City Life Starter

The Word:

“Come on, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns. We can tell our father, ‘A wild animal has eaten him.’ Then we’ll see what becomes of his dreams!” Genesis 37:20

By Dr. Blesson Selvanesan

Joseph was a son who was loved by his father. His brothers hated him and decided to do something about it. They threw him in a pit and then sold him into slavery. If we see this incident as it was happening, we would have wondered, how can a loving God do something like this to an innocent young man and destroy his life. Since this is a past event we know that Joseph was elevated at some point in his life and God blessed him abundantly. So, there was a happy ending. There are many cases of similar happy endings after much suffering such as the lives of Daniel, Job, David, Ruth, Lazarus the brother of Martha and Mary. Although it’s difficult to understand the depth of the suffering, it does make logical sense to some extent.  

However, there are cases which are difficult to explain, such as the story of Lazarus and the rich man. Lazarus never received any good thing on this earth and died in his suffering. Or the death of eighteen who died due to a tower collapse (Luke 13:4) or those Galileans who were killed by Pilate (Luke 13:1). Sometimes it does make no sense and it is easy to wonder if God is loving? And if there is a God? Why do we have evil? Is God good?  Many do conclude that there is no God because there is too much of evil. Jesus while citing these incidents, forced the questioner to have a heavenly perspective and questioned the evil inside everyone. Evil is not a ghost lurking somewhere in the darkness, it is in us and we are evil sinners and we live in a fallen world. Going back to the story of Joseph, we all talk about Joseph’s suffering, do we ever talk about the evil that was present in the hearts of his brothers?

Application:

When I first traveled in Europe and America, I saw prosperity and goodness all around. But I did not see many following God! Its interesting to me that people who see evil, do not see the good. It’s as if they want to see the evil to deny God and they are not denying God because of evil. Because I notice that people often do not conclude, there is too much of good so there must be a God. I am borrowing an explanation used by Dr. Ravi Zacharias on the problem of evil. “When you say there’s too much evil in this world you assume there’s good. When you assume there’s good, you assume there’s such a thing as a moral law on the basis of which to differentiate between good and evil. But if you assume a moral law, you must posit a moral Law Giver, but that’s Who you’re trying to disprove and not prove. Because if there’s no moral Law Giver, there’s no moral law. If there’s no moral law, there’s no good. If there’s no good, there’s no evil. What is your question?”

I used to have a Catholic brother as one of my physics teachers in school, He used to pray “Lord, Bless my students directly proportional to their hard work and bless them directly proportional to their good deeds” It sounds funny but, in the absence of grace, this is what people expect to happen. But ‘good’, ‘hard work’, ‘bless’ is very relative. In an eastern frame of mind, it makes sense as they believe in ‘karma’. However, Life is more complicated than that. When good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people, we are perplexed and confused. The easiest escape route to get around this is to deny the existence of a good God. The problem with this approach is that it does not explain the problem. We see that this question is often pointed at Christianity which is very interesting. All worldviews, all the …isms including atheism will have to answer this problem of evil. It is not unique to Christianity. What are their explanations? Their explanations are more pathetic ranging from karma to random chance.

When someone is going through hard times, no amount of logic or lecture will ever help. Christianity offers hope and justice. What is unique in the Christian worldview is that it gives purpose and meaning to all that we go through. It makes love, hope, kindness, justice, and peace to blossom through the evil and despite the presence of evil. It offers comfort and soothes and smoothens the tough sail with fellowship, promises, and hope. When we take God of the Bible out of the equation, what do we have to offer for those suffering people? Nothing! Other religions offer judgments or karma. Atheism will say ‘bad luck’ at the best of the scenario because it is no good and bad according to their logic.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, Thank you for all the goodness. Thanks for all your blessings. Help us to be comforters for those who are in need. Help us to address the evil inside us. Forgive our sins and help us to trust in your goodness and judgment. In Christ’s name. Amen.