A. It is true that the root cause of human suffering is sin–our own sins and the sins of others (see “Why the Suffering?“). We live in a fallen world. It is also true that God has forgiven the sins of those who trust in His Son, Jesus Christ, as their Savior. God is certainly not punishing the sins of those who trust in His Son because Jesus bore all of the punishment in our stead. But, even though we believers are not of this world, we still live in this fallen world and suffer the effects of it: disease, crime, wars, natural disasters, dishonesty, and so forth, and, finally, physical death.
Category Archives: Christian Living
The Cure for Discouragement
We’ve probably all experienced the discouragement that comes with self-recrimination. We do something wrong and then stew in feelings of guilt. “I’m so nasty,” “I’m always doing the wrong thing,” “How can God love me?” We respond by either thinking we’re a hopeless cause or by setting our will to do better next time. Either way, the entire scenario is carnal rather than spiritual, but it’s understandable.
Bread and Circuses
Sometime around A.D. 100, a Roman satirical poet known as Juvenal wrote, “the People…anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses [Latin–panem et circenses].” His point was that the government was pacifying the Roman populace and distracting them from important issues by giving them free or cheap food and entertaining them with spectacles. It seems to be basic to human nature that if our bellies are full and we have entertainment put before our eyes, we will become distracted from anything important and fall into a stupor of apathy.
Don’t Be Afraid
23 June 2013: The news on any random day is enough to raise hair on a lizard: a war in the Ukraine, the threat of yet another war in the Middle East, disease outbreaks that might mushroom into pandemics, what seems to be a new shooting rampage every week, possible weather chaos from climate change, the epidemics of diabetes and dementia, and the list goes on. And then there is the personal news we might be confronted with at any time, such as a friend being diagnosed with cancer, someone’s husband killed in a car accident, and a child dying of a congenital heart defect. Faced with such reports, we can find ourselves becoming anxious, fearful for the world, fearful for our friends, alarmed that one or more of these terrors may come upon us personally.
A Bible Study About Pride
All human beings naturally have pride. Both adults and children have pride. But you might be surprised to know that in all 49 places in the King James Version of the Bible, pride is never mentioned as being a good thing. The Bible always treats pride as being bad. Throughout the Old and New Testaments, there are several words that are translated as “pride,” but, whichever word it is translated from, pride is always considered a bad thing.
