Hello,<\/p>\n
I hope you are doing well. I’m reaching out just to say thank you.<\/p>\n
I’ve been a born-again believer living in a Buddhist country for several years now, and I spend a lot of my time studying the Bible. Today was the third time I’ve gone through the Gospel of John, and when I reached John 6:65, I noticed something I had never seen in all these years.<\/p>\n
Everything I saw here pointed toward predestination, but deep in my heart, something didn’t feel right about it. I spent days searching for answers, going through my commentaries, reading online resources, trying to understand that verse. Yet nothing truly satisfied my heart. It felt like something was still missing.<\/p>\n
Finally, I stopped trying to figure it out on my own. I sat down and prayed, asking the Lord, “Please help me understand what You mean here.”<\/p>\n
About five minutes later (I’m not lying), I came across your Bible study on that very verse. I cannot fully explain it, but I was literally shaking while reading it. What may seem like a small thing to others meant so much to me, because for me, this question touches the very heart of the gospel, especially since I have many unbelieving family members whom I love and pray for every day.<\/p>\n
In that moment, I truly felt that the Lord led me to your teaching. I just want you to know that your work is not in vain. Even here, God is using it to help someone understand His Word more clearly.<\/p>\n
Thank you, thank you, and thank you.<\/p>\n\t
I’m glad that you are finding the studies useful.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Question: Hello, I hope you are doing well. I’m reaching out just to say thank you. I’ve been a born-again believer living in a Buddhist country for several years now, and I spend a lot of my time studying the Bible. Today was the third time I’ve gone through the Gospel of John, and when…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[127,562],"class_list":["post-94375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-about-this-site","tag-predestination"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8369,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-do-you-think-about-predestination-and-free-will\/","url_meta":{"origin":94375,"position":0},"title":"What do you think about predestination and free-will?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 4, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I am having a hard time with predestination. What I mean is, I see choice throughout the whole Bible; yet I see other stuff predetermined, such as certain events, kingdoms predicted to fall or the rebuilding of the temple. In Revelation there are people would not turn back to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":40106,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/doesnt-john-665-teach-predestination\/","url_meta":{"origin":94375,"position":1},"title":"Doesn’t John 6:65 teach predestination?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 5, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I am still struggling a bit with the topic of predestination and, at least from the NIV translation I am reading, John 6:65 seems to point toward predestination. What do you think it means? Answer: \"And He said, \"Therefore I have said to you that no one can come\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16789,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-god-exist-outside-of-time-and-sees-all-of-time-at-once\/","url_meta":{"origin":94375,"position":2},"title":"Does God exist outside of time and sees all of time at once?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 9, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: First, I wanted to thank you for the web site.\u00a0 I come here often whenever I find that I have a problem that needs addressing.\u00a0Anyway, on to my question. Lately, I've been wondering about something after something my preacher told me.\u00a0 He once told me that God is not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14518,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-gods-foreknowledge-only-apply-to-groups\/","url_meta":{"origin":94375,"position":3},"title":"Does God’s foreknowledge only apply to groups?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 31, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I just read your article on the subject of predestination and foreknowledge. I very well understood the difficulties and struggle of trying to explain subjects like these and wish to appreciate your efforts I just want you to look at Acts 13:48 and Ephesians 2:10. I will like to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":37783,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/calvinism-and-the-great-commission\/","url_meta":{"origin":94375,"position":4},"title":"Calvinism and the Great Commission","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 10, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"by Wayne Jackson John Calvin (1509-64) was a religious reformer and theologian. The basic premise of his theology was the absolute sovereignty (right to reign) of God, out of which evolved his misguided theory of \"predestination.\" The Swiss reformer believed that human \"free will\" was destroyed by man's \"original sin\";\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39328,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/calvinism-in-romans-9\/","url_meta":{"origin":94375,"position":5},"title":"Calvinism in Romans 9","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 12, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"by Matthew W. Bassford If there is any passage in the Bible that Calvinists love, it is Romans 9:6-24. Upon a casual reading, it seems to confirm the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. It talks at great length about God's mercy and God's choice being the deciding factors in human existence,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}