This week I am on the road, but I would like to explore in (5) relatively short pieces an issue that never seems to expire, namely, the problem of evil.

Below are a few ways you may’ve heard the problem expressed:

• There’s so much evil in the world. How could a good God permit this?
• If God were omnipotent and good, he would prevent evil. But evil is seemingly everywhere. Therefore, God is either not all powerful or he is not all good. Either way, God loses. And so do we.
• I can’t believe in the God of the Bible because, well, just look at all the horrible things God commanded–the destruction of the Amalekites, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the stoning of homosexuals, etc. That’s not loving. And we know God is love.
• The God you Christians speak of is selfish. He wants us to believe he’s the only way. How narrow-minded. If God were good, he’d allow us to be free to worship and/or not worship him. He’s an insecure, needy God, and I cannot believe in that.

The list could go on and on.

First: Let me show my cards up front. I, too, have wrestled deeply with questions of theodicy. The problem of evil is never far beneath the surface in any serious conversation about our lives. If we are honest with one another, we all recognize that our world is a mess. We have broken families, we have broken marriages, we have broken vows, we have wars and rumors of wars, we have cancer and Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s in our families or in families of those we know and love, etc. We know of abused children, battered spouses, drug-addled homeless, the poor and destitute, the persecuted believers across the earth, etc. This list could go on and on. It’s quite natural that the problem of evil will arise in any serious-minded conversation. So, right out of the gate, let’s acknowledge that the world is a mess. To use biblical language, the world is fallen.

Second: Before I follow this first installment with responses to the questions raised above, let me also say this: Christians should be the most welcoming audience of serious people with serious questions. Life is full of pain, so cant and snarky dismissals of legitimate queries are both unkind and unhelpful. When folks have sincere questions, Christians should welcome those questions and aim to give grace-filled biblical responses.

Third: My favorite book of all time remains Ecclesiastes, and so my responses are not my own. They come from Scripture. Primarily they come from the books of Job and Ecclesiastes. The last two books I pull from are Psalms and Genesis. I pull from other places (as seen below) but this is just a preview of coming attractions.

Lastly (for today at least), just one final thought to keep in mind as I try to address these concerns. It comes from the masterful book of Isaiah, written by the prophet of the same name in the 700s and 600s B.C.:

Woe to those who call evil good

 and good evil,

who put darkness for light

 and light for darkness,

who put bitter for sweet

 and sweet for bitter! (Isaiah 5:20)

There is more wisdom in that one verse than most will ever acknowledge in this lifetime. But it will one day be acknowledged by us all. I just submit it to you as something to think on as I write this first of what I think will be just five short pieces. Be encouraged, dear reader. Evil does exist; it is very real; but so is the one and only God who uses it and triumphs over it. But I am getting ahead of myself. Stand by for part two tomorrow.

Got home today. Hit the trail. Shared the woods with some deer. Found a few skeletal fragments, one of which was a skull.

Loved the sound of the water coming over the rocks down at the creek, especially.

Simple pleasures.

Videos are linked below.

Videos to some of my time:

The Issue: Depth of the Mission (Part 5/5)

“Most people worship their work, work at their play, and play at their worship.” It’s a line I have written in one of my Bibles that I picked up somewhere. It has stuck with me.

I cannot speak for others, but I have certainly been guilty of the charge. I love what I do for a living, because I don’t view it so much as a job as a vocation-a calling to minister amidst a pluralistic environment, amidst competing worldviews, because I know that some will respond to the truth, and God’s mission will be accomplished. Christ has told us plainly. When Christ was in the temple in Jerusalem in the colonnade of Solomon, he did not mince words: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). Earlier he told the hostile crowds, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:37).

We all battle frustrations on the battlefield of trying to bear witness to the truth. It can be, if you are actually putting skin in the game, so to speak, costly. Just this week, Christians in Nashville, TN were arrested for praying and singing hymns at an abortion mill. Let that sink in: Who was arrested? Christians. What are they facing? Up to 10 years in prison. What were they doing? Praying and singing hymns at an abortion mill. Where? Not in Moscow, Russia. Not in Tehran, Iran. It was in Nashville, TN. That’s where we are in our nation.

Believers could be tempted to abandon hope and think that secularism is the religion demanded by the people. We will see what will become of our nation. I don’t know how much more polarized and acerbic it may become, but I do know that God’s determined counsel will prevail. When God speaks in Isaiah, he says, “I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose'” (Isaiah 46:10b). If and how America fits into that plan is not for me to say. The vocation of believers is to be faithful, and not to play at our worship. The time of antics or pretense is long gone.

