LC BLOG
Only Matthew and Luke tell the story of Jesus’ birth. Although differing in how they tell their stories, they are united in one vital detail. Jesus’ conception in the Virgin Mary was an act of God. Joseph, a good and righteous man, was Jesus’ legal, not biological father. The Virgin Birth points to, what we now call, The Incarnation. It is on this point; I want to discuss two profound passages…
The eighth century BC began with almost unparalleled prosperity for Israel and Judah, and ended in utter catastrophe, with the end of the Northern Kingdom, and the near complete destruction of Judah. Into this tumultuous century came something new for Israel, and an incredible blessing for us. Israel always had prophets, but in this century, their oracles were written and preserved. Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah were the “Literary Prophets,” of the eighth century…
For most of the Thanksgivings in my life, those in which I was old enough to really give thanks, it was easy to follow the words of the hymn, “Count your many blessings.” That’s not the case this year. It’s not that there haven’t been blessings I should count; nor is it that I would not be surprised at “what the Lord hath done.” …
The story of the fall in Genesis 3 has been trivialized to be a fairy tale about a naked couple talking to a snake and eating an apple. Trivial fairy tale? Hardly! It is the story of the human rebellion against the Creator, which led to the cataclysm that gave us the unfair world in which we live. The rest of the Bible’s story flows from this dreadful event…
Our world is undeniably and self-evidently unfair. For the unbeliever, this is just the way it is in a godless universe—it’s what we would expect. For those of us who believe there is an Infinite, Personal, and Holy God, this is troubling. Since we believe that God is truly and fully good, why isn’t His creation, especially since He declared it was very good (Genesis 1:31), very good? Yes, it’s troubling; it’s morally troubling. And so, we grapple to understand, and faith compels us to do so…
One of the first sentences, almost all of us utter in life, ends with an exclamation mark: “That’s not fair!” We have a deeply engrained sense of fairness, and object when we sense unfairness—especially when we see ourselves on the short end of the stick. What we all can see is that this world is filled with unfairness, and it bothers us. It bothers us, not just because unfairness seems unfortunate, but because it strikes us as morally wrong. And so, we ask, “Where is God?”
These words from Ecclesiastes 12, make clear that the young are one of the author’s target audiences: “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth.” Beyond this passage and a few others (thanks to “The Birds” and youth rallies), I heard very little in this book. As a young student of Scripture, taking in the entirety of this book was a shock. I asked, “What is this cynical, near nihilistic book, doing in the Bible? Everything meaningless? This will lead to an unhappy and bitter life!”
Hurricane Ian, once again, raises the most difficult question that people of faith in the God of the Bible face. Given that nothing produces nothing, defending the idea of a Personal, Infinite, Creator is fairly straightforward. The most difficult question we face does not involve God and science, but God and suffering.
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