God Is Not the Author of Confusion

 One verse keeps returning to my mind whenever discussions about election, appointment, or salvation order become tangled:

“For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace.”
(1 Corinthians 14:33)

Paul says this in a practical context, but the statement reveals something deeper about God Himself. God does not operate through disorder, contradiction, or hidden chaos. His work—whether in creation, revelation, or salvation—has coherence.

That matters when we read difficult passages.

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Ordinance, Appointment, and Order

Psalm 119:91 says of creation:

“They continue this day according to thine ordinances: for all are thy servants.”

Creation stands because God set it in order. The universe is not random; it is governed. Seasons repeat, cause and effect hold, and life functions within a framework God established.

That same idea helps when reading Acts 13:48:

“As many as were appointed to eternal life believed.”

Some older translations use language closer to ordained or set in order. Newer translations often choose appointed or designated. The word choice can sound heavy to modern ears, but the underlying idea is consistent with Scripture: God works according to order.

This does not mean God forces belief. It means belief occurs within the framework God has established—just as life exists within the framework of creation.

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Salvation Has an Order

Ephesians 2:8 gives us a simple sequence:

• grace

• faith

• salvation

Grace precedes.
Faith responds.
Salvation follows.

That is not confusion. That is order.

If salvation were arbitrary, incoherent, or internally contradictory, Scripture would reflect that. Instead, Scripture repeatedly explains, reasons, persuades, warns, and invites.

Paul can say:

• “Faith comes by hearing”

• “We persuade men”

• “Be reconciled to God”

Those appeals only make sense if God’s way of saving is intelligible.

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Translation and Tone

Sometimes newer translations sound like a parent saying, “We’ll see.”
Not wrong—but vague enough to plant uncertainty.

Older language often leaned toward ordinance and order because those words emphasized stability. Not unpredictability. Not confusion.

The 1611 translators were not inventing theology; they were using the vocabulary of their time to express an orderly God working through an orderly plan.

Later spelling updates didn’t change that foundation.

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Creation as the Illustration

If someone struggles with words like ordained or appointed, creation is a helpful place to start.

God did not micromanage every leaf falling, yet He ordained the system.
God does not force faith, yet He ordained the way salvation works.

Different realm.
Same God.
Same consistency.

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A Final Thought

If God is not the author of confusion, then whatever we believe about salvation must:

• be coherent

• be consistent with the gospel call

• align with the character of God revealed in Scripture

Let Scripture interpret Scripture.
Let order explain order.
And let God remain who He says He is.

Calvinism, Arminianism, and Dispensationalism — A Quick Guide (with my two cents)

 If you’ve ever tried to wrap your head around God’s sovereignty, human choice, and prophecy, you’ve probably stumbled across Calvinism, Arminianism, and Dispensationalism. They each have their strengths… and yes, a few quirks that make you sweat a little.

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1. Calvinism and Hyper-Calvinism

In a nutshell: God is in ultimate control. Like, everything.

Core Beliefs:

• God chooses who will be saved — predestination is a big deal here.

• Jesus’ death saves the elect — not everyone automatically.

• Once saved, you’re saved. No take-backs.

• God orchestrates events, but humans still have “secondary responsibility” (whatever that means in practice).

Pros:

• Super comforting if you like knowing God’s plan cannot fail.

• Your salvation is secure — no worries about a “slip-up” derailing the plan.

• Explains why God’s plans always succeed, despite our screw-ups.

Cons / Things to sweat over:

• Can feel like you’re watching a cosmic puppet show — are humans really free?

• Hard to reconcile some Bible verses about choice and responsibility.

Hyper-Calvinism (for context):

• Pushes Calvinism to the extreme.

• Suggests God actively controls every action, leaving almost no room for choice.

• Feels a bit like being a pawn in a cosmic chess game — not my cup of tea.

• My questions: how do you know that you are one of the elect? What if you're not and you just think you are sense it's not your choice? That could be sweating time.

• Did God made me do bad and blame me for it?

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2. Arminianism

In a nutshell: Your choices actually matter. Yep — sweat a little here. 😅

Core Beliefs:

• God offers grace to everyone — you get to say yes or no.

• Salvation can be lost if you turn your back or persist in sin (conditional security).

• God foreknows what you’ll choose, but He doesn’t predetermine it.

Pros:

• Makes human choice and responsibility real.

• Faith and obedience actually count.

• Feels very personal — God sees your yes or no.

Cons / Things to sweat over:

• Can create anxiety: “Wait, what if I mess this up?”

• Might underplay God’s ultimate control of history.

