Hello friends,

I just found this on the internet, and find it quite funny. Enjoy.

Billy Talks to His Pastor about God
John Pedersen

from The Trinity Review, July 1997

Billy: “Pastor, does God love everybody?”

Pastor: “Yes, Billy” (smiles, pats him on the head).

Billy: “How come it says in Romans 9 that he hated Esau?”

Pastor: “Been reading your Bible, huh, Billy?” (still smiles). “Well, the Bible also says that God hates, but that only is talking about God’s secret decree, and as far as we are concerned, he loves everybody.”

Billy: “Pastor?”

Pastor: “Yes, Billy.”

Billy: “If God tells us about his secret decree, is it still a secret?”

Pastor: “Er, well, I guess . . . not, Billy, but I meant that we should realize that there is a way the Bible talks about God’s love for everybody, and that’s what we should think about, not the one or two places where it says God hates.”

Billy: “Oh. How is it that God loves everybody?”

Pastor: “Well, he gives everybody rain and sunshine, and he blesses the people of the Earth with a conscience so they know right from wrong, and he has given them many gifts which they use to make the world a better and safer place to live.”

Billy: “Then he sends most of them to Hell?”

Pastor: “Yes, Billy.”

Billy: “Pastor?”

Pastor: “Yes, Billy.”

Billy: “Is it love for God to give people good things for a few years to make them feel comfortable and worthwhile, and then send them to Hell?”

Pastor: “Well, I . . . yes, it . . . is, I think because it would have been worse if, I mean it would be, um, well, it is, I guess, because he did not send them directly to Hell, but he allowed them to experience his goodness and his provision for his creatures. . . .”

Billy: “Is it love to let someone experience something good they will remember forever and always hate God for, because that good thing they loved more than forgiveness?”

Pastor: “Could we change the subject, Billy? I am not sure my answers are satisfying you.”

Billy: “O.K., Pastor. Did Jesus die for everybody?”

Pastor: “Why, sure, Billy.”

Billy: “Pastor?”

Pastor: “Yes, Billy.”

Billy: “If Jesus died for everybody, why isn’t everybody going to Heaven?”

Pastor: “Well, Billy, it’s because not everybody will accept him.”

Billy: “But, Pastor, I thought Jesus saved us. You are telling me that we save Jesus.”

Pastor (laughing nervously): “Of course not, Billy! I believe that Jesus saves us completely! However would you get the idea that I believed we save Jesus?”

Billy: “Well, Pastor, you told me that Jesus died for everybody, and that only those who accept him will be saved. So, this means Jesus’ death and resurrection, what Jesus does, cannot save us of itself, but something more is needed, and that something more is what we do by accepting him. For those who do not accept Jesus, they will perish. That means that Jesus’ dying for them cannot help them. In fact, it means that Jesus’ work for them was a miserable failure. On the other hand, those who accept him make his work effective by their acceptance—they save his work from being a failure. Without us, Jesus and his work of salvation would be doomed! If Jesus cannot save us without the permission we give of our own free will, then we are the real saviors, and Jesus is the one we save! Wow! What would he ever do without us?!”

Pastor: “Er . . . uh . . . that’s not what I mean. I mean if, it is , I said . . . no, I believe Jesus is the one who does the saving, Billy, it’s just that . . . God has made it so that we . . . are free to acc . . . meaning, we are, are . . . Billy, the Bible is mysterious. It seems to mean certain things, but it doesn’t really, like it says . . . you are using logic, Billy. The Bible is not logical and the truths are not something we can fit into our human minds.”

Billy: “Pastor?”

Pastor (now showing a slight frown): “Yes, Billy.”

Billy: “When you say the Bible is not logical, does that mean the Bible does not make sense? ‘Cause you made sense when you said the Bible wasn’t logical. I think it was because you used logic that you made sense.”

Pastor (now glowering at Billy): “No, Billy, I didn’t mean the Bible does not make sense. It does make sense, but just not our kind of sense.”

Billy: “Pastor?”

Pastor: “Yes, Billy.”

Billy: “Why would God give a Bible to us that did not make our kind of sense?”

Pastor: “Well, Billy, it’s not that . . . I think it’s . . . it makes sense, just does not give us the answers we like to hear, and says things that seem contradictory but really are not, to keep us from asking smart-aleck questions.”

