It is one thing to be chosen but being chosen by God before the beginning of time is on a completely different scale. Truth is it doesn't get much better than that. Of course a good number of people who identify with these passages have been familiar with first choice status most of their lives myself included. But these passages were first penned to those who had little choice about anything in their life as they were slaves and women within the Roman Empire. Of course there were some exceptions but the vast majority of Christians in the first century would have heard these words as a stark contrast to their everyday lives of institutional servitude. The history books claim that Constantine saw the sign of the cross that would conquer and made the choice for Christianity but the truth is the women and slaves had come to believe their first choice status no matter what the empire said and maybe Constantine just recognized the handwriting was on wall. In a sad twist of fate his choosing to make Christianity the religion of the empire meant that those who were first in the radical faith of Christianity went back to being last in the official faith of the Empire. I don’t know for sure but I’m thinking the second time that Jesus wept was when Constantine conquered the cross by painting it on his soldier’s shields.
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