Tag Archives: Evil and Suffering

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Upcoming Book by Boyd: Jesus versus Jehovah

Greg Boyd explains some details of his upcoming book: Jesus versus Jehovah.  I will hold any judgments until I read it, but I agree at least with this part of his summary:

“Though he was in fact all-holy, on Calvary the Son of God identified with our sin to the point of bearing our guilt. So too, the Father is said to have afflicted his Son (Isa. 53) though in fact he merely allowed wicked powers using wicked people to crucify Jesus. When we read the Old Testament through this lens, we find God frequently identifying himself as the agent of violence, though the context makes it clear that he is merely allowing violent agents to do what they want to do. God is portrayed as doing what he actually merely allows.  There are historical and exegetic reasons for this, but the theological reason, I argue, is that God has always been a God who takes responsibility for all that he allows — even though he detests much of what he allows. This is how God bears our sin and why he takes on the semblance of a nationalistic, law-oriented warrior god.”

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Trials, Temptations, & Thankfulness (James 1)

This is a brief excerpt from a  series at Pathways Church on truths from the book of James (from back in Oct 2008).  

  • TRIAL: I sat on the porch watching my 3 little kids playing in the street realizing that I would/could very well lose everything; a lawsuit that threatened to cause me to lose everything–KEY: No matter how much you have prepared; no matter how much you have planned for every situation; no matter what you say and do; no matter how much control you think that you have–you will be hit in life with things that are unfair and out of your control and yes, even devastating.
  • TEMPTATION: The night before Thanksgiving I lost sight of God.  I doubted His love, His presence.
  • THANKFULNESS:  Thanksgiving day came and although I was not that thankful, I chose to be thankful and list and look for thankful moments “…consider it all joy…”-James 1:1 Later on James mentions a ‘crown of life’.  My pastor friend, Bucky, shared with me that maybe we have misunderstood the ‘crown of life’ to be a crown we receive after we die.  Maybe this is a crown that we wear now on this side of heaven in the kingdom of God that is NOW HERE!  Maybe the trials we go through give us the eyes to see LIFE as God wants us to see LIFE as a GIFT!

Please enjoy my short audio about my “trial” and what it has taught me about thankfulness.  And as always please leave a comment!

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Where is God? Part 1 Now Here: A Walk Through Psalm 13

I had the honor of flying solo for a sermon at my church.  We are doing a 6 week series titled: Where is God? This 1st in the series addresses some practical tips that can be applied to help all of us to deal with life’s stress, anxiety, pain, and suffering. It is subtitled: Now Here, a walk through Psalm 13.
Here are the power point slides, the 2 video clips, and the audio is below. Please share your thoughts.


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911 Interview: May we NEVER forget

This is a POWERFUL 17 minute interview with Rebecca who lived through 911.  I hope that this will add to the memoirs so that we will NEVER forget this horrific day in history.  It is important to remember the hero’s.

We talked after the interview and she mentioned a few more powerful experiences:

  • equipment-they would try and retrieve fire equipment, and she was not sure why they wanted all this stuff.  It turned out that they would get skin for DNA testing off of the equipment to help identify the location of the firemen that were missing/killed.
  • smell-even today she has a hard time with the smell.  she couldn’t describe the smell but it has been so etched into her heart and mind that just asking her about it brought deep emotions.
  • crowds-she remembered that months later as she would drive up to work at ground zero there were people lined up on the streets cheering for all the volunteers.  she would comment to her friends; please go home and go one with your lives.

Included below are VERY graphic and moving photos of that fateful day. Help us all NEVER to forget the ability of all of us to do horrible things to each other,  help us to bend a knee and love one another and may we never forget the hero’s of that day.

2 books on the topic:

102 Minutes

Last Man Standing

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Uniqueness of Human Capacity to Express Malice

Enjoy this very interesting and brief post from Reasons to Believe Blog:

One of the cornerstone doctrines of the Christian faith is that humans alone among all life-forms on Earth are sinners. According to the Bible, all humans and only humans are born with the propensity to commit evil acts. That being the case, it should not be difficult for scientists to develop tests to confirm or deny this essential teaching of the Christian faith.

