Why All The Suffering?

Even if the Bible is true and reliable, many believe that following the Bible hasn’t always been beneficial.  Why has Christianity done so much harm?

1.     People often masquerade as followers of Christ, and we must not assume that they are.

2.     Even if someone is following Christ they have the freewill to do what they choose. It doesn’t mean God has anything to do with it.

Well, maybe he has nothing to do with it, but WHY does he allow it or any other suffering? Why is there so much suffering?

1.     Most of the suffering is caused by people, even many of the “natural disasters”.

2.     Much of the suffering could be prevented.

3.     Much of the suffering is an attitude of mind. (“We are, all of us, living in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”)

4.     Often the sufferer knows he is benefiting from the suffering. II Corinthians 4:17-18: “Our suffering is light and temporary and is producing for us an eternal glory that is greater than anything we can imagine.  We don’t look for things that can be seen but for things that can’t be seen. Things that can be seen are only temporary. But things that can’t be seen last forever.”²

5.     It is easy to misuse the world.  If the air is thin enough to breathe, it must be thin enough to not break my fall.  If a rock can support me, it must be hard enough to hurt me if I fall onto it.

6.     The freedom to love needs the freedom to hurt. A world where there is a Mother Teresa is also a world where there can be a Hitler.

7.     We must not overlook the future when the present sufferings will be in the dim past. A seed perishes so that a plant may live and thrive.

Is freedom worth all that suffering?

1.     The risk of freedom is proportional to the potential for good.

2.     Anybody who has ever loved has also suffered.  God could have refused to create the world so that he wouldn’t have had to lose his son. 

3.     Is this short life all there is?  Romans 8:18: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

What About Other "Holy" Books?

At http://gordon-feil-theology.blogspot.ca/2017/01/okay-so-god-is-there-but-what-makes.html, we discussed what recommends the Bible as the Word of God. But further questions naturally flow from the discussion.

So the Bible has God’s word, but how do we know that the entire Bible is his word?  How do we know that there isn’t manmade composition included with it?

            The answer to this gets back to Y’shuah (Jesus).  Our faith in God and in the Bible as his word begins with him.  When we know that Y’shuah is God and that he is 100% reliable, then we can buy into his theology.  His testimony is that the Old Testament is God’s word.  He says in Luke 24:44 that “all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.”  This is testimony that all 3 divisions of the Old Testament are accepted by him as his word. 

            The question generally arises from disbelief of some of the more miraculous accounts such as Creation, the Flood, the scattering at Babel, and Joshua’s long day.  What the question misses is that each of these and other accounts are testified to by extra-biblical evidence.  Further, if what I suggested at http://gordonfeil.blogspot.ca/2016/11/what-is-reality.html is correct, then these accounts become even more believable.


So Y’shuah accepted the Old Testament, but the New was canonized amid argument over what books should be in it, so how do we know that the right books were chosen?

            The New Testament canonization only became an issue when folks such as Marcion proclaimed a different one which supported his heretical theology.   The canon was basically handed down by tradition, believer to believer, and it only makes sense that the original people to do this, people who were willing to die for what they believed, determined canonicity based upon whom they knew to have written the books and what the books taught (because they knew what the original apostles had been taught by Y’shuah). 

There was very little dispute over what books are part of the canon, but even if we remove the odd one over which there was some disagreement, such as II Peter or Revelation, it makes little difference to the message of the New Testament. 

If we believe there is a God who cares for us and who is passing his word to us, we have to rely on his providence to direct the process.

What about the holy books of other religions?

    1.     Hindus and Buddhists have literature they view as sacred, but they don’t regard it as infallible.

    2.     Find a book that has changed lives like the Bible. The Koran? How about the Bhagavad Gita? Maybe the Book of Mormon? They may recommend change, but HOW effective are they?

    3.     Work from the known to the unknown.  

                      i.      I KNOW about the resurrection (because I can prove    it). 

                          a.     I know it happened, and

                          b.     I know it happened as Y’shuah predicted: on the third day. 

                     ii.             Y’shuah recommended the scriptures that are now the Bible.

    4.     Since these other books contradict the Bible in some ways, I cannot rely upon them.  My reasons for believing the Bible are also reasons for NOT believing these other books.

    5.     If there are reasons for believing these other books, let’s see them.

    6.     This is not narrow-mindedness.   Being narrow-minded isn’t a function of what you believe, but of how you come to believe it.  “Truth is one, but falsehood is manifold.”

    7.     The Bible’s counsel is at I Th. 5:21: ^“Test all things; hold fast what is good.”

Okay, so God is there, but what makes the Bible special?

1.     Its ideals.  “The best of men could not have written it; the worst of men would not have written it” as someone has said.

2.     Its efficacy: its ability to transform lives.  Anybody who has experienced this in themselves finds it easy to accept the Bible as God’s word, even the difficult parts.

3.     Its integrity: the presentation of details that can be corroborated.  An example is Luke 3:1-2: “Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness.” The more details in an account, the greater the chance of error, but the Bible is not afraid of detail.

4.     Its composition.  About 40 people from 7 countries composed it across 1600 years, yet it is internally consistent and presents a unified theme (which is found in Isaiah 51:16 in the Old Testament and in Hebrews 2:10 in the New Testament). 

Is. 51:16: And I have put My words in your mouth;
        I put my words in your mouth
    and sheltered you in the palm of my hand.
    I stretched out the heavens,
    laid the foundations of the earth,
        and said to Zion, “You are my people.”¹

Hb. 2:10: For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.²

What these words are telling us is that God is preparing a people, “many sons”, for “glory”.

5.     Its indestructibility. Various regimes have endeavored to destroy this book, but it always flourishes.

6.     Its foreknowledge: about one-third of the Bible is prophecy, “history written in advance”.

7.     The Bible must be God’s book if Y’shuah is God.  He treated it as the word of God, and since we can show that he is God (which is a separate discussion, and I don’t want a diversion within this diversion from the discussion about love), we can see that any attitude he has is valid.  If we accept Y’shuah as God, we have to accept his theology as reliable.

The first question in the next post on this theme will likely be “So the Bible has God’s word, but how do we know that the entire Bible IS his word?  How do we know that there isn’t manmade composition with it?”  We are headed for the question of “If God exists, why is there so much suffering?” There is a purpose in this and it is leading us back to the discussion of love.