Encouragement & Application: I am blessed to work with some of the finest Soldiers I’ve ever known. And the Civilians, too, are usually retired veterans who are still putting skin in the game. Many of them serve as paragons of inspiration to me day in and day out. What is called for is nothing new. It is faithfulness. To complete the mission. To see it through. To give it all. Because that is what God gave in Christ the Son.

When it’s personal, you tend to take notice. Over recent days, three soldiers from GA were killed while deployed to the Middle East. Dozens of other soldiers were injured. The unit to which these soldiers belong is just meters from my office. And the flags are now at half-staff as part of honoring these soldiers and their sacrifice. But do we notice sufficiently? What do we actually do except pause, shake our heads as if to say, “What a shame,” and “They were so young,” and “Boy, the world sure is a mess”?

I ask this not just because I’m a soldier but because I don’t know that I believe the West is, or especially that most Americans are, awake yet to the reality of how dangerous the world is, or of how the idolatry of mindless comfort brings with it deadly consequences. It seems that just so long as folks can stream their videos, take selfies, and follow Taylor Swift’s every lipstick-laden moment, they feel (not think) the world is just fine. The issue, however, is real simple: it’s called reality.

In related news, an illegal alien gives some less than polite sign language to the world after being part of a gang who assaulted New York Police Department officers. You won’t be surprised to learn that the illegal alien was released, but not before giving the world the middle finger. Good thing the progressives want to defund the police. That should help us keep progressing into the promised utopia. We’re doing fine here.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/illegal-migrant-flips-middle-fingers-charged-attacking-nypd-times-square

If you have the stomach, enjoy:

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/01/31/watch-migrants-brutally-attack-nyc-cops-get-freed-from-jail-without-bail/

And Iranian-backed Houthis attacked U.S. sailors and their vessels, too, but that may’ve happened while you were on TikTok or seeing what Taylor had for breakfast.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/houthis-target-u-s-destroyer-carney-british-merchant-ship-missile-attacks-red-sea-gulf-of-aden/

Did I mention that our nation’s flags are at half-staff, again? Sorry, didn’t mean to distract you.

May I suggest a little inconvenient truth to us: You will be made to care.

That’s the way evil operates, you see. You can coast for a while. You can think it won’t affect you, but pretty soon that group of Christians who have now been indicted for praying and singing Christian hymns at an abortion mill …. well, their being persecuted will come to your doorstep eventually, you see. It’s called the silencing and the putting down of every vestige of Christian witness and sanity. You will be made to care.

We don’t want to mess with the moms murdering their babies, you see. Instead we want to punish and silence those who work to preserve life, save the babies, and minister to them and their mothers.

https://thefederalist.com/2024/01/30/dad-of-11-convicted-for-praying-at-abortion-facility-alongside-5-other-pro-lifers-targeted-by-doj/#:~:text=A%20%E2%80%9Cpeaceful%E2%80%9D%20pro%2Dlife,a%20federal%20jury%20in%20Nashville.

Just throwing it out there, folks. Ideas have consequences. Ghastly and demonic ideas tend to be followed by ghastly and demon-scented consequences. In plainspeak, it’s called the law of the harvest. We reap what we sow. And the stormclouds are gathering.

You may not see them quite yet on your social media feeds all a-glitter and sparkling with starlets and football icons, but that’s just the way the enemy of your souls wants it.

Just stay distracted; just ignore those flags at half-staff; just think it’s not your problem and that someone else will fight the bad guys on your behalf. All’s fine here, don’t you know? Social media told you so.

Oh, what’s that sound? Sounds like it’s getting closer to your zip code, to your neighborhood. Ah, nevermind. All’s well.

Sounds like a good time for some of Neil Young and Stephen Stills’ days as Buffalo Springfield:

There’s something happening here
But what it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware

I think it’s time we stop
Children, what’s that sound?
Everybody look, what’s going down?

There’s battle lines being drawn
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind

It’s time we stop
Hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look, what’s going down?

What a field day for the heat (Ooh ooh ooh)
A thousand people in the street (Ooh ooh ooh)
Singing songs and they carrying signs (Ooh ooh ooh)
Mostly say, “Hooray for our side” (Ooh ooh ooh)

It’s time we stop
Hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look, what’s going down?

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
Step out of line, the men come and take you away

We better stop
Hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look, what’s going down?

You better stop
Hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look, what’s going down?

You better stop
Now, what’s that sound?
Everybody look, what’s going down?

You better stop
Children, what’s that sound?
Everybody look, what’s going down?

This morning at PT was just another iteration in years and years of morning training but I never seem to tire of watching the sky, especially on clear mornings, come alive.

