Hey all,
Sorry it is Thursday and I’m just now posting. Been chewing on this topic for some time now and still struggling to find a home base in Scripture.
The questions I look to answer this week are:
#5 “Why does violence have to exist?”
#20 “Why did God have to subject (ὑποτάσσω) creation to futility (Rom 8:20)?”
#24 “Why does a good God allow so much bad to happen?”
I plan to start our journey on Sunday in Genesis 3 (fall of humanity and its consequences), Job 1-2, and Romans 1. All three of those passages show the downfall of either humanity or the fact that God allows us his creation to be subject to evil/struggle (especially in Job). There are plenty of places I could go:
2 Cor 1:3-4 - suffering
Isaiah 41:10 - don’t fear, I am with you
PSALM 34:18
PSALM 46:1
JEREMIAH 29:11
ISAIAH 26:3
Revelation 21:4
PSALM 147:3
I simply don’t know where I want to land the plane other than I will dig into Romans 8:20ff - that God is our hope.
Conversations you could have with your group:
Why do you think God allows evil?
How do we deal with faith when life gets hard? How do we balance it?
How does our hope in God help us to endure the world?
How does the hope we have help us live in the Spirit and bring about its fruit in our lives and others in the midst of the broken world?