Originally Posted by
FunFromOz
Yes and it is quiet understandable that someone would get that notion from reading the Bible.
The son was involved in a not-his-fault car accident recently and insurance covered the repairs. Now cars on the road have to be "road worthy" as defined by the RMS so insurance companies point out in the fine print that the insurance doesn't cover a non road-worthy car. Makes sense, but annoys the <1% of people who get caught by it. It's not on the front page of the policy like $ coverage and price and cover dates (which everyone needs to know) but in the back for the few.
So the Bible has some stuff in it as well that a lot of people don't see as they don't see it as relevant at the time.
Like God creating the world and deciding to create man. That gives Him total authority over all men individually. So we see Pharoah raised up (and destroyed along with his people) to display God's glory.
We see God's promise to Abrahan limited to one son and then again limited to one grandson.
We see God say that if He wants to make one vessel for honour and another for dishonour then He can.
We see that the wicked were made for the day of judgement.
Back to Abraham. The North American Indians and Australian Aboriginals had knowledge of God because the flood is in their creation legends. But did God choose to send the saviour through them? Nope, it was maybe 2,500 years before any Christians got to the Americas and another 100+ years before they got to Australia. How could they be saved then? And God could do it, with Him nothing is impossible.
And what about Israel whom He says He chose because He loved them? They were sent into slavery till the nations where He was going to have them live were wicked enough to be punished (great being a slave because someone else wasn't bad enough), but those nations got wiped out, did they get a chance to be saved?
And there were places where Paul wanted to preach and God wouldn't let Him. How were they to be saved?
I'm thinking here and seeing the Bible as a book written by God about His people for His people. The Gospel is foolishness to those being lost and spiritual things have to be spiritually appraised so the world doesn't (can't) understand the Bible. Has implications that does.