i wasn't there, but those of you who know me know that's one of my things. (going back ten-ish years or so, when my family started attending a reformed church.) and since the small group benjamin and i attend takes sunday's sermon as its topic, we discussed predestination tonight.
i was dreading the experience, to be honest. i've spent a lot of time with predestination--thinking and discussing and debating. i once wrote an enormous paper dissecting predestination and arminianism. followed to their respective logical conclusions, both (opposing) viewpoints end in very uncomfortable places, and i always end up crawling desperately back to romans 9:
You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory....anyway, the discussion concluded far less painfully than i'd anticipated (with the exception of one episode involving a gentleman who completely misunderstood one of my comments and now thinks i'm wallowing in disbelief and doubt), coming to the only conclusion you can really have: we can't fully understand. period. we can theorize and extrapolate and stress, but we won't find a definitive answer. salvation is a mystery; we have to accept the mystery, believe the gospel, and get on with the work of the kingdom.
(i also remembered something really cool about limited atonement, but that's a discussion ill-suited to a blog.)