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3. Dispensationalism

In a nutshell: God runs different “programs” for humanity at different times. Think of it like divine seasons or phases.

Core Beliefs:

• Scripture must be rightly divided — promises apply differently depending on the dispensation.

• Church Age is separate from Israel’s covenantal promises.

• Humans are responsible for their choices; God foreknows, but doesn’t force.

• Prophecy often focuses on Israel, not necessarily the Church.

Pros:

• Provides a framework for understanding God’s plan across history.

• Makes sense of who warnings and promises apply to.

• Keeps human responsibility real while honoring God’s omniscience.

Cons / Things to sweat over:

• Can get technical — you might feel like you need a theology degree.

• Easy to over-divide Scripture if you’re not careful.

System	God’s Sovereignty	Human Free Will	Security of Salvation	Focus
Calvinism	Very high	Limited	Eternal for the elect	God’s ultimate control
Arminianism	Moderate	High — you decide	Conditional — can be lost	Human responsibility
Dispensationalism	High — sees choices	High	Varied — age-dependent

Bottom Line

• Calvinism: God’s control is everything — sit back and relax (mostly).

• Arminianism: Your choice matters — so maybe sweat a little.

• Dispensationalism: God runs different programs; your choices still matter, but prophecy and Israel add layers of complexity.

All three attempt to wrestle with foreknowledge, human choice, and prophecy. No one system solves every tension, but understanding the differences helps you navigate Scripture thoughtfully — and maybe enjoy the mental workout. 💪

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If you like, I can also make a super-short “quick-read” version with punchy bullet points and examples — perfect for social media or sidebar posts — keeping your personality in it.

Seven Men Who Rule the World From the Grave — Episode 7: Michel Foucault

 

If Dewey trained culture to live without fixed truth, Michel Foucault trained it to distrust the very idea that truth ever existed.

With Foucault, the progression reaches its logical conclusion. Truth is no longer something to be discovered, reinterpreted, or applied — it is something to be suspected. Claims of truth are not evaluated for accuracy, but interrogated for motive.

Knowledge as Power

Foucault argued that what societies call “truth” is inseparable from power. Knowledge does not stand above institutions, language, or culture — it is produced by them. Every claim to truth serves someone’s interests.

In this framework, truth does not liberate. It controls.

The task, then, is not to believe, but to unmask. Not to understand, but to deconstruct. Suspicion becomes a virtue, and certainty becomes a threat.

Language Dissolves Meaning

Foucault placed enormous weight on language. Words do not convey stable meaning; they shape and constrain thought. To control language is to control reality.

Once this assumption takes hold, communication itself becomes adversarial. Statements are no longer heard — they are analyzed. Intent matters more than content. Authority is always guilty until proven innocent.

Why Foucault Still Rules

Foucault rules from the grave whenever disagreement is framed as harm, conviction as violence, and clarity as domination. He rules wherever institutions are assumed corrupt by definition and moral claims are treated as masks for power.

You don’t have to read Foucault to think this way. His influence lives in cultural instincts — in the reflex to critique rather than understand.

Scripture Under Suspicion

The Bible cannot survive in a Foucauldian framework as Scripture. Its claims to truth and authority immediately place it under suspicion. It is no longer read to be understood, but examined to be exposed.

When Scripture speaks clearly, it is accused of oppression. When it refuses revision, it is labeled dangerous. The problem is not the text — but the framework brought to it.

The End of the Drift

At this point in the progression, nothing remains solid. Truth is power. Meaning is unstable. Authority is suspect. What began as reinterpretation ends in dissolution.

And yet, this was not planned.

These men did not work together. They lived in different times, different cultures, and addressed different questions. Still, their ideas form a coherent drift — not because of coordination, but because they shared a direction.

When revelation is set aside, something else must take its place. And what replaces it will inevitably reflect human authority, not divine truth.

A Final Word

This series has not been about demonizing thinkers or denying complexity. It has been about recognizing frameworks.

When the Bible refuses to cooperate with these frameworks, it is often blamed — footnoted into doubt, softened into suggestion, or dismissed as a relic. But Scripture does not exist to be managed. It exists to speak.

“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword…” — Hebrews 4:12

The question, in the end, is not whether these men still rule from the grave.

It is whether we will allow Scripture to rule the living.

It’s done.

Why Jesus Came — and Why It Matters

 

Over the course of this short series, we’ve let Scripture answer a simple question:

Why did Jesus come to earth?

The answer, when taken straight from the text, is both larger and steadier than many of us were taught.

