Word-Filled-Wednesday: Rom 8:31-32

“If God is for us, who can be against us?
He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
(Rom 8:31-32)

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Reflection: In facing the problem of evil,
Christ's sacrifice for us is the final word
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You may be familiar with best-selling author, Randy Alcorn. (Heaven, The Purity Principle) Alcorn has written a new book entitled, If God is Good... Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil. Randy's introduction is posted at his website, Eternal Perspectve Ministries and it sounds excellent.

Here is a brief excerpt...

"An unskilled truck driver, who paid a bribe for a license, was responsible for a large object falling on a Milwaukee freeway in front of the Willis’s van. The resulting crash caused their gas tank to explode. Six of the Willis’s children died.

In the press interview, Scott Willis said, “The depth of our pain is indescribable. However, the Bible expresses our feelings that we sorrow, but not as those without hope. What gives us our firm foundation for hope are the words of God found in Scripture… Ben, Joe, Sam, Hank, Elizabeth and Peter are all with Jesus Christ. We know where they are. Our strength rests in God’s Word.”

He is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. When it comes to goodness and evil, temporary suffering and eternal joy, Jesus is the first Word. And the last.

The Willis family’s story is exactly the kind that Bart Ehrman features in his book as evidence that there is no God. Yet, when I interviewed the Willises fourteen years after this tragic event, Janet said, “Today I have a far greater understanding of the goodness of God than I did before the accident.” It was the sort of statement that might have taken my breath away, had I not heard it from others who also have endured unspeakable suffering.

Janet Willis, reflecting on hers and Scott’s life since the death of six of their children, told me, “It is sufficient for us to know Jesus. It’s very settled in both of us. We always come back to Jesus.” In this book, I’ll be careful not to put too much weight on any single argument. But about this I am certain: the best answer anyone will ever find to the problem of evil is a person—Jesus Christ. In fact, I’m convinced that in the end, he is the only answer.

He is someone who through inconceivable sacrifice for me, has touched me again and again on the deepest level.

In this world of suffering and evil, I have a profound and abiding hope and faith for the future. Not because I follow a religion—I’m really not very religious. But because for forty years I’ve known a real person, and I know him better today than ever. He is someone who through inconceivable sacrifice for me, has touched me again and again on the deepest level. He has transformed my life. I and countless others, many who have suffered profoundly, have discovered him to be trustworthy.

He is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. When it comes to goodness and evil, temporary suffering and eternal joy, Jesus is the first Word. And the last."

You can read Alcorn's Introduction to Good is Good... in its entirety here.


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Photos: road_less_trvled (Flickr)

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