Psalm 108 reads, “Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn!” (Ps 108:2 ESV).

All you need is eyes to see and ears to hear what good things God has done.

Issue: Wisdom vs. Folly: The Bible’s Binary (Depth: Part 4/5)

Recently I was having a conversation with my wife when I shared with her my love and appreciation for a teacher in my life who made a huge impact. His name was Dr. Higgins. He was an English professor in my college days who was used by God to inspire me almost like no other teacher I’d had up until then. He had read more than anyone else I’d ever met. He was one of those people who had actually read all the books that people brag about having read but few have—tomes like Anna Karenina, War and Peace, Moby Dick, all of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, Tom Jones, Bleak House, etc. Dr. Higgins seemed to have read nearly everything and for us literary types, he became a paragon of what it meant to truly be well-read and educated. Dr. Higgins became an easy model for me to emulate in my own way. 

I still think of him often, of how his lectures in the English Department building would be my favorite courses, of how he would draw a T-chart on the dry erase board, and say to us, “Learn to think clearly. On the left side of the chart are atheistic writers who share the same beliefs, the same worldview, and this is how and why their books are anti-God, anti-life books, plays, and poems (The Stranger, “Dover Beach,” Thomas Hardy’s novels, etc.)” Then on the right side of the T-chart, he’d list several theistic authors and their life-affirming works (Milton’s Paradise Lost, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, etc.).and say, “Learn to think clearly. See the pattern?” Then he would begin his lectures, and we English graduate students would feast, then be dismissed to go and learn, go and write, go and grow. 

Question: How does this relate to the Bible’s binary of wisdom vs. folly and the issue depth in the Christian life? In Proverbs, the main idea is wisdom. That’s the whole point of the book. Be wise. It’s a book of instruction delivered from a wise father to a son. It’s filled with practical wisdom for how to navigate life as a wise person rather than as a fool. 

Again and again, wisdom vs. folly is the T-chart model. Not this but that. Do this rather than that. Don’t be this way, but instead be that way, etc. Here are just a few examples:

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Pr 1:7)

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight” (Pr 9:10)

“The fear of the LORD prolongs life, but the years of the wicked will be short” (Pr 10:27)

“The fear of the LORD is instruction in wisdom, and humility comes before honor” (Pr 15:33).

Encouragement & Application: The binary is so clear in Scripture. Don’t be shallow but be a person of depth. Don’t be a mocker of God, but worship God with reverence and awe. Don’t be a fool, but rather be wise. Don’t skate upon the surface of life but examine your life in light of what ultimately matters. As John Piper wrote in a book with the same title, don’t waste your life, but rather invest it by investing in the things of eternity—truth and the souls of men. 

P.S. I miss you, Dr. Higgins. You were a wise man.

Issue: The Importance of Depth in Godly Leadership

Text: Philippians 1:9 reads, “And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment . . . .”

Context: Philippians is one of the apostle Paul’s prison epistles. The label is accurate. Why? Paul was incarcerated in Rome for evangelizing his culture. History does indeed repeat patterns. Truth has always had its angelic and human enemies since Genesis 3, and even before that in the heavenlies. Light vs. darkness. Truth vs. lies. The Savior vs. the serpent.

But when Paul wrote, the theme that most characterizes this epistle of Philippians was not anger. It was not resentment. It was not hopelessness or helplessness. No, it was joy.

Paul’s prayer for his fellow believers was that their love would abound with joy. Isn’t that striking?

What’s more, he prayed that they would be knowledgeable and discerning. That is, he prayed for their spiritual depth.

The specified task was to love the brethren, and the implied tasks were that knowledge and discernment buttressed true love.

Encouragement: When I look back on the best bosses for whom I have worked, I see a common thread in all of them: They have had a joy and wisdom that underlaid and informed their leadership. That sort of demeanor is contagious. It motivates people. It attracts the right people. And it is worth our emulating.

Intro: A Call to Depth (Part 2/5)

There are some sections of Scripture that leap off the page in terms of their power. The one below from Ephesians 4 is such a passage.

Text:

11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,  12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love” (Eph 4:11-16, ESV).

Context: Paul was writing from his prison cell in Rome in A.D. 62 to believers in Ephesus (a port city on the western coast of modern-day Turkey) about the inheritance Christians have received in terms of wisdom. Christ, Paul tells us in Ephesians 4, gave us apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers (Eph 4:11). Why? To equip the saints (Eph 4:12). To be discerning/to grow deep (Eph 4:14). Again in v. 15, he labors the point by saying “we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.”

