Life and Liberty: Only God is Sovereign

Within Scripture there exists a tension between

says

The Lexham English Bible Chapter 3

13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by his* good behavior his works, with the humility of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and tell lies against the truth. 15 This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there is disorder and every evil practice. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceful, gentle, obedient, full of mercy and good fruits, nonjudgmental, without hypocrisy, 18 And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace among those who make peace.

English Standard Version Psalm 115

Our God is in the heavens;

he does all that he pleases.

W. Hall Harris III et al., eds., The Lexham English Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012), Jas 3:13–18.

I wonder how many of us actually take the time to contemplate all that this means. “God does as he pleases.”

In the Western World we have an extremely individualistic attitude towards life. From the time we are able, we are shipped off to school, educated, and told our whole lives that we have to make the decision to be in charge of our lives. But is that really what God tells us?

The Bible was written in a very different world than what we have today. The culture and setting in life was so different from what we can imagine that I don’t think that any of us can actually understand what it was really like for the people back 2000 years ago, at least not us Westerners.

The Bible was written in a very different world than what we have today. The culture and setting in life was so different from what we can imagine that I don’t think that any of us can actually understand what it was really like for the people back 2000 years ago, at least not us Westerners.

The explained the life and liberty of the individual in the terms that the people of the ancient near east would have understood. Many things simply went without saying, such as the communal nature of society. So when the Bible says things about people sharing or living together, we often inject our modern understanding into the scene.

What does the Bible say about personal liberty and individualistic human nature?

Most of the time individualism is criticized in the Bible, used to speak about the sinner and the nature of the flesh. Paul says that