These quotations are from Gordon Fee, Offer Yourselves to God: Vocation, Work and Ministry in Paul’s Epistles. Eugene, Oregon, 2019.
“[T]his is about God’s divine calling—it’s not us choosing God because we heard a sermon and received an invitation. This is about God calling, which is much more significant than an invitation. It’s a summons. It’s the Spirit pulling, pushing, urging drawing. We are summoned, so we fall on our faces before a Holy God and confess that we don’t deserve anything but wrath, and yet we experience his grace and mercy.” (p. 11)
“This is all God’s invitation, all his calling. It is a description of what it means to become a part of God’s family. ‘God is faithful who has called you into koinonia with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.’ And to be in the Son means to be in his people, which is the primary understanding of calling in the New Testament. In fact, this is the only understanding of calling in the New Testament.” (p. 11)
“In the Old Testament, the idea of election was centered on belonging to the elect people, although it’s clear that individuals could opt out for various reasons. In the New Testament, an individual would join the people of God through faith in Jesus and the gift of the Spirit, but the overarching focus was still on the group—that is, the people of God.” (p. 2)
