Greek philosophy particularly platonism valued qualities like immutability and impassibility and timelessness the

[9:41] perfect being in Greek thought was unchanging unaffected by emotions and existing outside of time and the created order these Concepts gradually became the lens through which scripture was interpreted even though this is not how the scriptures are written and it's not how they read naturally a central figure very much responsible for the proliferation of this kind of thinking hundreds of years after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus was Augustine he was heavily influenced by neoplan by way of his manakian philosophical background and he integrated these philosophical ideas into Christian theology ainus that is Thomas aquinus later systematized them and they became fundamental to what's called classical theism and soon the Biblical Portrait of a dynamic response of God was replaced by a more abstract conception of deity here's the problem the Hebrew Bible

[10:29] never never once describes god with terms even like omniscient or omnipotent or immutable in the philosophical sense Old Testament scholar Walter bugman notes these concepts are quite remote from Israel's primary utterance about God to quote him instead the Bible consistently portrays God as personal rather than abstract qualitative rather than quantitative and relational rather than static God has a name he grants it to us it's Yahweh he speaks in the first person he makes Covenant he experiences emotions he engages with humans in genuine relationship open theism simply argues that we should return to this Biblical Portrait of God rather than continuing to filter scripture through Greek philosophical categories that were foreign to the biblical authors and when we do this when we take the Bible's descriptions of

[11:15] God at face value we discover a God who is far more personal far more relational and genuinely interactive certainly more than classical theology could possibly allow and that's just not academically interesting it transforms how we approach prayer suffering and our daily walk with God so the first several of our 10 points about open theism are starting to come into view first we should read the Bible at face value not through Greek philosophical filters again interpreting according to genre but not imposing philosophical categories that are foreign to the text and constraining the meaning that the scriptures intended to put forward in the first place number two scripture consistently portrays God as changing his plans in response to Human Action we cited several texts there are dozens if not hundreds more three the biblical God

[12:04] is free creative and genuinely relational and number four God experiences real emotions that change in response to situations and those all belong to the biblical Foundation of open theism but now that we've established those biblical foundations let's explore what open theism actually affirms about God's nature and what he's like because despite what critics might claim open theism doesn't diminish God's greatness it actually reveals a god who is even more remarkable than the static deity of classical theology the first and perhaps most beautiful truth that open theism emphasizes is God's absolute freedom and inexhaustible creativity we alluded to this before but this is where we're really going to dive into this in classical theology God is often portrayed as locked into an immutable predetermined plan almost like a cosmic computer program running according to

[12:53] preset algorithms every event in history from the fall of a sparrow to the rise of Empires unfolds according to an unchangeable script written from Before Time beginning again whether you're a calvinist and believe that the whole script was written by God exhaustively deterministically or compatibilism or an arminian of some kind a simple forn knowledge proponent who simply believes that God knows the script ahead of time whether he wrote it or not and all of those different problematic issues you believe that the future was a single unchanging line of what will transpire and there's no variation but the Bible reveals a God who is endlessly creative free to initiate new events form new plans and respond freshly to each situation this God isn't constrained by a fixed blueprint of history but remains Dynamic and Innovative throughout his

[13:40] interactions with creation I want you to think about it which displays more power and wisdom a God who can only execute one predetermined plan or a God so resourceful and so wise that he can accomplish all of his purposes through countless possible paths adapting to human choices while still achieving his ultimate aims this Freedom extends to God's relational nature the god of scripture doesn't just issue commands from a distance he engages in genuine give and take relationships with human beings he makes covenants he listens to prayers responds to repentance and he even allows his decisions to be influenced by human appeals for example when Abraham negotiates with God over Sodom when Moses persuades god to spare Israel when Hezekiah prays and receives 15 more years of life these aren't just

[14:29] theatrical performances where God pretends to be influenced there are authentic exchanges that reveal God's deeply relational character as Theologian John Sanders puts it God is hopelessly personal relationship is at the very heart of who he is and genuine relationship requires genuine responsiveness not just one-sided dictation the next key aspect of God's nature that open theism highlights is his genuine emotional life again we alluded to this but this is what open theism reveals on the basis of interpreting and studying the scriptures very carefully on their own terms classical theology influenced by Greek philosophical Notions of divine impassibility usually portrays God as some emotionless or at least unchanging in his emotional state emotions especially in the Greek world were seen as weaknesses or imperfections that

