Direct Answer
A system can teach a reader to see its own idea whenever a certain word appears. The phrase "free will" kept breaking that reading for Jason, because it runs throughout the early writings.
Support from the Message
- Jason says trying to make the early Christians into Calvinists was very, very difficult. - He describes free will as a pesky phrase that kept popping up, and he says it is found throughout. - He says that when an early letter addressed the church as the elect, he assumed it taught predestination the way Calvinists do. - He explains that a Calvinist who sees the word election is thinking predestination. - He later heard that election and predestination are two different things, and he realized he had been reading that into the text.
Discussion Follow-up
What words in Scripture do you automatically read through the lens of your own background? How could you test whether your meaning is really in the text?