I received an email from a stu\u00addent ask\u00ading whether it was okay to \u201cput God to the test.\u201d <\/p>\n
I just came back from a strange church ser\u00advice, and I have a ques\u00adtion. Late\u00adly, I have been learn\u00ading quite a bit about God up there. The pas\u00adtor\u2019s wife shout\u00aded out loud that the Lord wants us to \u201ctest\u201d him in prayer, mean\u00ading see if our prayers are answered. I was con\u00adfused about this state\u00adment, as I recalled the temp\u00adta\u00adtions of Christ, when Satan tempts Jesus, and Jesus quotes scrip\u00adture, \u201cthou shalt not test the Lord your God.\u201d Am I get\u00adting caught up in a tech\u00adni\u00adcal\u00adi\u00adty, or is there some mer\u00adit to this claim, which I do not under\u00adstand? I can see how God would want us to pray and ask for proof in life, but I feel such a strong injus\u00adtice to this thought. Any thoughts?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
As I fre\u00adquent\u00adly field this ques\u00adtion or a vari\u00adant there\u00adof, I thought my response might be of more gen\u00ader\u00adal inter\u00adest.<\/p>\n
Are we to test God or not?<\/p>\n
In Deut 6:16 we are com\u00admand\u00aded not to put God to the test. In Malachi 3:10 God tells us to test him. <\/p>\n
Is this a con\u00adtra\u00addic\u00adtion? No, not at all. The Hebrew word in Deuteron\u00ado\u00admy 6:16 is nac\u00adah http:\/\/www.blueletterbible.org\/cgi-bin\/words.pl?word=05254
\nwhere\u00adas the word in Malachi 3:10 is bachan
\nhttp:\/\/www.blueletterbible.org\/cgi-bin\/words.pl?word=0974<\/p>\nSo what we have is two words in Hebrew that can both be trans\u00adlat\u00aded \u201ctest.\u201d Some tests are for\u00adbid\u00adden and oth\u00aders are com\u00admand\u00aded.<\/p>\n
So what are we for\u00adbid\u00adden to do? Jesus tells us not to tempt God in Luke 4:12 (quot\u00ading Deuteron\u00ado\u00admy 6:16). If we look up Deut 6:16 (\u201cDo not tempt the Lord your God as you did at Mas\u00adsah\u201d) we will notice that it is a ref\u00ader\u00adence to Exo\u00addus 17, where\u00adin the Israelites demand that God do a spe\u00adcif\u00adic thing to prove he is with them. That\u2019s the same temp\u00adta\u00adtion Satan set before Jesus: make God per\u00adform an action of your own choos\u00ading.<\/p>\n
How\u00adev\u00ader, we read in Malachi 3:10 that God desires us to test his good\u00adness and his faith\u00adful\u00adness. We are to expect God to per\u00adform actions of his choos\u00ading.<\/p>\n
That makes sense. In the first case we are giv\u00ading orders to God, in the sec\u00adond case we are receiv\u00ading orders from God. In the first case we are try\u00ading to be God our\u00adselves, in the sec\u00adond case we are allow\u00ading God to be God.<\/p>\n
Per\u00adhaps we could phrase the dis\u00adtinc\u00adtion thus:
\n\u201cDon\u2019t try to tell God what he ought to do, but expect God to do what he has promised to do.\u201d<\/p>\nSo in your spe\u00adcif\u00adic case, it all depends on what sort of prayers you\u2019re expect\u00ading God to answer.<\/p>\n
Did that help clear it up?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I received an email from a stu\u00addent ask\u00ading whether it was okay to \u201cput God to the test.\u201d I just came back from a strange church ser\u00advice, and I have a ques\u00adtion. Late\u00adly, I have been learn\u00ading quite a bit about God up there. The pas\u00adtor\u2019s wife shout\u00aded out loud that the Lord wants us \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cStu\u00addent Admin\u00adis\u00adters Test\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-of-random-interest"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-6K","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}