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The message of evil and sufferingNo apologyTHE MESSAGE OF EVIL AND SUFFERING The latest in The Bible Speaks Today books on major themes looks at this thorny issue. There are six major sections covering ‘evil and suffering and God’, ‘evil and suffering and Jesus’, ‘the nature of’, ‘the reasons for’, and ‘living with’, evil and suffering, and finally, ‘from the evil one to Our Father’. Each section has a brief summary, and a ‘pause for thought’. The book is rounded off with a study guide. Each major section is comprised of sub-sections, which are running commentaries on or summaries of major Bible passages relevant to this theme. So, for example, in the first section Peter Hicks starts with ‘the end of the story’ in Revelation 15, then moves to ‘the beginning of the story’ in Genesis 6, before covering Exodus 34 and Psalm 2. His expositions are thoughtful and suggestive. Preachers trying to get a message outline from a passage, or developing a topical approach on the theme of suffering, from the many angles the Bible considers it, will find help. This book is not a philosophically-oriented, or personal story-based, handling of the subject, even though Peter Hicks has spent a large part of his career teaching and talking about it in those ways. Rather as he says in his preface, ‘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…Yes. The problem is big. But God is bigger’. Things to appreciateThe points that I appreciated? First, is his calling us back to a God-centred understanding, and a God-inspired hope, in the face of evil. Hicks keeps on drawing out the lesson that evil is defined by our disallowing ‘God to be God’. Rebellion and treachery on our part are the founts from which misery flows. The amazing nature of the grace that will pay any price to rescue and transform those responsible for such a torrent of evil is often underscored. The willingness of God to be made flesh in this ‘vale of tears’ is movingly handled. Some of the passages were explained very helpfully. I particularly enjoyed the insights on the Lord’s Prayer in the final section. There was also a very useful summary of the main objections raised about suffering and some suggested responses. What’s not so great?What did I struggle with? Overall I found the book ‘dense’; lots of content, flowing fast, many passages touched on, interludes for thought and consideration, but not very often personalised with examples. Some of the expositions left me less than fully ‘with’ the author. For example, his handling of Romans 8 or Ephesians 1 was lacking. Perhaps this is due to his slightly hesitating grasp of a robust Calvinism? He only touches briefly on divine election, and hardly at all on predestination, although, to be fair, he clearly avows God’s sovereignty over all things. His teaching on the nature of God’s wrath, judgement, and hell were filled with sensitivity and compassion, but also felt a bit ‘hazy’. Some of his thoughts developing the theme of the ‘scarred God’ were suggestive, but it would have been useful to point out to younger believers where the ‘boundaries’ of the discussion need to be so that no one takes just one idea to what may appear a logical, but unbiblical, conclusion. Francis Schaeffer adopted this approach most helpfully in his own Genesis in Space and Time years ago, and a similar approach on the ‘suffering God theme’ would have been good. Mentioning Schaeffer, in Hicks’s treatment of Job, I was surprised there was no mention of Edith Schaeffer’s book Affliction, to my mind still the best thing I have read to help Christians understand, live with, and have hope in suffering. So, to summarise, warm and compassionate, and ideas to help you if discerningly read. But hard work, not an ‘apologetic’ treatment as such, and not to be simplistically turned to during a time of evil and suffering. Like Lewis’s The Problem of Pain best read and digested well before it happens — recall just how different was his A Grief Observed when such deep pain hit home and hurt so much. Dr. Ray Evans, © Evangelicals Now - July 2007 |