[15:16] would compromise God's absolute perfection the Bible does not seem to share those convictions in fact it presents a radically different picture from Genesis to revelation God experiences a full range of emotions Joy grief anger compassion jealousy delight and even regret these aren't simply anthropomorphic facades for our benefit they're genuine expressions of God's heart we've already seen God is grieved when humans Rebel he rejoices over his people with singing as it says in Zephaniah 3:17 he feels jealousy when they turn to Idols look at Exodus 20 I think it's verse 5 he experiences compassion when they suffer go look at Psalm 103:13 in Hosea God expresses the anguish of a betrayed spous house in Jeremiah he weeps over his people's rebellion in the gospels Jesus the perfect image of God himself displays

[16:06] the full spectrum of human emotions from righteous anger to Tender compassion to genuine surprise even to profound grief these emotional responses are not weaknesses on the part of God they're expressions of God's profound love and commitment to relationship a God who cannot feel in our view would be less perfect not more perfect than the passionately loving God of scripture and these emotions aren't just static or performative or Transcendent in some way where people say often well God feels emotions but they're beyond what you and I could understand they're beyond what you and I could explain that's not the way the biblical record displays God he Grieves when we sin and he rejoices when we repent his anger turns to Mercy when we seek forgiveness this responsiveness doesn't compromise his character it

[16:53] reveals the depth of his personal involvement with us as human beings another key idea that open theism espouses very clearly is that we should allow the Bible to determine the definitions of our words again this is not limited to open theism it's simply that open theism takes this very seriously one can follow this same line of thinking and discover hm the word Soul on the pages of the Old Testament the first time it ever appears huh it's nephesh right but it's actually describing not the like immaterial part of me that lives on after I die it's describing the physical bodies of fish hm and then going and studying that out and seeing where the evidence leads open theism does the same thing with many of these ideas about God's relationality God's nature and the nature of the future an example is that open theism

[17:42] does not redefine Divine sovereignty around meticulous control of everything instead it uses the word the way that it's intended to be used critics will often claim open theists weaken God's sovereignty by suggesting tarious that not everything is predetermined but again if you examine the biblical record is God controlling every detail and is that really the highest expression of sovereignty open theists propose a more nuanced understanding God is Sovereign not because he micromanages every event down to the molecule but because he accomplishes his ultimate purposes while allowing genuine Freedom within creation he is still the ruler over all the ultimate Authority the one who sets the rules and the boundaries for his kingdom and how his creation will operate as well as the reward ws and punishments

[18:29] for those who obey and disobey those rules but he nevertheless seeds libertarian Free Will and decision-making ability to the creatures that he made in his own image and in this way they reflect his creativity even though it's been tainted and often we use our creativity for evil rather than for the good that God intended I want you to think of a master chess player who can achieve Victory regardless of which moves their opponent makes the Chessmaster doesn't control the opponent's choices and if he did or if he simply fornew them in list form he's going to do this then he's going to do this then he's going to do this that would actually be a diminishment of his skill and his ability no instead this master chess player is skilled enough to respond to any move and still reach his desired outcome of Victory now multiply that wisdom and adaptability by Infinity across all possible relationships and all possible sets of emergent

[19:17] circumstances and you're starting to get a glimpse of God's sovereignty and open theism God has the power to control everything if he wished but he has instead chosen to create a world with genuine freedom because relationship matters to him he's powerful enough to work with around and through free choices to ultimately accomplish his will this doesn't mean God is reactive in some sense of being caught off guard or forced to scramble for Plan B when the human beings misbehave rather God's infinite wisdom allows him to anticipate all possibilities and prepare for them now look part of me thinks this makes sense this part of the of the video I'm I'm very clear on what I'm saying here but God also does experience genuine surprise times things go in a way he wasn't anticipating but that is not to say that he doesn't have a contingency plan in place if the thing that he did

