The pre-sight view of election makes God seem absurd in His language if not somewhat dishonest. You see, God has gone to great lengths to say that some are elected, chosen, foreordained, predestined as part of His eternal purpose. For God to say that He saw those that would choose Him and then He calls them elect (select from a number) is linguistic trickery. It is like the Queen decreeing that the sun will rise in the morning, as others have said. God’s words about His action toward man would mean nothing but could only be construed as a way of presenting an authoritative front that God is in charge, whereas the decisions of eternal life and death are really within man alone. Apply this to prophecy. Much of prophecy is presented to us as that which God determines to do in the future. Is this the truth of it? Did God prophesy that John the Baptist would be the forerunner of the Messiah (Isa. 40:3-5; Luke 3:3-6) on the basis of pre-sight, and then declare that it would happen? Doesn’t language lose all meaning to say that? Does it not make sense of the language to say that the action predicted was based on God’s determined plan and not just what He saw happening?

Jim Elliff

CATEGORY	CUISINE	TAG	YIELD
Grains	Asian		4	Servings

INGREDIENTS

1	c	Cooked black beans
1/4	sm	Red onion — diced
1/4	c	Minced cilantro
1	tb	Rice wine vinegar
1	ts	Soy sauce
1	ts	Asian hot oil
1/8	ts	Asian sesame oil
1	lb	Asparagus
4		Lettuce leaves

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Place cooked beans in a small bowl. Stir red onion, cilantro, vinegar,
soy sauce, hot oil, and sesame oil into beans. Marinate 20 to 30 minutes at
room temperature.
2. Bring 2 quarts of water to a boil. Trim dried, tough ends from asparagus
stalks. Slice asparagus on the diagonal. Blanch in boiling water for 3
minutes. Remove from water, drain, and toss with marinated beans.
3. To serve, place each lettuce leaf on a chilled salad plate. Divide salad
evenly among lettuce leaves.
Serves 4.
Recipe By     : the California Culinary Academy
File ftp://ftp.idiscover.co.uk/pub/food/mealmaster/recipes/mmdja006.zip

A Message from our Provider:

“A Man’s Man is a Godly Man!”

Consequences of legalism: 1. Keeps people distanced and alienated from God. Afraid of God, the taskmaster. Afraid of God’s rejection. No assurance or security. 2. Guilt, condemnation (Rom. 8:1), accusation, disapproval (both objective and subjective). 3. Defeat, despair, frustration, futility. “It’s a losing battle. I can never do enough, be good enough, do it right and perfect as expected.” Burned out! 4. Self-destructive behavior; self-belittling, sense of worthlessness, low personal concept of oneself. 5. Hypocrisy. Play-acting; role-playing; lip-service (Matt. 15:8, 9). Contrived piety, perfunctory performance, pretense, ostentation. 6. Minimalization. What do I have to do to get by, to side-step the rules? 7. Impersonalization; shallow personal relationships because they relate to law rather that to Person of Jesus Christ and other persons.

James Fowler