Billy: “So, God doesn’t make our kind of sense to keep us humble?”

Pastor: “That’s right, Billy. God wants to keep us humble, so he does not let us think we can be absolutely certain about the things some proud people are certain about.”

Billy: “Pastor?”

Pastor: “Yes, Billy.”

Billy: “Are you certain about what you just said to me?”

Pastor (showing obvious irritation): “What do you think, Billy?”

Billy: “I think you just called yourself a proud person, but I don’t know why, ‘cause you are so smart and know so much about God, and how much he needs us.”

Pastor: “Billy, why don’t you go out and play, like the other children?”

Billy: “Why should I go out and play, when I can stay in here with you and learn how to save God?”

Pastor: “You need to be careful, Billy. I never said we save God. You are the one who said that, remember. I simply believe our choices are significant, and God does not treat us like robots. He created us to have true human responsibility.”

Billy: “Pastor?”

Pastor (now looking quite angry): “This will have to be the last question, young man! I have important things to do and you should be outside playing.”

Billy: “When God put Abraham to sleep, was he telling him what he thought of his ‘human responsibility’?”

Pastor (seething): “I have a bad headache, Billy, and I can’t answer any more of your questions, but I can tell you this. Whoever has been teaching you has been telling you things a boy your age should not even be thinking about. It sounds like you have been learning some kind of hyper-Calvinism! You better be careful, young man!”

Billy: “I don’t know about hyper-Calintisim, but I have been reading these things in the Bible. Thanks for straightening me out. I will try to cut these bad parts out. Can I borrow some scissors?”

Pastor (rising from his chair): “Get out of here, you, you, you . . . !”

Billy: “That’s O.K., Pastor. I’ll ask Joey. He was using some good scissors when we were cutting out our ‘friends with Jesus’ pictures for Sunday school. Good-bye.”

http://www.lgmarshall.org/Apologetics/pedersen_billypastor.html

Billy: “When God put Abraham to sleep, was he telling him what he thought of his ‘human responsibility’?”

Billy is talking about the making of the covenant with Abraham, an event in which Abraham was put to sleep,

And he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half.  And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him.  Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years.  But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age.  And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.” (Genesis 15:7-20)

That ritual has a high significance regarding the way in which we look at our “human responsibility” in the covenant with God. The ritual from Genesis 15 is the most widely attested form of swearing to a covenant in the Near East, involving cutting up an animal.

In the book God of Promise, Michael Horton, commenting on the covenant with Abraham, argues that the man talking the oath is identified with the slaughtered animal. “Just as this calf is cut up, so may Matiel be cut up,” is the way it is put in the text of an Aramaic treaty from the eighth century BC. The phrase “to cut a covenant” is used as early as 1400 BC in Aramaic and Phoenician as well as Hebrew records. The cutting ritual and the enactment of the covenant were closely identified. The covenant was the cutting an vice versa.

It was expected as both parties in the covenant to walk together between the severed halves. But here only God takes that walk, assuming all of the responsibility for carrying the promise through to the end and, this is amazing, bearign all of the curses for its breach. It is a one-sided promise. God swars unilaterally to personally perform all of the conditions and suffer all of the curses for its violation.

It may be argued that circumcision is the condition which Abraham must fulfill in order to inherit the blessings. but it is in reality the sign and seal of the inheritance for the heir who is already entitled to it due to God’s promise. It is assuming that Abraham will continue to trust in God and walk righteously before him, but the fulfillment on the covenant does not depend on the faithfulness of Abraham in keeping his promised of obedience, but entirely on God’s faithfulness in keeping his promises, his unilateral promise.

Gabriel

GABRIEL, thanks for answering the question before I asked it. Although I am familiar with this covenant, I missed the implication of the question. Sort of takes the wind from the sails of ‘God does His part - BUT - we must do our part’.

John Douglas

Gabriel,

I have been off line for a few days. I really enjoyed this and was laughing out loud.

But, nothing could be truer, either.  The truths of the Bible cut like a sword, and whenever the true text of scripture is taken literally, then, human reasoning comes in and tries to somehow rationalize it away.

Whenever the doctrines of grace are taught completely, then there is stiff opposition.

Stan