[20:05] not expect to happen happens God does not lose you will not defeat God in any real lasting way ever and even if an outcome goes a different way from what he thought and what he expected even pleasantly so like Jesus when he was met with the faith of the Centurion and he was astonished the word was astonished God has never taken out of commission and God's ultimate purposes for Humanity Redemption relationship and ultimate restoration will be accomplished no human choice no Divine choice of God's enemies can ultimately thwart God's designs but the path to those ends involves genuine human and other creaturely Freedom genuine Divine responsiveness and a genuine relationship that unfolds in real time this understanding of sovereignty actually magnifies God's greatness I I believe it's far more impressive for God

[20:53] to achieve his purposes while working with free agents than to Simply program every detail in advance it shows not just God's power but his wisdom his patience and his respect for the creatures he has made in His image another idea that is biblical that is levied here to explain the nature of reality is that we talk about time I did an entire interview to V two interviews actually one with Dr Ryan Mullins and one with Dr Alan Roa about the nature of time and what time is and how it doesn't make even make sense for us to use phrases like God is outside of time or inside of time or does God transcend time does not experience time the way that we do all of these questions get very substantive answers there but the nature of time is also very important to a discussion about open theism and so I'll just briefly state that usually open theists are what are called

[21:41] presentists or a theorists of time this means that all that exists is the present moment and that all that exists including God himself God God experiences the passage of time just like we do that doesn't mean it's a container that he's inside of container why are we using spatial Lang which to describe time anyway it's that if you were in some way to pause time and you took a snapshot of everything that exists in the universe as it is what you would see is a static moment this is a moment called the present and it is all that exists the past no longer exists the past is an accurate record of past presents that happened we can't go back to it even God can't go back to it God is not able to go back in time again if God has regrets and those things continue on why would he not go back and

[22:28] undo the thing that he had regretted the scriptures just never display him doing this so God is not able to go back in time to say that he has always existed is simply to say that there's never been a present moment in which God did not exist not that God has the ability somehow to transcend and move across time and all these things that's not the way that it goes again if you disagree with me I would love for you to put biblical evidence Bible verses that prove me wrong and then we can talk about them in discussion but in the same way that the past is an accurate record of past presents and you cannot access it anymore the present moment is all that exists the future is simply prognostication about what we anticipate happening in future present moments it is also not accessible we can't travel into the future there is no the future there is no unique actual future of what's going to transpire we're making

[23:16] prognostications of what we anticipate happening in future Moments When we arrive there now hopefully that sounds pretty common sensical to you but if you've ever had a conversation about time travel about SpaceTime as a single United concept you're leaving the realm of a theory 99% of all human beings who have ever existed have been a theorists and the B theorists who believe the other stuff or the growing block theorists and things like that they have a different worldview they believe that reality takes a different shape and I believe it's one that is going against the evidence and going against the intuition we have about what reality is like nevertheless that's what they believe but in any case what we've done is we've discussed sort of the biblical foundations of open theism we've described what it means about God's character and about the nature of reality that we exist in with God the

[24:05] nature that is of the reality that God created we've discussed that we should read the Bible at face value not through Greek philosophical filters that the scriptures consistently portray God as changing his plans in response to human actions and emergent circumstances that the biblical God is free creative and genuinely relational that God experiences real emotions that change in response to situations that Divine sovereignty means accomplishing his purposes while honoring creaturely freedom and now that time such as we understand it all that exists is the present moment the past and the future are inaccessible the future does not yet exist the past no longer exists it's simply an accurate record of what transpired in past present moments but this is where the rubber meets the road we're moving beyond simple biblical Theology and into the world of daily practice and action because ultimately

[24:52] what we believe about God's nature and the nature of reality shapes profoundly the ways in which we live our faith I found that embracing the biblical vision of an open responsive God transforms virtually every aspect of our spiritual lives and let's start with the most genuinely relational action we can take with God and that's prayer open theism revolutionizes our understanding of prayer let's be honest if you believe that everything is somehow predetermined or forn prayer becomes kind of puzzling why pray if God has already decided exactly what will happen the standard answer is something like well prayer changes us not God we're aligning our hearts with God's unchangeable will but again the only problem with that is the Bible that's not the way that the scriptures portray prayer throughout the

