Plantinga Chapter 4

Chapter four of Plantinga’s book Engaging in God’s World speaks of how we are redeemed through Christ after we fell into sin. One phrase that I really enjoyed in this chapter was also brought up in class, “Moses emerges with God’s Ten Commandments, a set of requirements that people have to fulfill no in order to get rescued by God from slavery, but because they have been rescued.” God didn’t give His people the Ten Commandments while they were slaves in Egypt, but He gave the commandments to them after they had been brought out of Egypt. If God had given the Israelites the Ten Commandments while they were in Egypt so that they could be freed from slavery by obeying them, the Israelites would not have made it out of Egypt. God gave the commandments to them at that specific point in time so that they could follow God’s law to praise and thank Him for all that He has done for them.

This concept can also be applied to us in our lives. God didn’t give us his commandments so that we would obey them and then come to Him, but He gave them to us because we are already freed from our sins. By giving us the Ten Commandments, God shows us that He loves us, and we return His love by doing our best to obey His law. This reinforces the idea that we love God because He loved us first.

Another part of this chapter that we discussed in class was that the Jews during Jesus’ time wanted an earthly king, and Jesus was not what they were expecting. This can also be applied to our own lives because we often have ideas of how we want our prayers to be answered, but God has a different plan than us. Because we are so preoccupied with our own idea of how it will happen, we sometimes miss God’s answer to our prayer because it was not what we expected. This was a good reminder to keep our eyes open at all times so that we can see God’s handiwork in our lives.