What are the causes of evil and suffering? Sinful people cause some suffering directly through such things as lying, anger, divorce, drugs, crime, etc. Sin causes suffering indirectly, because of sin this earth is corrupted, deteriorating, painful and evil (Genesis 3:14-19; 4:1-15; Romans 8:20-22). We conclude, then, that God is not the cause of suffering; He is the Author of good (James 1:13-17). Some people incorrectly conclude that since God made everything, He made evil too. Note St. Augustine’s reasoning, which seems to be correct. 1. God is the Author of everything in the created universe. 2. Evil is not a thing or a substance; it is a privation or lack in things (e.g., blindness is lack of sight, pain is lack of health, hate or murder is lack of love). 3. Therefore God did not create evil. Why doesn’t God end all evil immediately? To end evil God would have to destroy the cause of evil – people. In His good plan for people, it, therefore, is not good to end all evil immediately. Why doesn’t God make people unable to cause suffering? To do that, God would have to take away our ability to choose. Yet, choice – free will – is a good thing. In order to love, one must be able to choose to love. Forced love is not love. So to have a universe that included love, God had to make us with choice, which includes the choice not to love, and that makes sin,

On the Gettysburg battlefield, there are two round-top hills with a rocky area between them known as “Devil’s Den.” It became a place of refuge during the fierce battle. Following the battle, many bodies were retrieved of soldiers seeking refuge “in the cleft of the rock.” What was hoped to be protection became a vault by which they were entrapped. During times of threat and harm, we have been promised refuge that cannot be penetrated by the most cunning enemy. David had found refuge in God’s protective custody many times, about which he wrote with these words: “I love you, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies” (Psalm 18:1-3). God’s glory is seen from the Rock as it is expressed by the words of the old song, “Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee.” I find comfort in the passage where God told His people of the Exodus, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock” (Exodus 23:21-23). There is the story of a little bird that was being chased by a much larger bird of prey. The little

Consider 2 Corinthians 9:8, which reads, “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.” Herein a divine promise is made that we will always have all sufficiency in all things so that we may abound unto every good work. The promise is certain because it is given by our omnipotent God, who is completely able to make all grace abound toward us. Contextually, the wonderful blessings of this promise come as a result of our practicing God’s teaching on sowing and reaping. Specifically, we will reap for two reasons: (1) Our sowing has been bountiful. (2) God has promised, through His grace, to bless us. Let us reflect upon the ability of our God to bless us. In this lesson we will show an example of how our God is able to bless us in what we do when we follow His commandments. Our God is able to save us. This salvation is exclusively through the Christ. “Wherefore He [Christ] is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). The blessing of salvation is bestowed when we obey the Gospel. “And being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him” (Hebrews 5:9). Obedience opens the door to man’s greatest gift, that is, the gift of salvation. Seeing that

The term “wrest” is seldom used in our vocabulary today, but it was familiar to those who lived prior to and during the time of the early church. Moses first wrote about it when encouraging the people to not “wrest judgment” (Exodus 23:2, 6; Deuteronomy 16:19). The word means to “distort, pervert, stretch out, turn aside or away” (Young’s). David’s use of it caught my attention. As a spokesman for God, David was frustrated because he was honoring God’s Word, but his people refused to do so. He lamented, “In God I will praise his word, in God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me. Every day they wrest my words: all their thoughts are against me for evil” (Psalm 56:4-5). Peter referenced Paul when he said, “As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction” (2 Peter 3:16). It just so happens that Peter had been writing about the coming of the Lord and how everything was going to be burned. It appears they changed the threatening message. We are in the throes of football playoffs this week, and I see some similarities, simplistically speaking, between the Word of God and a football. Everyone is concerned about the safety and comfort of the players, but the ball also is subjected to rain, snow and

Introduction “The Judaism of the intertestamental period is a very complex system indeed, comprising many religious and political groups (these two ideas can hardly be separated), and a multitude of ordinary Jews who belonged to no identifiable party. Three important parties mentioned by Josephus are the Sadducees, the Pharisees and the Essenes, to which he adds a fourth, later to be known as the Zealots, which made its appearance around the year A.D. 6“ (Russell 155). Sadducees We know very little regarding the Sadducees. The reason being is as Samuel Sandmel has written, “The Sadducees are known to us essentially from their portrayal by their critics or opponents, including bitter ones. If any Sadducee ever wrote anything, not a line has come down to us” (Sandmel 156). Consequently, our only knowledge of Sadducees comes from their enemies. Not a good source! Nevertheless, the following scholars have gleaned the following concerning the Sadducees. Frederick J. Murphy wrote: “Josephus, the New Testament, and rabbinic literature all speak of the Sadducees, but very little is really known about them. All three sources contrast the Sadducees and the Pharisees. In rabbinic literature, ritual purity and Sabbath observance are debated by the two groups. The rabbis supply little information for reconstructing Sadducean organization or beliefs. The only two solidly established traits of the Sadducees are that they were members of the ruling class, and that they did not believe in resurrection” (239). Stephen E. Robinson has given this view concerning the make-up and political role

No, Melchizedek was not the same person as Jesus, contrary to a rather popular notion that stems from a misunderstanding of certain passages in Hebrews 7. Melchizedek is first mentioned in Genesis 14. Abram (later called Abraham), returning from the rescue of his nephew (Lot), encountered this ancient dignitary who was King of Salem (early Jerusalem; cf. Psalm 76:2). In addition to being king, he was described as “priest of God Most High” (Genesis 14:18). His stature is revealed in that he “blessed” Abraham (the greater always blesses the lesser), and to Melchizedek the patriarch paid tithes (i.e., gave to the king-priest a tenth of his spoils; the lesser tithes to the greater). The writer of Hebrews used this incident (together with a prophecy from Psalm 110) to demonstrate the superiority of the priesthood of Christ to that of the Levitical system (Hebrews 7:4-10). Beyond that, there were some similarities between Melchizedek and Christ, so that it may be said that the former was a “type” (a picture or symbolic preview) of Jesus. That does not mean, however, that they were the same person. In fact, the sacred text indicates otherwise. Christ was said to be a priest “after the order of” Melchizedek (Hebrews 5:6, 10; 6:20; 7:11). Hence a comparison is being drawn. Melchizedek was “without father, without mother” (Hebrews 7:3a). The meaning is this: His divine role was not genealogically derived, not handed down from his parents. So, neither was Jesus’ priesthood determined by a physical lineage, as in the case of

As we move from late May to early June, across our nation colleges and high schools celebrate students who have achieved whatever it is that organization has required for them to graduate. Graduation cannot be seen as an end, whether it is from pre-kindergarten (yes, they even have those now), to kindergarten (yes, even those) to sixth grade (yes…) to high school, to an AA, a BA, a MA or even a Ph.D. Graduations, which are seen as an end, do injustice to the doors they open to one’s future. Graduation is all about opening more doors. The doors of life are many. The journey we call life is filled with many opportunities and obstacles. Both opportunity and obstacle have a way of becoming either positive or negative based on how an individual handles them. The greatest journey we are all on is the journey we take, the path we walk as we live our Christian lives. Jesus stated, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke 9:23). The most important graduation we all will experience will be the one from this mortal body to an immortal body. It is an eternity in heaven we must spend this life pursuing. Taking up our crosses involves taking on those hardships, making them opportunities and those opportunities with the right frame of reference. The reference we must have to be one of Jesus’ is that of self-denial and humility. It