[25:39] scriptures people pray with the explicit expectation that their prayers might change God's courses of action when Moses prays after the golden Cal incident he's not simply aligning himself with God's predetermined will he's actively trying to persuade God to change his declared intention to destroy Israel and when Hezekiah receives a prophecy that he will die he turns to the wall and praise and God adds 15 years to his life when the ninevites repent in response to Jonah's prophecy God changes his mind about destroying their city and then in the New Testament it continues in James 516 we're told that the effective fervent prayer of a righteous person avails much it actually accomplishes something in the spiritual realm and in the physical world open theism simply takes these biblical

[26:27] patterns seriously it suggests that prayer is a genuine dialogue where we can influence God's actions not because God is weak or indecisive but because he's designed the world to incorporate and value our input he genuinely listens and responds because as we've said before relationship matters to him and what this does to your prayer life is that it transforms prayer from a one-sided monologue that doesn't accomplish anything because God is unchanged and maybe even could be said to be ignoring your requests and it changes into a dynamic convers ation with a being going through your experiences alongside you it means that we can pray with the confidence that our prayers really truly matter that God might respond differently because we prayed than he would have if we hadn't I've experienced this personally there have been times

[27:14] when I've prayed fervently for situations that seemed hopeless and I've witnessed dramatic unexpected changes that I believe were direct responses to my prayer not because I manipulated God he chose to incorporate my requests into his actions and just like Adam and Eve in the garden I was tasked with co-creating my sphere of influence with God I was given say so I was given some responsibility and what I do with that responsibility makes a difference in what transpires in my circle of influence the second transformative implication of open theism concerns how we Face life's uncertainties and sufferings I find that many people who are coming to open theism are coming out of a situation in which they have felt like it's very difficult to trust God emotionally in prayer they view God as

[28:02] distant they view him as someone who is unconcerned with their thoughts and their prayers and sort of distant in the sense that he's unknowable what's going to happen is going to happen it's it's not really stuff that we concern ourselves with it's not really something over which we have any say it's not really something over which we have any input at all and God if he hears our prayers he's really not doing much of anything about it or if he is you really have to do some mental gymnastics and try to like squirm around the fact that if God knows what's going to happen and you pray is it going to happen because God wanted it to happen and does your prayer actually do anything is your prayer just like per like God making something happen so that he can do what he was wanting to do all along open theism gets rid of all of that as it relates to prayer but some people still feel a distance between them and God because they're still wrestling with the

[28:50] belief that God causes all things to happen even the horrible things in life and that's where this next transformative aspect of daily life as a follower of Jesus really gets upended and transformed in a beautiful Way by open theism you see in deterministic theology everything that happens every tragedy every illness every Injustice must somehow be part of God's perfect and unchangable plan they'll say it's like a it's like a a painter a master painter needs to use dark colors as well as light in order to create a beautiful painting if it was all light it wouldn't be beautiful or God's an author and a good Storyteller knows you have to include some conflict in the story in order for it to be a good story but in reality this creates some serious theological problems did God specifically plan every instance of child abuse every genocide every natural

[29:39] disaster that claims innocent lives the beginning and end dates of all wars as well as every action that's taken in the midst of that war including who dies when and by whose hand and how and how painfully you could see why might be hard to believe that God is good and trustworthy if you think that he's writing all of that part of the plan how can you trust him if that's the kind of thing that he does to people who follow him or not it doesn't seem to care one way or the other if I'm being quite Frank open theism offers a very different perspective not everything that happens is God's perfect will some events result from Human free choice others from the operations of a world with natural laws others from the activity of spiritual forces opposed to God in fact that one in particular if you read the New Testament Jesus seems to say that this whole world is under the power of the prince of the power the

