How Could a Loving God Allow So Much Suffering?

Just as the presence of so much suffering in the world can be a stumbling block to people considering the Gospel, suffering and death are also a reason why many Christians struggle to accept an old earth and evolution. They wonder how God’s creation could be called good (as it repeatedly is in Genesis 1) if death has always been a part of life on this planet and occurred long before humans were around to sin. Yet the Bible shows us a God who works powerfully in and through suffering to draw us to himself. That seems to be true both in the natural world and in our individual and corporate lives. We pick up Rebecca’s chapter near the end of her commentary on the story of Mary, Martha, and the raising of Lazarus from the dead (John 11).

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