the problem of evil – Moment to Moment (Bible blog)

“This world so broken? If God is good, why do we see so much evil?”

”What is the meaning to life?”

If you wanted to sum up the two main themes of this book, those would be it.

And they are questions that people ask to this day.

Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived aside from Jesus, said concerning these questions:

But beyond these (the wise words of our Shepherd), my son, be warned: there is no end to the making of many books, and much study wearies the body. (Ecclesiastes 12:12)

How many books are out there trying to explain evil? How many philosophy and self-help books are out there trying to give people a better life, to give them meaning?

All those books may have some truth in them. Some can even prod us in good directions. For all true wisdom is from God (11), and by his grace, even unbelievers have some grasp of the truth.

But ultimately, all human wisdom fails and proves inadequate apart from God. And it will leave you tired and in despair.

There is only one conclusion that gives life. If we would just believe it, if we would just live it, we could toss out all other books and never miss them.

What is that conclusion?

When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this: fear God and keep his commands, because this is for all humanity.

For God will bring every act to judgment, including every hidden thing, whether good or evil. (13-14)

What is the answer to the problem of evil? Why do “good people” suffer?

Ultimately, these questions are beyond us and our limited minds. And because our minds our limited, we are in no position to question God and his goodness.

Rather, fear him. Because the day will come when he will judge all evil, including yours. And apart from Jesus and his work on the cross, no one will be able to stand before him.

What is the meaning to life? Keep his commands.

What are his commands? Love him. And love others. Everything else in life is ultimately meaningless because they are fleeting.

The only two things that go beyond this earthly life is our relationship with God, and our relationships with others who have put their faith in Jesus.

So let us invest our lives in our relationship with him, and spreading his kingdom. For only in these two things will we ever find meaning in life.

Oversimplification and false accusations

I must admit that I somewhat dreaded coming to the book of Job. Not because of the topic, but because of the layout.

Basically, you have nearly 30 chapters of people arguing with each other in literal circles, saying essentially the same things time and again.

As anyone who has been following this blog knows, this is intended to be more of a devotional commentary than an in-depth one, so I’ve debated long and hard how to handle this.

I’ve decided to do this: I’m going to first hit chapters 4-31 as a whole, and then over the next few days go over those chapters again, and as things strike me from the individual chapters, I’ll talk about them.

I’m not sure as of yet whether I’ll actually address each chapter in this blog, take them in chunks of 2 or 3, or skip over some chapters entirely. We’ll go as God leads.

Essentially what you see in these chapters, as I’ve said, is an argument between Job and his friends. When they saw his suffering and heard his complaint, they responded by telling him why they thought he was suffering.

What they said can be wrapped up in these three verses:

When your children sinned against him, he gave them over to the penalty of their sin.

But if you will seek God earnestly and plead with the Almighty, if you are pure and upright, even now he will rouse himself on your behalf and restore you to your prosperous state. (Job 8:4-6)

In short, “Your children sinned, and that’s why they were punished. You must have sinned too, and you’re being punished for it. But if you’ll just repent, things will be all right.”

And throughout this whole section, Job’s friends talked about how God always punishes the wicked for the evil that they do, and that it is they who suffer on this earth.

But there were two problems with this line of reasoning.

First, it’s gross oversimplification. For as Job points out, while the evil are indeed eventually punished for their deeds, it doesn’t always happen in this lifetime.

Furthermore, because of the evil that men do, others are affected. People go naked and hungry; they have their children taken into slavery; innocent people are murdered; and husbands and wives become victims of their partner’s unfaithfulness (chapters 21 and 24).

So to say that only the wicked suffer is simply not true.

The second problem was even more serious. Job’s friends were not only guilty of oversimplification, they were also guilty of making false accusations.

In chapter 1, God had said concerning Job,

Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil (Job 1:8).

God was not punishing Job for any sins he had committed. In God’s eyes, he was innocent. So Job’s friends were dead wrong in accusing Job of evil.

Job called them on it saying,

Teach me, and I will be quiet; show me where I have been wrong. (Job 6:24)

And they couldn’t point out a single sin. Eventually, much later in the argument, in their desperation to prove they were right, they threw out accusations against Job that had absolutely no basis (22:5-9).

They then concluded by saying, “You must have done these kinds of things. That’s why God is punishing you.”

What do we get from all of this?

The problem of why the righteous suffer is not an easy one. But it is not going to be solved by simply saying, the evil are punished and the righteous are preserved. It’s simply not true.

There is something much deeper going on, which we see in chapters 1 and 2. Namely, that there are spiritual forces that have malevolent intentions against us.

Add to that the fact that we are affected by the evil that the people around us do, and we see two additional reasons for why people suffer here on earth, besides God’s punishment on those who do evil.

Why doesn’t God do more to stop these malevolent spirits and evil people? God never answers that in this book. What answers he does give will be seen later in his response to Job in the final chapters.

But the second thing to take from this is to be extremely careful about making accusations against people, especially those who are hurting.

Because not only will it hurt our relationships with them, but God himself takes a dim view of people who falsely accuse others, as we will see at the end of Job.

Dealing with the issue of evil in this world, and why we and people we love suffer is not easy. But let us be careful not to deal with it as his Job’s friends did, through oversimplification and false accusations.