Jesus came:

• Unto His own — not abstractly, but covenantally

• As a minister of the circumcision — to confirm promises already spoken

• Under the law — not above it

• To be rejected — not by accident, but according to Scripture

• So that grace might reach the nations — by mercy, not entitlement

None of this diminishes personal salvation.
It explains why it is secure.

From Me-Centered to God-Centered

When Jesus’ mission is reduced to “He came to save me,” faith can quietly become fragile. It rests on experience, emotion, or modern explanation.

But when Jesus is seen within the full biblical framework — promise, covenant, fulfillment, rejection, mystery, grace — salvation rests on something far sturdier:

The faithfulness of God.

Grace is no longer a floating concept.
It is anchored to promises kept.

A Gospel with a History

The New Testament does not begin a new story — it finishes an old one.

The gospel preached to the Gentiles flows from:

• Abraham’s promise

• David’s throne

• Israel’s Messiah

• and a rejection foretold by the prophets

That means our place in Christ is not accidental, secondary, or insecure. We are brought near because God first proved Himself true.

“For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God.”
— 2 Corinthians 1:20

Why This Perspective Matters Today

Seeing why Jesus came:

• guards us from shallow theology

• keeps grace from becoming entitlement

• preserves God’s character as faithful and unchanging

• and helps us read Scripture as one unified story

Most importantly, it moves our focus:
from what Christ does for me
to who God has shown Himself to be.

And that shift doesn’t weaken faith — it deepens it.

A Final Thought

If this series has done anything, let it simply slow us down.

Slow us down enough to let Scripture speak plainly.
Slow us down enough to see the gospel as something inherited, not invented.
Slow us down enough to worship a God who keeps His word — even when doing so costs Him His Son.

Jesus did come to save sinners.

But He came first to keep a promise.

And because He did, grace has reached even us.

Why Jesus Came (Part 3): From Promise to Grace

By the time we reach Paul’s later letters, a question naturally presses in:

If Jesus came to Israel,
if He confirmed the promises to the fathers,
and if much of Israel did not receive Him —
where does that leave the rest of the world?

Paul does not answer this emotionally. He answers it theologically.

Rejection Was Not the End — It Was the Turning Point

In Romans 11, Paul addresses Israel’s unbelief directly and carefully:

“I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid.”
— Romans 11:1

The rejection of the Messiah by many in Israel was not proof of failure. Nor was it grounds for replacement. Paul presents it as a temporary condition with a redemptive purpose.

“Through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.”
— Romans 11:11

This is a staggering claim. Israel’s stumbling becomes the occasion for Gentile salvation — not because God abandoned His promises, but because He used rejection to reveal something previously hidden.

Paul calls this a mystery.

A Mystery, Not a Revision

A mystery in Scripture is not something unknowable — it is something once hidden and later revealed.

Paul explains it this way:

“That blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.”
— Romans 11:25

The blindness is partial.
The hardening is temporary.
The promises remain intact.

Gentiles are not brought in because Israel failed — they are brought in because God remained faithful even in the face of rejection.

Brought Near — Not Brought Around

Paul explains the Gentile position most clearly in Ephesians:

“Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh…
That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.”
— Ephesians 2:11–12

This is not poetic exaggeration. It is legal language. Gentiles had no covenant standing.

But then comes the turning phrase:

“But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.”
— Ephesians 2:13

Gentiles are not given a separate Messiah.
They are not granted a parallel covenant.
They are brought near — to promises already confirmed, through a Messiah already rejected, by grace already prepared.

Why This Matters

When Jesus is reduced to a purely personal Savior disconnected from covenant history, grace becomes fragile — dependent on sentiment rather than promise.

But when Jesus is seen as:

• Israel’s Messiah

• the confirmer of the fathers’ promises

• rejected according to Scripture

• and revealed again through a mystery

then grace stands on something solid.

Gentile salvation is not an interruption in God’s plan.
It is the overflow of promises kept.

And that means our faith does not rest on novelty, emotion, or modern interpretation — it rests on a God who keeps His word even when His people stumble.

The Full Answer

Why did Jesus come?

• To Israel — to fulfill covenant truth

• To confirm the promises — so God would be proven faithful

• To be rejected — so a mystery could be revealed

• To save the nations — by grace, not entitlement

Personal salvation is real.
But it is not isolated.

It is the fruit of a much older tree.

Why Jesus Came (Part 2): “A Minister of the Circumcision”

 If the Gospels tell us who Jesus came to, the apostle Paul tells us why that mattered.

