Biblical Stumbling Blocks...

[El_Jibaro]

The following essay came from one of my friends:

America recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Gulf War victory over Iraq. The commemoration reminded me of one of the war's more heartwarming scenes: the sight of American soldiers handing out cartons of milk to Iraqi children -- the offspring of their vanquished enemies.

The sight made Americans proud. But for some people, it was a reminder of a thorny question about the nature of God. How, they wonder, could the God of the Bible command Israelite soldiers to slaughter the children of their enemies?

For many people, the idea that a loving God would do such an apparently wicked thing is a stumbling block to faith. It was a question that so much nagged at journalist and author Lee Strobel that he went to theologian Norman Geisler for some answers. In his new book, The Case for Faith, Strobel describes their conversation, and what he learned.

Strobel reminded Geisler of all the times God commanded the Israelites to kill children. In Deuteronomy 7, for example, God commanded Israel to "totally destroy" the Canaanites and six other nations, and "show them no mercy." In Exodus, God ordered the execution of every Egyptian firstborn son. He also ordered Israel to destroy the Amalekites -- including women and children.

Strobel asked, "Can people be expected to worship [God] if He orders innocent children to be slaughtered?"

The answer, Geisler told him, is that God's character is absolutely holy; He must punish sin and rebellion. The Bible shows that the Amalekites were utterly depraved -- that their goal was to wipe out God's chosen people. So, God used the Israelites as His instrument of judgment.

"But why did innocent children need to be destroyed?" Strobel asked.

First, Geisler says, "God is sovereign over all of life and He has the right to take it if He wishes." Second, the fate of children throughout history has always been with their parents, for good or for ill. Third, given the violent and depraved nature of Amalekite culture, "there was no hope for these children."

In a sense, Geisler added, "God's action was an act of mercy." Some Christians (like me) believe that a child who dies before the age of accountability goes to heaven. But, in any event, it is the prerogative of a merciful God to make that decision. And finally, the Amalekites were given plenty of time to repent, and they chose not to. God's holy nature demanded that he deal with their persistent evil.

It was much the same with the Canaanites. These people practiced incest, bestiality, cultic prostitution, and child sacrifice. The Bible says their culture was so evil it nauseated God. He destroyed the Canaanites, but the righteous among them were saved. The point is, Geisler said, "Whoever repented, God has been willing to save."

God also destroyed the Canaanites for a reason that will resonate with modern parents: God wanted Israel, Geisler said, to be "relatively free from the outside corruption that could have destroyed it like a cancer."

Lee Strobel was satisfied by these answers, but he had seven other "hard" questions about God. Stay tuned...

[TheMinister]

For Further Light on this Topic:

http://www.ligonier.org

http://www.equip.org

http://www.coralridge.org

http://www.rzim.org

http://www.backtothebible.org


[Edited by TheMinister on 11th February 2001 at 22:07]

[El_Jibaro]

Another essay from my friend.

Sue Stottmeister was jogging through a park in Rockville, Maryland two weeks ago as she always did before picking up her children from school. But on this day she would not complete her run. Instead, the Sunday school teacher was attacked and brutally beaten.

When police found her, she had been lying in the snow for five hours. She died on the way to the hospital, leaving a grieving family and a shaken community.

Whenever something like this happens, people often wonder: Why does God allow evil to exist if He's able to stop it? It's a question that has caused many to doubt God's existence -- or His goodness, or His power. The problem of evil bothered journalist Lee Strobel so much that he researched and wrote a book to answer this and other hard questions about God.

Strobel was an atheist when he decided to examine the historical evidence for and against the existence of God. His journey led to his conversion and a vibrant faith in Christ. But Lee still struggled with questions that seemed to have no logical answer -- such as why a loving God would allow someone to murder a devoted Christian mother like Sue Stottmeister.

For the answer to the question of evil, Lee interviewed Christian philosopher Peter Kreeft of Boston College. Kreeft gave Strobel the traditional teaching regarding why evil is abroad in the world. Humans cannot enjoy both free will and a world free from sin. "Once God chose to create human beings with free will," Kreeft said, "it was up to them . . . as to whether there was sin or not." God created "the possibility of evil, but it was humans who actualized that potentiality."

Kreeft then offered Strobel a second explanation for the reality of evil. He suggested that God might tolerate certain short-range evils in order to achieve long-range goods that humans cannot foresee.

Imagine, he said, a bear in a trap, and a hunter who wants to liberate him. The hunter tries and fails to win the bear's confidence, so he has no choice but to shoot the bear full of tranquilizers. The terrified bear thinks the hunter is trying to kill him. He doesn't understand that the hunter is acting out of compassion.

"I believe," Kreeft said, "God does the same thing to us sometimes, and we can't comprehend why He does it any more than the bear can understand the motivations of the hunter." We simply have to trust God.

Finally, Kreeft concludes, people don't get away with evil acts, even though they may seem to. God will one day settle the accounts; evildoers will be punished for the suffering they've caused.

In the meantime, we must remember that God weeps with those who weep -- that His own son was acquainted with sorrows and grief. And He will help us to bear the agony of the world's evil.

As the famous Corrie ten Boom wrote about her time in a Nazi concentration camp, "No matter how deep our darkness, [God] is deeper still."