Not chosen, but fortunate

Homage to the bare essentials

In [Christ] we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory. (Ephesians 1:11-14, NIV)

Sometimes, reading Paul feels like listening to the frenetic explaining of a hyperactive child. Somewhere in the wordy density of his explanations of “what it all means” to the Ephesian church, there has to be a message that's extremely important to the gospel project.

Wouldn't a thinking Ephesian Christian go home scratching his head at Paul's assertion that he and the people to whom he's writing were “chosen,” even though every detail of life had been “predestined?” Maybe it was clearer in the Greek tongue, but in English, having been chosen after having been predestined isn't easily comprehended. Furthermore, the concepts of “chosenness,” “predestination” and “free will” were to set off considerable theological controversy reaching right down to today.

Paul is complicit in setting a direction for a church overburdened with doctrinal niceties that are marginal to the commitment to discipleship. Not by design, of course. To read and expound on Paul's letters as if they were written with us in the Twenty-first Century world in mind—without reference to his character, his audience, his Jewish way of understanding the world, the conditions in the Roman Empire, the prevailing state of cosmology, astronomy, biology—is to read and expound on them irresponsibly.

To be chosen by God suggests status; but the corollary, of course, is that there can be no such thing as a chosen individual or group without there being rejected individuals or groups, or masses. Contrary-wise, the prevailing refrain in both testaments is that people choose their God, not the other way 'round (Joshua 24:15, Matthew 19:21). 

The only way I can make sense of Paul's use of “chosen” is by assuming that he means something similar to “fortunate,” i.e., that having been in a position to benefit from the teaching of Christ (while most of the world hadn't), Ephesian Christians are particularly fortunate among the nations and peoples of their world and time.

As regards Paul's oft-repeated view that the events of his world have been predestined, I can understand its logical application only in the sense of causality: given human capabilities and dispositions, events in the world are bound to unfold in somewhat predictable ways. Given a set of events, what follows after is bound to happen. The way we are created predisposes us to march in predictable directions. As unsatisfactory as that explanation may be, the thought that God willed world wars and famines and the persecution of innocents is less satisfying by far.

All the above could be interpreted as quibbling, and that accusation might be justified except that the confusion about predestination, chosenness, free will, determinism generally has rendered the church of Jesus Christ a quarrelsome and promiscuous bride. If all outcomes are inevitable because they are predestined, then human endeavour would be pointless. If free will has boundaries, then it's not free. If God is love—or even just loving—then his choosing or rejecting argues against itself. What's left for us then who believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Christ and Menno Simons? 

Judaism, Islam, Christianity have all fallen prey over time to the temptation to build for themselves golden calves, have given them denominational names and bowed down to them in their wilderness sojourns.

Make no mistake; our picture of and our worship of a God that is similar to--but far better and stronger than, Baal or Odin--is one source of our ineffectiveness as a church in salting and lighting the world as Christ intended. Perhaps—along with Peter, Paul and the rest of the gospel writers—we have a hard time understanding the source and end of our faith as spirit, rather than as deity. Perhaps the personified God is “predestined” by the limitations of human imagination?

If Micah 6:8 and similar admonitions, the Sermon on the Mount, (Matthew 5,6 & 7) the sacrificial struggle of our chief mentor and guide are truly core to our understanding of “God's Will,” then we ought not make doctrinal details like the above our focus. Disciples know that “it is better to give than to receive;” experience teaches them that happiness, contentment are won through engagement, not through dis-involvement amid dreams of unending leisure and self-satisfaction. 

Logically and Biblically, our preoccupations should be with being found where the hungry are being fed, the sick treated, the prisoner visited, peace nourished, conflict reduced, justice practiced. 

Life-style wise, disciples ought to live modestly, give all the wealth that is surplus to their basic needs to the causes of justice and mercy. Modern day disciples, I might add, read a lot, pay attention to news from near and far, engage with thoughtful people, nourish and protect relationships, avoid quarrelsomeness, act out love that is independent from recipients' worthiness. About all this, Jesus and Paul are abundantly clear.

Disciples live inside the great paradox, the knowing that efforts toward “saving one's life” are predestined to ensuring “the losing of it.” The ability to understand and commit to this principle may in the end be given to only a few: this observation may be as close to Paul's “chosen” metaphor that we will ever get.

In Anabaptism, the free will to side with Christ, rally against Christ or remain indifferent to Christ are critical, are evidenced in the practice of adult baptism upon a faith confession. It's why we can never be Calvinists in our theology, why we feel compelled to put so much effort into justice and mercy issues worldwide. Human discipleship efforts can make the world better than it would have been without them. No one predestined to be lost, everyone capable of being rescued. All of us followers pulling together.

(A recommendation: Yoder-Neufeld, Thomas R. Ephesians: Believers' Church Bible Commentary, pp. 36-65.)