Bless'D Newsletter 11 - Our Role

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We find ourselves today at the beginning of Paul's letter to the Ephesians. Paul begins his letter in the customary way with a greeting indicating who the letter is from, who it is to, and well wishes (blessings) to the recipient.

After this introduction, Paul launches into an amazing treatise on God's role in our salvation. While I would like to create a bullet list to impress upon our minds the extent of God's grace lavished upon us, the passage does not lend itself to that treatment.

Instead, I ask you open your own Bible and read verses 3 through 12 perhaps more than once. Let the love of God soak into your soul richly through Paul's words.

I am instead today going to tackle this passage from a doctrinal point of view. I will be paying less attention to the passage itself and more to doctrines that have arisen out of it.

Now, I will be the first to admit that I come from a tradition that doesn't expressly align with either major protestant view of God's role in salvation. I will also admit that I currently go to a church that is on one side of this battle. I will gladly admit that if I was forced to choose one side or the other, I would choose the side my church is aligned with. Thankfully, I believe there is a third way.

The battle is over Calvinism versus Arminianism. Does God determine who gets saved (and conversely, who goes to Hell) or does God give free will to man to determine his own eternal destiny: a free-will decision that can be revoked?

Now, it is quite a bit more complicated, but that's the debate in a nutshell. At the center of the debate is the word "predestination" that we find throughout today's passage. Calvinists (John Calvin) have taken the word to mean God chooses. According to that side of the debate, you may hear the gospel message and even mistake your response to it as your own, but God worked all things together so that your heart would be tender and that you would believe. He chose you. He saved you. Your will had nothing to do with it.

Arminians (Jacobus Arminius) respond by looking beyond the word to the entirety of the Bible's teaching on salvation. They rightly point out that God "does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). They interpret the word "predestination" to mean God foresaw who and who would not choose of their own free will to accept the gift of salvation. Predestination, therefore, is from God's point of view not ours. He knew our eternal destination ahead of time.

My church is in the Wesleyan (Charles Wesley) tradition which aligns with Arminianism.

Personally, I align with neither. While I am close to an Arminian, the problem lies with Jacobus Arminius's response to Calvin. And the problem is that it was a response to Calvin. His response sought to refute Calvin on each and every one of Calvin's Five Points of Calvinism. In his refutation of a man-made doctrine, he ended up with what I like to call "negative Calvinism." If Calvin's doctrine was the portrait, Arminian's was the negative. They're both equally man-made.

I already mentioned the tradition I come from doesn't expressly align. And that is because my tradition is a Bible-first tradition. The Bible contains passages that seem more Calvinist and passages that seem more Arminian when you attempt to find either doctrine in there. When you are not looking for the doctrines, a different picture emerges.

And that picture is similar to Arminianism in that salvation is a choice of our own free will. And it is similar to Calvinism in that salvation is a work of God and can only be revoked by Him.

How can that be reconciled? My tradition punts to mystery, but fortunately, Thomas Aquinas did the work for us prior to the birth of either Calvin or Arminius. And the answer is rather biblical and simple.

1. God wishes none to be lost.
2. God offers salvation to all.
3. Jesus' death paid it all for all who would believe.
4. The Holy Spirit is, like the rays of the sun, shining on all calling all to be drawn to Himself through the Gospel message.
5. God's fingerprints are on everything He has created so none are without excuse.
6. To remain in unbelief you have to be fighting against the plainly visible qualities of God that are visible all around you and the Holy Spirit's tug on your heart.
7. You either fight through willful disobedience or willful ignorance. Either way, you are fighting, and it is work.
8. At the point of belief, you stop fighting God and rest from that work.

This is unlike Calvinism in that it maintains free will. It is unlike Arminianism in that it maintains the power and sovereignty of God. You did not work for your salvation. Even the act of belief which Arminius took for a repeal-able work was not work. It was a ceasing of resistance against your loving Creator. God has rescued you in His power and might, and no one can snatch you out of His hand (see John 10:28-29).

God, in His sovereign will, made salvation available to all who will believe. At the point of belief, you step into that sovereign plan and have eternal life from that point forward. "You were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit, who is the down payment of our inheritance" according to today's verses. As my tradition would say, "once saved, always saved."

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This week's devotional comes from our "IN HIM" word art posted on social media:

RedBubble Products ​ Our devotional word art designs from our social media posts are available as products on RedBubble! Stickers (plain and holographic), magnets, framed art prints, posters, greeting cards, postcards, mugs, tote bags, t-shirts, and lightweight hoodies! ​ Stickers and magnets are not available for dark background designs due to printing issues with light text on dark backgrounds. ​ ​https://www.redbubble.com/people/BlessD-Name-Art​ ​

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Store Updates

• We replaced our wall banners with garden banners. This is a great way to display your family name as well as your faith. The wall banners remain available until June 27th on the site but are not promoted on the front page. You will find them as a category in our shop. BTW: You can always use a last name on any of our products.
• Our Father's Day mug promo has ended. It is no longer on the front page of our website. You can still find it in the mugs category in our shop. Our graduation mug is there also. These will be removed from the shop on June 16th. Be aware it may take up to 1.5 to 2 weeks to receive either mug.

The Week in Social Media

We took Memorial Day off from posting this week, so there were fewer posts than usual.

