God selects certain individuals or people groups for His purposes. The elect are qualified by God himself and not by anything else they have done. God chooses some and not others. Brevard Childs remarked that Israel saw itself as an elect people through whom God was going to bless the nations. In the recording of their history, Israel also included God’s dealings with the nations outside of Israel such as in the creation narratives.[1]
[1] Brevard S. Childs, Introdction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 2011), 155.
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