Paul’s explanation is brief, precise, and often overlooked:

“Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers.”
— Romans 15:8

This is not a passing comment. It is a theological anchor.

Paul does not describe Jesus’ earthly ministry as abstract or symbolic. He defines it as covenantal. Jesus served the circumcision — Israel — for a specific purpose: to confirm the promises God had already made.

That word confirm is crucial. It assumes something already spoken, already sworn, already expected.

God was not starting over.

Born Into Obligation, Not Exemption

Paul reinforces this idea elsewhere:

“But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.”
— Galatians 4:4

Jesus did not appear above the law — He was born under it.
He did not sidestep Israel’s covenant — He entered it fully.

Every promise made to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and the prophets stood either to be fulfilled or exposed as false. Jesus’ mission was not merely to save individuals, but to vindicate the faithfulness of God Himself.

Paul ties this directly to Israel’s unique calling:

“Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;
Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came…”
— Romans 9:4–5

Christ did not float into history — He came from Israel, to Israel, and for the truth of God.

Why This Matters for Everyone Else

This raises an important question:
If Jesus came first as a minister of the circumcision, where do Gentiles fit?

Paul answers that too — carefully and in order.

Immediately after Romans 15:8, Paul continues:

“And that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy…”
— Romans 15:9

Notice the sequence:

• Truth confirmed to Israel

• Mercy extended to the nations

Gentile salvation is not presented as a replacement for Israel’s promises, nor as a separate plan running alongside them. It flows from promises kept, not promises abandoned.

This distinction preserves God’s character.

If God had ignored His covenant obligations to Israel in order to save the world, He would have proven Himself unfaithful. Instead, Paul insists that God did the opposite: He kept His Word first, so that mercy could later reach farther than anyone expected.

A Larger Gospel, Not a Smaller One

Seeing Jesus primarily as a covenant-confirming Messiah does not shrink the gospel — it anchors it.

It explains why:

• The gospel is “to the Jew first”

• Rejection precedes revelation

• Grace arrives as mercy, not entitlement, but for the uncircumcised a benefit as implied in  Romans 11:11 I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy. That is the Jews.

• Faith rests on promises already proven trustworthy

Personal salvation remains true — but it is no longer isolated. It is part of a story that began long before us and reaches far beyond us.

In the next post, we’ll look at how this confirmed mission to Israel becomes the very doorway through which Gentiles are brought near — not by bypassing Israel, but through Christ’s rejection and the mystery that followed.

That’s where grace enters the story in its fullest sense.

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"Hearing The Silence: A Critical Look at God's Silence and Claims of Divine Communication"

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Why Jesus Came (Part 1): “He Came Unto His Own”

✍️ Draft — Post #1

Why Jesus Came (Part 1): “He Came Unto His Own”

Most Christians, if asked why Jesus came to earth, would answer without hesitation:
“To be my Savior.”

That statement is true — gloriously true — but it may not be complete.

Before Jesus ever died for the sins of the world, before the gospel went out to the nations, and before Gentiles were brought near by grace, Scripture tells us something very specific about who He came to first.

“He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.”
— John 1:11

John’s words are simple, but they are often read too quickly. Jesus did not arrive as a generic spiritual figure or a timeless symbol of love. He came to a people, within a covenant, under a law, and according to promises already spoken.

This is not a minor detail.

When Jesus sent out the twelve during His earthly ministry, His instructions were unmistakable:

“Go not into the way of the Gentiles… but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
— Matthew 10:5–6

Later, when approached by a Gentile woman seeking help, Jesus said plainly:

“I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
— Matthew 15:24

These statements can feel uncomfortable if we’ve been taught that Jesus’ mission was primarily universal from the start. Yet the discomfort comes not from the text, but from our assumptions.

The Gospels present Jesus as Israel’s Messiah — the promised Son of David, born into the law, walking among His own people, calling them to repentance, and keeping the promises foretold by the prophets.

This does not diminish salvation by grace.
It explains its origin.

If Jesus had not come to Israel as their Messiah, there would be no confirmed promises, no fulfilled covenants, and no foundation upon which the gospel could later go out to the nations.

The tragedy of John 1:11 is not merely rejection — it is missed recognition. Israel’s Messiah stood in their midst, fulfilling Scripture, yet largely unreceived.

But Scripture does not end there.

That rejection becomes the turning point through which God reveals something previously hidden — a mystery that would later be made known through the apostle Paul.

Before we can understand salvation for the world, we must first understand why Jesus came to Israel.

That is where the story begins.

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting this  blog.

"Hearing The Silence: A Critical Look at God's Silence and Claims of Divine Communication"