[30:28] air that this world belongs in some sense to him right now in this age I should should say because the word world means like created order in our minds we think of like the globe they mean this age everything that's transpiring in this age is under the influence of the evil one God created a World featuring genuine freedom and so these things were going to happen but he doesn't specifically design each tragedy instead he works continuously to bring good out of evil to bring healing out of suffering and to bring Redemption out of tragedy this should bring you tremendous hope in the face of uncertainty the future isn't a closed book of predetermined events many of them horrifying it's a realm of genuine possibilities and this means that situations that seem hopeless can genuinely change prayers can be answered healing can come relationships can be

[31:16] restored and you need to know that you're in a world at war there are forces organized forces of evil rallying themselves against God and against his purposes in the world and the gospel isn't just some easy comfortable message about you being personally forgiven for your sins and being given a get out of hell free car it's an invitation to abandon the kingdom of darkness for the kingdom of light in the midst of a war to betray evil and choose good and to fight for the other side and when suffering does come as happens in Wars we don't have to torture ourselves trying to discern God's specific purpose in causing it instead we can trust that while God didn't necessarily plan suffering he is present in it grieving with us and working to overcome and redeem it this aligns perfectly with the

[32:06] Biblical Portrait of God as a compassionate father who doesn't willingly bring Affliction but promises to work all things for good for those who love him as it says in Romans 8:28 not because he predetermined each tragedy but because he's infinitely resourceful in bringing good from even the worst of situations and finally open theism gives us a profound sense of purpose and responsibility as God's Partners if everything was predetermined our choices don't ultimately matter we're essentially acting out a script playing roles assigned to us from Before Time began this can lead to either a kind of a fatalistic thinking a sort of whatever we'll be we'll be or even anxiety what if I miss God's perfect will for my life somehow but if the future is partly open and shaped by our choices then what we do truly does matter our decisions our obedience our

[32:55] Ministries our witness to the world around us these things genuinely influence the unfolding of God's purposes in the world and this is exactly what we see in scripture God consistently invites humans to participate in his work again the list of examples is long and variegated but just to think of a few in Genesis humans are given dominion and called to cultivate the Earth alongside God as his Partners to take it all someplace beautiful in service to Jesus and we didn't lose that calling it got marred by the fall but we still as Jesus's own followers possess that calling to take take the world forward into Beauty alongside him as his Covenant Partners in Exodus Moses is recruited as God's partner in delivering Israel in the prophets God's message always invites human response that affects the outcome in the Great Commission Jesus entrusts

[33:42] the spread of the Gospel to his followers God could accomplish his purposes without us but he chooses to work through us not as puppets but as genuine partners and this means that our obedience or our Disobedience our faithfulness or unfaithfulness it genuinely affects what happens in the world there's actually a Tim Macky quote here that I just have to share I I've cited it here uh it's in chapter six of my book which is titled the overlap life chapter 6 is called renewed work I've shared this quote several times but it's appropriate here the Christian tradition has found it hard to maintain something that the biblical authors view as a Unity namely that when God's spirit is at work what it means is that humans are at work who are so in tune with God's will that it's a Marvel to behold what we tend to do is separate them and say that if God is at work it's at the

[34:30] expense of human involvement but that's never the way the spirit Works partnership that God grants his creatures with him does not diminish his sovereignty it Reveals His incredible humility and his desire for relationship with us the creator of the universe actually values our input and participation enough to partner with us in the spirit and to incorporate those things into his ongoing work of redemption and restoration and when we grab this our sense of purpose deepens immensely we're not just going through the motions of a predetermined plan we are actively contributing to the kingdom of our God and of his Christ Our evangelism our acts of justice and mercy our creative work our prayers our work our rest and our relationships as I break it up in my book all of these

[35:18] things genuinely matter in the cosmic story that God is writing alongside us and this motivates us to live with greater intentionality greater faithfulness and greater hope we become more attentive to the spirit's guidance more committed to obedience and more confident that our lives can make a real difference in God's ongoing work in the world it reinus our life with purpose again every second of it and that's very important to a life lived in full partnership with God we've covered 10 revolutionary ideas from open theism broadly that reshape our understanding of God and transform how we live our faith first in Broad categories we looked at the biblical data and why a certain hermeneutical and Theological approach that takes the Bible seriously leads to open theistic thinking and open

