My wife Tammy and I just recently finished watching a Netflix show called "Manifest." It's kind of a fantasy drama, based on Romans 8:28, We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
The premise is that a plane full of people get on Flight 828, but when they land, they find out five and a half years have gone by since they took off. The world considered them lost, but they landed like they thought everything was normal, except they landed in a world where over 5 years have gone by, and many of their loved ones have moved on without them.
I recommend the show for anyone who watches Netflix shows. It's not perfect in its theology, but it's good enough to generate a lot of good conversation, it's thought-provoking, and it does tackle questions like: What does it mean that "all things work [together] for good"? I don't want to spoil it, but it also very subtly takes on the question: Does this mean "all things work together for the good of everyone? and you already know the answer to that, because that's not what the passage says, and yet people in the show are constantly quoting it as though it means everything works out good for everyone, but all the while the events in the show question that premise. So you might want to check it out.
On a side note, I was working with this passage in my book on prayer in the early church (the one coming out in the spring) and I had to note - in my ongoing crusade against lamentable translation errors - that it really should not be read: We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. That's because "who are called according to his purpose" makes no sense, since what would it mean to be called, but not according to his purpose? The phrase, "according to his purpose" should go with "all things work for good" - in other words, here is how Romans 8:28 should really be translated:
We know that all things work for good, according to his purpose, for those who love God, who are called.
You could paraphrase it like this:
We trust that, for everyone who is called by God and who has responded to that call by loving God - for those people - everything works together toward the good, according to his will.
In other words, what is "good" is defined by the will of God, not by our definition of good, and not by our limited view of what is good (or comfortable) for us right now. It is often the case that what is good is painful. Nasty-tasting medicine, painful surgery, a parent's discipline of a child - none of these things feel good in the short term, and yet they are good in the long term. And so God's providence, that divine "everything working together" is always with the big picture in mind - which is a picture we cannot see.
Dear friends - Please take 10 minutes to watch this personal update from me:
I mentioned in The Journey that I wrote a song based on Isaiah 2, which is one of my favorite OT passages:
In days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest mountain, and raised above the hills.
All nations shall stream toward it. Many peoples shall come and say:
“Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, That he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.” For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations, and set terms for many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again. House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!
I hope you like the song!
As you all know, I'm shutting down this platform on Saturday.
So just a reminder, I hope you all will keep in touch. If you don't' already have an email for me, keep this one:
Thanks,
Jim
Hi folks,
When I was putting together my list of how to read the rest of the NT chronologically, I now realize that I left out the Letter to the Hebrews!
As you know, in the early and medieval Church there was a debate over whether St. Paul wrote this, and whether it should be included among his letters. Since most scholars do not include Hebrews among the letters of Paul, I had left it off my chronology of Paul's life. If he did write it, we don't know when - but I suspect that if he wrote it, it would have his name on it. In any case, it has to have been written before 70 AD because it speaks of the temple sacrifices as ongoing, and Clement of Rome quotes it in 1 Clement a couple decades later. So I would put Hebrews either with James (after the prison epistles of Paul) or with Peter's letters (after the pastoral epistles of Paul). I'm not saying that I think James or Peter wrote it, but they would be interesting candidates for authorship.
And if you want a couple short, but ...
Hi Folks,
I'm planning to shut down the platform this Saturday. It will be 3 years almost to the day since we started. It's been a lot of fun, and I hope we keep in touch.
Stay subscribed to my YouTube channel for all the upcoming episodes of The Way of the Fathers podcast. The second episode on St. Thomas Aquinas will air on the 29th, and in November we're jumping out of the chronological sequence to talk about the newest doctor, St. John Henry Newman! (And I will be taking December off, getting back into it with St. Catherine of Siena in January.)
And make sure you're on the email mailing list, so you'll know about new books and future pilgrimages (HINT: Mike Aquilina and I are already planning ROME 2026 - probably right about a year from now - so stay tuned...). You can sign up for the email list, which comes no more than once a month, at my home page: https://jimpapandrea.wordpress.com/
Thanks again for all your support!
- Jim
