The Will of God (Part 1): Introduction

So although I could probably spend another couple of weeks talking about the Sufficiency of Scripture, I'm gonna go ahead and move on to The Will of God like I promised (sorry for taking so long). To start off, I must say that the my view on the Will of God is quite different than the traditional/typical view of most Christians. So please wait until I have covered the whole topic - and you have researched it thoroughly yourself - before you judge me as a heretic. My change in view has come primarily from an examination of what Scripture had to say on the subject along with some helpful insight from a couple of great books(Found: God's Will - John MacArthur and Decision Making and the Will of God: A Biblical Alternative to the Traditional View - Garry Friesen). Upon study I found that the common view just didn't quite line up correctly with Scripture. My purpose - as with everything I write about - is to encourage you and hopefully communicate effectively to you what God has taught me. So, my plan is to take the next three posts to explain the traditional view of God's will and then the following two or three to critique it and examine what Scripture really has to say on the subject. Throughout Scripture the phrases "the will of God" and "God's will" occur a total of 23 times(17 of "The will of God" and 6 of "God's will"). The use of the phrases in these contexts can be categorized into a few main groups which will be dealt with where applicable in the next few posts here. Interestingly, though, these phrases do not come about until the New Testament. But does this mean the idea of "God's will" is just a new testament teaching. I don't think so (we'll examine some OT passages that talk about the subject in the next few posts also). I would encourage you to examine Scripture along with anything I have to say as I discuss this topic and would suggest you to take a look at the Scriptures which refer to "God's will" and "the will of God" (provided in the links above) and examine for yourself what they have to say.