Why do we have such passages in Scripture? Because ignorance is to our shame. Because godly leadership entails wise leadership, and wisdom comes from God (James 1:5). Solomon writes so much about how wisdom is inseparable from sagacious leadership: “Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law” (Pr 29:18).

Encouragement: There is a world of difference between information, gimmicks of entertainment, and wisdom. May we be shepherd-leaders who are characterized by wisdom, and that means by knowing wisdom’s source (John 4:26).

I read a book some time ago that said every worldview, if it is to be coherent, must answer at least (4) questions:

• Who am I? (Or, what is the nature, task and purpose of human beings?)
• Where am I? (Or, what is the nature of the world and universe I live in?)
• What’s wrong? (Or, what is the basic problem or obstacle that keeps me from attaining fulfillment? In other words, how do I understand evil?
• What is the remedy? (Or, how is it possible to overcome the hindrance to my fulfillment? In other words, how do I find salvation?)

*Two books I have found super-helpful are James Sire’s Naming the Elephant: Worldview As a Concept and Walsh and Middleton’s The Transforming Vision.

Worldviews Being Played Out via Concertina Wire, Illegals, Fentanyl, & the Will to Power:

I do not watch TV, but I do read the news in order to see what is being done to my country and to the world. If you want to see worldviews in conflict, you do not have to look long. Here’s a simple graph:

National sovereignty	vs.	Borderlessness
States’ rights	vs.	Federal fiat
Law & order	vs.	Melee/lawlessness/no prosecution of crime
Protection of life & property	vs.	Abortion/infanticide/eradication of private property rights
Traditional Western biblical family values	vs.	Secularism/nihilism/postmodernism/identity politics/victim status ‘group think’

“You will be made to care” is a cliche that is nonetheless true. To use another cliche, “ideas have consequences.” Folks can say that we don’t need borders until the thugs show up on your property and the savagery ensues. When a replay of Genesis 19 happens to your family, suddenly it’s not just sunshine and rainbows anymore. Suddenly all the bromides about everybody just getting along fine, and “It’ll not affect me” thinking dissipates with a quickness. Funny how those who live lives surrounded by bodyguards, walls, fences, security cameras, bulletproof barricades, and protective armor like to lecture the little people about their intolerance.

I do not want violence; I so don’t want it. Because it tends to escalate quickly, and can, if rendered by the morally unrestrained, stagger the mind. But we are witnessing America’s military being divided against itself via federal bureaucrats. And I am fearful for my country. Texas is symptomatic of a macrocosm. And that macrocosm is a question of worldviews. Which will we live by? One leads to life; the other leads to destruction and death. May the Lord have mercy upon us.

Issue: Dangers of Depthlessness

I have several loved ones in my family that I long to be gripped by the greatness of God, but there is some resistance. One point of resistance is that Christianity has so often been presented to them as sentimentality about God loving them, drenched in Hallmark-sounding sentimentality, that they have been dumbed-down by the increasingly vapid teaching of some Christians who are charged with leading.

Yet they see me pore over volumes of church history, theology, Bibles, and biographies, etc. They see my wife fill journal after journal of prayers from her life of intercession, but then they hear that Jesus is just waiting to enter their heart, and questions about, “Why don’t they allow him to come in?” Folks, if we know anything about God at all, it certainly is not the case that he needs our permission for anything. When’s the last time you heard a pastor preach through God’s responses to Job? Here are just (3) samples of what I mean about the greatness of God:

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding” (Job 38:4)

“Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors, and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?” (Job 38:8-11)  

“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion? Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season, or can you guide the Bear with its children? Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth? (Job 38:31-33)

Encouragement: Like countless others in the history of the faith once for all delivered to the saints, I go through the Scriptures year after year after year. I have yet to find where God ever dumbs down the greatest story ever told. Rather, when people are confronted with the actual God who is, they collapse at his feet (Luke 8:41). Or they flee out of holy terror (Jonah). Or they are struck dead because they lied (Acts 5), or they see their own sinfulness (Isaiah 6), but they have a holy reverential fear of God (Revelation 4:10).

God is unchangeably great, magnificent, and grand. Even and especially at Calvary, when God the Son became sin and was made the curse on behalf of his people, he was raised bodily three days later in power and triumph, proving that the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.

May we be confident to teach, preach, and herald the actual God of Scripture, and not substitute an anemic niceness in his stead. Why? Because the God who redeems sinners is the same God who named and sustained the Pleiades, laid the foundation of the earth, raised Lazarus, crushed the head of the serpent, and grants salvation to sinners. Herald that God, the actual God, who is Lord over all.