Luke Geraty

The Spirit empowered Church for the sake of God's Mission

Towards the Mysterious Will and Use of God’s Providence

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God's Sovereignty & Human ChoiceA friend of mine was recently telling me about some discussions taking place in a small group that he leads. This summer his inquisitive small group participants have been asking questions related to how a good God could allow evil and suffering. The amazing thing is that my friend, Brian Cole, is a youth pastor! These questions are being asked by students living in the world of twerking, social media, and the iPad. Children, teenagers, and adults who follow Jesus will all face this issue, regardless of what church they are a part of or what denomination that church is affiliated with. It’s part of living in a fallen world. How can we believe God is good when 227,898 people die a day after Christmas in 2004’s deadly tsunami? How can we reconcile our belief in a loving God when there are upwards to 27 million human slaves? What do we say when we are faced with the reality of child sex trafficking? How is God sovereign over creation and human choice?

If we’re honest, theologians have offered a number of solutions to God’s sovereignty and the “problem” of evil. Before I make a proposal concerning how we should understand this antinomy, I want to remind our readers that Christians do not differ on this issue in the same way that we differ with atheists and agnostics. It is a common argument amongst skeptics to point to the existence of evil as one of the reasons to deny the existence of the good and loving God that Christians worship (cf. J. L. Mackie’s The Miracle of Theism). Able, Kenny, and myself all agree that God exists and that he is holy, good, and loving. We also all agree that God is sovereign. Therefore, what follows is simply how I reconcile what I read in Scripture in relation to the question, how is God sovereign over human choices, especially when people do stupid, evil acts?
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God’s Meticulous Sovereignty in Tornadoes

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When tornadoes, storms, floods, or other natural disasters and accidents happen, lots of questions get raised. John Piper, a man I greatly respect and have been blessed by, hasn’t been afraid to address the big questions that arise when they happen. In 2009 a tornado struck downtown Minneapolis and Piper addressed it. When the recent tornadoes went through the Midwest, again, Piper addressed it.

Theologically speaking, I agree with Piper’s assessment of God’s sovereignty over these issues. I simply take issue with how Piper discusses this subject as I don’t find his methods as helpful as others do. And of course, I’m not alone in being critical of his point, though that’s not the point of this post. [Read more…]

Does God Meet Your Standards?

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“The trouble is that, nowadays, there are so many who receive the testimony of God only so far as they can satisfactorily account for all the reasons and grounds of His conduct, which means they will accept nothing but that which can be measured in the petty scales of their own limited capacities.” – A.W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God, 81

Does God meet your standards? I mean, each of us possess some deeply developed presuppositions and opinions on what God can and can’t do. I’m not speaking directly in relation to the sovereignty of God here, though that discussion can and should certainly take place. I’m speaking in general terms here. Does God meet your standards that you have set for Him?

The quickest way for me to get to my point is directly in relation to the subject of healing. I know many, many, many Godly people who would tell us that God has absolutely nothing to do with sickness and that it is always God’s will that people are healthy and prospering under His provisional blessings. And I’m not just thinking of the Word of Faith type of Christians. I’m talking about many solid Evangelical Christians who happen to lean more into the Charismatic stream of the faith. But these folks have solid Evangelical theology in just about every area that one can think of. Yet they are absolutely sure that God cannot and does not have anything to do with sickness or disease. In fact, these folks often come across in a way that leads me to believe that God actually takes vacations or that the universe is ruled in some sort of quasi-duelistic fashion. Of course, they don’t really believe these statements, but the consequences of some of their beliefs demand answers.
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God’s Sovereignty: “means” to an “end”

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As citizens of the United States of America, we have the opportunity to vote for the person(s) we believe to be best to lead our nation in the office of President (and vice-President and other offices). I’m convinced that the majority of Christians may underestimate the gravity of this God given cheap jerseys privilege. Yet, I rest in the fact that cheap mlb jerseys the person who becomes the President of our nation will be the person selected by God (cf. Rom. 13:1).

I believe that we need to strongly defend and uphold the sovereignty of God, especially in light of how often it is attacked and undermined. Along with Justin Taylor,

“I am a passionate proponent of God’s absolute sovereignty over all things. And surely politics is included in “all things.” God removes kings; God sets up kings (Dan. 2:21). God does all that he pleases (Ps. 115:3), and he “works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11). Even though a king (or a president) appears to be the most powerful person in the land, “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will” (Prov. 21:1). Amen and amen.”

Plain and simple: God is sovereign over all things – period. And yet, as a Pastor, I recognize that many people have difficulty balancing the sovereignty of God along with human responsibility, specifically what we are supposed to do. It appears that many other pastors have been sensing the same “problem” and have been addressing it on various blogs across the web (there are just too many to name!).
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