You can find us on Facebook and Pinterest:

• ​https://facebook.com/BlessdNameArt​
• ​https://www.pinterest.com/blessdnameart/​

Here are our Pinterest posts from this past week (click on the post's title to view and re-pin):

>> May 28 2025 11:21 AM - Daisies: Sharing​

>> May 30 2025 11:03 AM - Pink n Purple Flowers w Mountains: In Him​

>> May 31 2025 10:36 AM - BlessD Personalized Name Art - 18×24 Poster - Cross On A Hill​

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That's it for this week's posts.

Behind the Scenes @ Bless'D

We're back this week from our factory tours.

For this week's Behind the Scenes, I thought I would go behind the scenes of this newsletter.

First of all, why a devotional? There are several reasons we have chosen to write a devotional. First of all, we're not here to take. We are ministry minded. The products we make are to help you witness to and/or encourage your friends and family. These are tools we sell to help you promote the Gospel message.

In that vein, we see writing a weekly devotional as a small act of ministry to you: our readers. That is why we lead with the devotional and don't talk business or advertise until further down. That is why we mix in our social media posts which have a ministry aspect as well.

Another reason is we want you to know we are thoughtful about what we do. We care about rightly dividing the word of God, and writing a weekly devotional lets us practice what we preach. It helps you know us and how we think a little bit better, and it helps you know that we're not here just to make a buck off of our fellow Christians. It connects us in some way.

A second question that comes to mind is why do we use the NET Bible? The quickest answer is I have fallen in love with this translation and not the translation as much as the fact that it is the only translation in the world where the translators themselves wrote the study notes. You get into the mind of the translators as they explain why certain things are translated certain ways in various other translations and why they chose to translate it the way they did for the NET Bible.

The translators notes can be dense and technical but they also offer insight into the differences between manuscripts, manuscript families, and various English translations. They are invaluable especially where translations seemingly collide. They also contain some deep insight into the social and cultural backdrop of certain passages and a whole lot more.

Basically, the translators were given two freedoms rarely seen during Bible translation: (1) take copious notes as you go along that you think would be beneficial to the reader, and (2) choose the best translation for the text itself and provide alternates in the notes with explanation as to why you chose to translate the way you did.

There was no limit to the amount of notes, and I will tell you the reason why.

The NET Bible was a Bible translation birthed during the advent of the internet in the mid-1990s. A new website, bible.org, needed to be able to quote a modern translation and predicted in 1995 that they would soon surpass the allowable limits of copyright given the totality of Bible quotations residing on their site.

To solve the problem, bible.org commissioned the NET (New English Translation) Bible. It would be unlike any other. It would:

1. Be translated by biblical languages scholars from well-respected seminaries throughout the English-speaking world. According to the introduction to the first edition, "the initial planning group was interdenominational and evangelical, although not make up of official representatives from church groups or denominations. A deliberate decision was made early on to devote special attention to the avoidance of doctrinal peculiarities or sectarian bias in the new translation."
2. Be open to comments from online readers. These comments would be taken for consideration from the translators for the first and subsequent editions of the NET Bible. Quite a few revisions have been implemented based on these comments while still maintaining the reliability of the translation.
3. Be a middle-of-the-road translation akin to the NIV. The NET is not a wooden, word-for-word translation like the NASB and not a paraphrase like the Living Bible.
4. Allow unlimited space (since it was originally to reside solely online) for translator's notes which opened up the possibility of the translator choosing the best translation he had in mind while allowing for differences of opinion. This had never been done before. Translators in the past have had to bow the knee to each particular translation's editorial board with the editors choosing what they thought best: editors that are often not trained in the original biblical languages. And some, famously, imposed certain theological, social, and political views upon the translation.
5. Be freely available online, freely quotable and redistributable in part or whole as long as it is given at no charge.

It was well after the first edition was solidified and posted online that it occurred to the folks over at bible.org to try to produce a printed version. By using ever-so-thin paper and formatting techniques, they were able to fit the massive collection of over 60,000 translator's notes, the text itself, a full bibliography of manuscripts and scholarly works found in the notes, a concise concordance, a map index, standard Bible maps, and an impressive full-color maps section based off of satellite imagery into a little over 2500 pages with a 2-inch thickness. This first edition still holds a special place in my heart because it comes directly from the souls over at bible.org. It is what I pick up every morning.

The NET Bible translation has since been bought by Thomas Nelson which is now HarperCollins Christian Publishing. The second edition was published under Thomas Nelson and is what I carry with me to church. I find the way it is formatted to be easier to read. It is also slightly thinner thanks to its expanded width and length.

When writing this newsletter, I use the online version at netbible.org. Although the NET Bible is part of my collection in the Logos Bible study software, the website is easier to copy and paste from.

Like most translations, the NET has its naysayers. One thing is that it is willing to go out on a limb and translate without self-censorship. This means certain topics are not smoothed over with euphemisms. This translation tells it like it is. That is hard for some folks.

Another thing is the study notes in all their scholarly richness seem awkwardly paired with the easy-to-read and sometimes brash translation. I have seen that mentioned by online objectors.

The usefulness of the notes and the translation's uniqueness outweighs these objections in my mind. I like knowing I'm reading a translation where I feel like I have direct access to the translators thoughts and their final product. I don't have to wonder much about what was left of their work after the editorial board, and I find that refreshing.

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That's it for this week's newsletter. See you next week!

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