[36:06] theistic Concepts so we laid the biblical Foundation next we learned what this biblical Foundation displays about God when we go to discover what he's like from the pages of the word that he inspired by his spirit and we believe reveals him for who he really is and then we learned what it changes about our understanding of how to relate to that God so we laid IAL foundations revealing the way that God really truly is from his word and in so doing we discovered that we have a role to play in how we experience life and the way that we relate to the God who wants to relate to us those are the three broad categories of what open theism changes and to summarize these are the 10 we'll call it 11 with one bonus Point main undergirding ideas in open theism in order we believe that we should read the

[36:54] Bible at face value not through Greek philosophical filters number two we believe that scripture consistently portrays God as changing his plans in response to human actions number three the biblical God is free creative and genuinely relational four we believe that God experiences real emotions that change in response to situations and emerging circumstances number five we take biblical terms for their own meaning not redefining them using outside Concepts and definitions for example Divine sovereignty means accomplishing his purposes while honoring freedom as the ruler who can rule as he pleases number six prayer is a genuine dialogue that can influence God's actions number seven not everything that happens is God's perfect will number eight the future contains genuine possibilities not just

[37:42] predetermined events along with this I would say is Point N that the present is all that exists the past is an accurate record of past present moments and the future does not exist it's simply future prognostication about what we anticipate happening in future present moments number 10 our choices genuinely matter in shaping the unfolding of God's purposes in the world and number 11 God invites us into authentic partnership in his ongoing work through prayer through genuine relationality and through transforming the State of Affairs through our own choice and agency as God's Partners these are not just abstract theological Concepts these are honest to God lifechanging truths that can revolutionize your relationship with God and your entire approach to the Christian Life when we embrace the

[38:29] Biblical Portrait of an open responsive God prayer becomes more meaningful suffering becomes more comprehensible and our daily choices take on Cosmic significance in the midst of a war which we know God ultimately wins yet nevertheless we are invited to participate in it now casualties happen in war enemies behave in unconscionable ways and do things to their opposed ones that not that ought not be done and so we suffer in the crossfire but we don't have to wonder if God himself is the one sending the bullets in the midst of this war open theism allows us to discover a God who is far more personal far more engaged and far more relational than classical theology is capable of portraying and most importantly we recover the dynamic Living God of the Bible not an abstract philosophical concept Yahweh himself the god of

[39:18] Abraham Isaac and Jacob who enters into Covenant who listens to our prayers who Grieves over our sin who rejoices in our faithfulness and who is working tirelessly to bring about the Redemption and the restoration of all things in the end I know this perspective might challenge some of your existing theological Frameworks it certainly challenged mine when I was first learning to adopt it but I encourage you approach it with a open mind and most importantly with open scriptures go back to the biblical text and read it aresh let God Define himself through his word rather than through our own philosophical traditions that we've stacked on top of it in the thousands of years since the closing of the the biblical Academy if you found this video helpful you might enjoy my book you can get that at the overlap. lifebook you might enjoy joining my Facebook group it's the overlap. life/ fb-group it's a

[40:08] community of people where we're exploring what the bible really says about eternity and how to live in light of it and I'd love to have you join in this community of believers who are rethinking theological assumptions and discovering the true beauty of God's actual nature as revealed in his word and finally of course I'd love to hear your thoughts does this perspective on God's openness resonate with you has it challenged you has it helped resolve some theological tensions you've been wrestling with please share your experiences in the comments below and even challenge me if I've said something that you don't think is accurate to the biblical record I welcome that theology isn't just about getting our Concepts right it's about knowing god more deeply and truly and I believe that when we embrace the biblical vision of an open responsive relational God we discover a relationship that's far more vibrant far more authentic and far more transformative than we ever imagined possible as we pray to relate with and

[40:56] learn to trust Again The God Who reveals himself on the pages of scripture may God bless you as you seek to know him more fully and partner with him more Faithfully further up and further in