A team of evolutionary biologists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology recently performed such a test.1 The team put chimpanzees in cages where the chimps could withhold food from other chimpanzees by pulling on a rope. The researchers found that the chimpanzees would not withhold food from their compatriots out of pure spite. They would only do so, in a statistically significant manner, in response to a chimp that stole its food.

Interestingly, if a human stole its food and gave it another chimp, there was no significant response toward the chimp that received the food. Also, the team made no attempt to test whether or not chimpanzees would engage in “altruistic punishment” (punishing fellow chimpanzees who stole food from other chimpanzees with whom they had no social contact), though they hinted that they would do so in a future study.

The research team concluded that spiteful behavior appears to be unique to the human species. Only humans will engage in malicious behavior toward their compatriots for no other reason than the fact that they want to hurt someone. The team also commented on humanity’s flip side, namely, that only humans will engage in “pure altruism” (self-sacrificial acts performed to reward or rescue another human being with whom no social context has ever existed or could ever possibly exist). The team thus confirmed the Bible’s repeated commentaries on the state of humanity: uniquely evil among all life on Earth but also uniquely righteous.

  1. Keith Jensen, Josep Call, and Michael Tomasello, “Chimpanzees Are Vengeful But Not Spiteful,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 104 (August 7, 2007): 13046-50.
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Men’s Group: John 8:1-11 February 18, 2009

Summary from Dave:

On Wednesday morning we read the story of Jesus and the woman “caught” in adultery (John 8:1-11).  Please take a few minutes and read it before you continue.  And, as you read it consider your answers to these questions and record them in your journal:

Who do you relate to most in this story?  Why?

What is the purpose of the “Law” in our lives?

Well, many of us agreed that the woman in the story (the adulterer) represents all of us.  We are all sinners; no one is perfect, only God.  And, it is a reminder that before we go around condemning others for their sins, we need to look at ourselves, because in God’s eyes, all sin is the same.  An adulterer’s sin is not any greater than someone who cheats and lies in business or someone who views pornography.  In other words, it doesn’t matter which commandment you break, they are all sins and they hurt the One who loves us.  The grace that Jesus showed this woman is the same grace He shows us every minute of every day.  And, when we repent, Jesus commands us to go and sin no more (that is the key – we must go to Jesus and repent).  What I find interesting in this story is that Jesus tells the woman He does not condemn her but He does not tell her she is forgiven.  If you have some thoughts on that please write me; I’d like to hear them.

To the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, the Law represented the truth.  But Jesus turned the tables on them.  He showed them they were no better in God’s eyes than this woman.  The truth was, they were all sinners.  None of them was capable of judging the woman; judgment is up to God, not us.  We learned last Wednesday that the Law shows us the need for a Savior. Without Jesus we all fall short of the Law and none of us would make it to heaven. Have you thought about where you are on the grace/truth scale in your relationships?  Many of us are slanted toward one or the other.  Of course, Jesus was the perfect balance of grace and truth.  Who gives the grace in your relationship and who is the person of truth?  I know I am a man of truth.  It is difficult for me to show grace; I want to ram truth down your throat.  But, to counteract that, to temper my truth, God introduced me to Cynthia. If you saw my email last week you remember the grace Cynthia showed me.  By pairing me with Cynthia God is showing the grace given to me.  And, if you’ve gone on to the Uberlumen website (www.uberlumen.com) and listened to my testimony you know I do not deserve a woman of Cynthia’s caliber.  Kind of like how we do not deserve the grace, mercy and forgiveness God gives us.  God sure is good, isn’t He?.

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Men’s Group: The Good Samaritan February 11, 2009

Then an expert in Moses’ Teachings stood up to test Jesus. He asked, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered him, “What is written in Moses’ Teachings? What do you read there?” He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind.’ And ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.'” Jesus told him, “You’re right! Do this, and life will be yours.” But the man wanted to justify his question. So he asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man went from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way robbers stripped him, beat him, and left him for dead. “By chance, a priest was traveling along that road. When he saw the man, he went around him and continued on his way. Then a Levite came to that place. When he saw the man, he, too, went around him and continued on his way. “But a Samaritan, as he was traveling along, came across the man. When the Samaritan saw him, he felt sorry for the man, went to him, and cleaned and bandaged his wounds. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day the Samaritan took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. He told the innkeeper, ‘Take care of him. If you spend more than that, I’ll pay you on my return trip.’ “Of these three men, who do you think was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by robbers?” The expert said, “The one who was kind enough to help him.” Jesus told him, “Go and imitate his example!” (Luke 10:25-37 GW)

 

Who do you most identify with in this story and why?

