So most of us know that throughout scripture God promised things to individuals, people groups and humanity as a whole. Some people believe the promises in scripture can be applied to our lives as believers today, some think they were for a specific season. Most of the time I think promises from scripture are taken out of context (ie Jer 29:11). But even that's not really the kind of promises I'm talking about. I'm talking about specific "Abe & Sarah...you're gonna have a kid" promises. "Israelites...you get a promised land." "Humanity...salvation is yours".
The important thing to note about promises, is that they are God initiated. God sets a promise into motion by communicating it to humanity. It is not attached to conditions, it is just his goodness being made manifest into our reality. With the promise of Issac, Abe & Sarah didn't have to "be really good" or "have great quiet times" or anything like that. They just had to do what was natural for married people to do. They, like most humans, felt like they were responsible to figure something out to get this promise to happen, and so they went and "hooked up" with Hagar and bore Ishmael. Because it wasn't there responsibility, they made a big mess of the whole situation. Issac came, in God's perfect timing.
Really, the only thing that we can do when it comes to promises of God is refuse them. The Israelites refused to go into the Promised Land when it came to them. So they spent another 40 years in the wilderness. Since the time of Christ's death, people have had the ability to accept the promise of salvation or reject it.
So here's my question(s):
1) How do you know which promises from scripture can be taken and applied to our lives today?
2) Does God still promise things to people today, and how do we know it?
3) Are His promises today vague concepts like peace and joy or are they specific like marriage and babies? There is a precedent for God promising babies in scripture...did He ever promise marriage?
4) Are prophetic words considered promises? Within that there is a tension between the soverignty of God and the fallen-ness of Man.
5) Are promises linked to covenant in the scripture? Or a result of covenant? Issac...covenant of marriage. Promised Land...Abrahamic Covenant. Salvation...New Covenant.
6) How does the answer to 5 impact the answer to 3 and 2?
As a qualifier to these questions, I have to say that I am talking about straight up God promises...not heart's desires, not rewards for good behavior, not good gifts from the Father. We'll talk about those soon enough.
1 comment:
I was right. In Deut 31 and Josh 1, God promises the Israelites that He will never leave them nor forsake them as they go into the promised land. Another covenant promise.
Interestingly enough, in Hebrews 13:5, when talking about money, Paul quotes the promise from the Deut/Joshua saying "free yourselves from the love of money and be content with what you have because God will never leave you nor forsake you." Very interesting.
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