Evil and suffering may be a mystery to us, but they are not a mystery to God. The Bible writers have no time for an unreal idealism, in which the life of faith is free from anguish, pain and perplexity. They are confident that God’s power and wisdom are great enough not just to cope with the realities of suffering and evil, but to overcome and transform them, and to enable us to be ‘more than conquerors’ in a broken and hurting world.
With warmth and clarity, Peter Hicks expounds a range of relevant biblical texts that enable us to set the issue of evil and suffering firmly in the context of the nature and purposes of God. Central to his approach is the conviction that the key lies in the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the suffering and triumph of God himself. In valuable practical sections he explores the Bible’s teaching on how we are to live in a world of evil and suffering.
Peter Hicks is a Baptist pastor who for many years was on the staff of London School of Theology, lecturing in philosophy and pastoral care. He is the author of a number of books including What Could I Say?, What Could I Do?, What Could I Be?, Discovering Revelation, Evangelicals and Truth, and The Journey So Far: Philosophy Through the Ages.
288 pages
Contents:
Part 1. Evil and suffering – and God
1. The end of the story (Revelation 15:3–4)
2. The beginning of the story (Genesis 6:5–8)
3. The God of love and punishment (Exodus 34:6–7)
4. Chaos and the King (Psalm 2)
Interlude. Evil and suffering – and God
Part 2. Evil and suffering – and Jesus
5. The coming of God (Luke 4:14–30)
6. The incarnate God (1 John 3:15)
7. The scarred God (Revelation 5:6)
8. The conquering God (Ephesians 1:9–10, 19–23)
9. The teaching of Jesus on evil and suffering
(Mark 1:14–15; Luke 6:20–36, Matthew 12:24–37)
Interlude. Evil and suffering – and Jesus
Part 3. What on earth? The nature of evil and suffering
10. The paradigm evil (Genesis 3.1–24)
11. The cosmic battle (Revelation 12 – 14)
12. Suffering evil
Interlude. What on earth? The nature of evil and suffering
Part 4. Why on earth? Reasons for evil and suffering
13. Wrestling with God (Genesis 32:22–32)
14. From suffering to glory (Romans 8:17–27)
15. The gift of suffering (Philippians 1:29–30)
16. Good out of evil (Romans 8:28)
17. Giving reasons (1 Peter 3:15–16)
Interlude. Why on earth? Reasons for evil and suffering
Part 5. How on earth? Living with evil and suffering
18. The suffering people of a suffering God
(Matthew 10:16–39)
19. Living with suffering (Job; 2 Corinthians 4:7 – 5:10)
20. Living with evil (Titus 2:11–14; Matthew 5:13–16;John 20:21–22)
Interlude. How on earth? Living with evil and suffering
Part 6. From the evil one to our Father
21. The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9–13)
Study guide
Extracts:
Author’s preface
I started writing this book and soon gave up. A publisher urgently wanted a book on God, and I decided that God was a much more attractive theme than evil and suffering.
But I am very grateful that, once I had spent two or three months focusing on God, I returned to evil and suffering. Starting with a long hard look at God is a tremendous help when we have to face any problem issue. And the fact is that I personally have been greatly helped and encouraged by studying what the Bible says about evil and suffering. For a quarter of a century I have worked with students at undergraduate and postgraduate level on the philosophical problem of evil. Wise though the insights of many thinkers through the ages may be, it has been so refreshing and exciting to turn from human theodicies to God’s own answer outlined for us in the Bible.
Yes, the problem is big. But God is bigger.
Extract from Part 1: Evil and suffering – and God
Revelation 15:3–4 - 1. The end of the story
1. Future focus
I got hooked on Sherlock Holmes early in life. I loved the descriptions of Victorian and Edwardian London with its fogs and cabs and three postal deliveries each day. I shuddered at the grotesque and the horrific. I puzzled over the mysteries and shared the obtuseness of Watson. Most of all, I was deeply impressed at Holmes’s ability to solve a problem even when it appeared impossible to everyone else, including me.
Since Holmes was Conan Doyle’s creation, I decided that the credit for this amazing ability to solve impossible mysteries should go to him. I remember suggesting this to my father, who wisely replied, ‘Maybe so. But you’ve got to remember that Conan Doyle knew the end of each story before he started to write it.’
We are going to start our study of evil and suffering in the Bible at the end of the story. That is because, although for us humans suffering and evil are a mystery, they are not a mystery to God, who stands behind the whole story of planet Earth. He knows the answer. He writes the end of the story. What is more, in the Bible he has revealed to us enough of that answer to enable us to cope with the tough chapters that make up the main part of the story. By being aware of the future we can live through the present.
The Bible’s attitude to evil and suffering, unlike ours, is not dominated by the current evil and suffering that are around us in the world. Rather, it is dominated by what is going to happen at the end of the world. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament, in essence, look forward. Both see the present in the light of the future. Right at the start, the book of Genesis announces God’s ultimate purpose as nothing less than blessing for ‘all peoples on earth’. The whole of the Old Testament pointed forward to the coming Day of the Lord, when God would break into the story of planet Earth to save and redeem, and to judge and purge his creation of all evil. The law was ‘a shadow of the good things that are coming’, and the prophets looked forward to the day when ‘the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea’. The New Testament proclaims that this Day has already dawned in the coming of God in Christ, and that his kingdom is already in process of being established. But the process is not yet complete, so the New Testament also rings with the ‘living hope’ of the final coming of the King and the full establishing of his kingdom. This looking forward is vital to our understanding of the Bible’s teaching on evil and suffering. If we fail to grasp it we will end up with only a limited answer to all the questions evil and suffering raise.
This future focus, says the writer to the Hebrews, was key to Christ’s suffering and work on the cross. It was ‘for the joy that was set before him’ that he ‘endured the cross, scorning its shame’. Paul stated, ‘I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us’, and ‘our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all’. Peter encouraged his readers to put up with all the suffering they were facing because God ‘has given us new birth into a living hope . . . an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade – kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.’ The book of Revelation constantly encourages the persecuted and struggling Christians of the churches in Asia to refocus on the certainties of the future in order to keep going through the uncertainties of the present.
Such focusing on ‘future fact’ is very out of fashion today. It is condemned as ‘unscientific’ and mocked as wishful thinking by those who reject the Christian message. Even among Christians there is a certain amount of reticence that dulls its impact. But there was no such reticence in New Testament times. To declare the good news, the story of God’s mighty acts in Jesus, without its final chapter would have been unthinkable. All the purposes of God in the Old Testament, all the work and ministry of Jesus, all the witness and ministry of the church, lead up to and find their fulfilment in this great event. Here is the climax of the Bible story; here is the fulfilment of all God’s purposes; here is the crowning moment of the work of Christ; and here is the final revealing of what it is the amazing love and wisdom of our God has been preparing for those who love him.
2. Four foundational facts
Whatever approach we may take to the interpretation of the book of Revelation, there can be little dispute over the following four statements of its teaching on evil and suffering.
a. The world is overwhelmed with evils ...
b. Suffering is the lot of all humankind ...
c. Suffering is especially the lot of the people of God ...
d. Evils will continue to the end of the age ...
Reviews
‘The Bible Speaks Today series is brilliant for tuning in to God’s voice.’Roger Forster
‘I have found The Bible Speaks Today volumes inspirational and scholarly, and of enormous practical use.’
Stephen Gaukroger
ISBN: 9781844741489
Catalogue code: N/A
Publisher: IVP - published 15/10/2006
Format: Paperback