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Moral Action and God’s Providence (Acts 11:29-30)

July 29, 2018 Speaker: Bob DeWaay Series: Acts of the Apostles

Scripture: Acts 11:29-30

 The book of Acts shows God’s providence working to bring about His purposes. It also shows God’s revealed will and the fact that Christ’s apostles carried forward the spread of the gospel. This highlights the importance of understanding the doctrine of providence. Providence includes “all things,” including good and evil. God uses all things to accomplish His purpose. The fact that God uses the actions of evil people who have evil motives (such as those who rejected and crucified Christ) never exonerates those who do evil. We also discuss how God’s revealed, moral will sets the boundaries about what we can or cannot validly do without sin. But there are many parts of life that are within our liberty as Christians. In these areas we are free to make our choices as we see fit. We often mistakenly assume that when we make certain choices and the outcome is a favorable one, then that was providential but not if it turned out unfavorable. We read Romans 8:28-39 and show that Paul intends “all things” in this context to be literal. There is no “created thing” that can separate us from the love of God. We also discuss the uniqueness of Christ and the doctrine of God. This is in the context of 1Corinthians 8:5, 6 about the beliefs of the pagans in contrast to true Christian monotheism.

Class slides and handout are available under the Downloads tab.