Today’s verse — I Timothy 4:10 — Isn’t really a problem for either side. But I think the universalist interpretation fits better. Here’s the verse:<\/p>\n
That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It’s the “especially” clause that gives non-universalists their out. Because without that, it’s pretty clear: God is the Savior of all<\/em> people.<\/p>\n
So what does it mean, “especially of those who believe”? Notice that it does not say, “exclusively of those who believe.”<\/p>\n
What I think it means is “God is the Savior of all people, and those who believe in this life get to experience that salvation more fully.”<\/p>\n
What I do not think it means is “God offers<\/em> salvation to all people, but only those who believe will actually receive it.”<\/p>\n
Especially<\/em> implies this is more fully and richly true for those who believe, but not that they are the only ones for whom it’s true.<\/p>\n
Can you really say that God is the Savior of someone if they end up being subjected to never-ending torment after death? Even if they in effect chose it by not believing — in what sense is God their Savior?<\/p>\n
Still, I don’t see this as a problem passage for non-universalists. I do think that the universalist interpretation makes more sense, though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today’s verse — I Timothy 4:10 — Isn’t really a problem for either side. But I think the universalist interpretation fits better. Here’s the verse: That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-universalist-looks-at-the-new-testament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12041\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}