 

Have you ever felt like or been the man on the street?

 

What are the barriers to helping the man on the street?

 

Have you ever been too busy to help someone?

 

Is our decision to help someone determined more by our character or by our circumstances?[1]

 

What can we do to better prepare ourselves to be a good neighbor?

 

How can we ‘go and imitate [the good Samaritan’s] example’? [2],[3]

 

[2] “God does not demand of me that I accomplish great things.  He does demand of me that I strive for excellence in my relationships.”-Ted W. Engstrom, The Making of a Christian Leader, 81

[3] Luke 10:37

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Evil and Suffering, Passing the Blame

It took me some time to see it (15 years), but it finally dawned on me as I observed another doctor do it.  I saw a patient who was dying of end stage liver disease from alcoholism.  The first question that the admitting doctor asked the patient was “When was the last time that you had a drink?”  How is that relevant at the end of this patients life?

I have been guilty of this as well.  I have seen patients dying of lung cancer that I have asked if they smoked and how much.  WHY?!! There is no medical reason to ask.  We ask these types of questions because it makes us feel better.  We think to ourselves:  1. They are to blame for their demise and 2. I won’t get this horrible disease because I don’t smoke or I don’t drink.

The blame game does NOTHING to help with the suffering, the evil, the tragedies, the messes of life.  We must rise above the blame game to ask ourselves how can I help others through this and to help heal the pain with God’s help.

We all play the blame game and look for someone to blame.

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God Questions Part 3: Evil and Suffering

This topic has hit me personally right between the eyes this last few years.  Bucky and I discuss evil and suffering in this session of the God Questions at Pathways Church (www.ocpathways.org)

You can also read this brief collection of information that I put together concerning evil and suffering:

The 5-C’s of Evil and Suffering

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Evil and Suffering Sermon #2 Luke 13:4

This is Greg Boyd’s final sermon on evil and suffering his preaching on Luke 13. He makes 3 KEY POINTS in this sermon:

#1. collapse the judgment–don’t blame the sufferer and don’t blame yourself for the suffering. We don’t know squat! As C.S. Lewis said to a colleague who was trying to comfort him with Lewis’ own theological answers to evil and suffering after his wife Joy died: ‘Shut up, it’s just a bloody mess.”
When we judge or look for blame for a tragedy, it forces us to conclude that God is just, and therefore we must blame the individuals involved in the tragedy.  Or we must conclude that God is unjust, and we must blame God for the tragedy.  But God doesn’t cause the messes; He brings purpose to the messes!
The one suffering often feels horrible and that they are to blame which causes us to label ourselves a murderer or a whatever and that makes us “not a verb that we did but a noun that we are!”
We must live in the now because God is in the now.  No blaming but asking God how He can bring good out of this tragedy.  Every mess is an opportunity to bring healing and something good out of it.  In a time of suffering, we must be quiet, listen and ask how would you, God, have me respond to this mess?
#2. in the face of tragedies don’t judge, just respond–Are you turned and walking in the kingdom? Don’t try to figure it out! Just bring healing! HOW CAN GOD BE GLORIFIED IN THE MESS?
#3. God’s response to tragedy is always about healing never about condemnation–We live in a demonic war zone…demonic forces play a big part of suffering….
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John 9:3

3 great points made by Greg Boyd:

  1. Some people use this verse to say that God is sometimes the source of evil but we must look at the entire Bible and note that based on what the Bible says about God being good, this verse is the exception and not the rule
  2. There are unseen evil forces at work
  3. the original Greek of this text  states: “…But let the works of God be displayed in him…”  Therefore it does not say that God caused the man to be blind but his blindness lead to God’s goodness being displayed
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Evil and Suffering Sermon #1 Luke 13:4

Another GREAT sermon by Greg Boyd! I wish that I had heard this during my times of suffering.

KEY POINTS:

  • Evil and suffering is not from God
  • God is good
  • Don’t ask why but ask ‘to what end’ (26:45)
  • Ask God ‘How should I respond in this situation?’ & ‘How can God be glorified in this situation?’