Daily Word; God is good because He SAYS he’s good.

by Staff July 11, 2022 1 Comment Christian Talk News Opinion Weekly Columns

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(ThyBlackMan.com) From the day we are born, we have trouble. And what we discover as we get older is that life is filled with lots of trouble. In fact, when we have a conflict-free day where there is no crisis, large or small, that is a very good day.

Then there are those days when it seems like the bottom drops out. What could go wrong does go wrong, and then even more things go wrong beyond that. And we question why it’s happening to us.

As we look at our world today, we wonder about the heartbreaking things that take place. Why do things like that happen? Why does God allow tragedy?

We hear it stated many ways: Why does God allow wars to rage? Why does he allow innocent people to be killed? What about all the horrible injustices in our world? If God can prevent tragedies, then why does he allow them to happen?

God is Good

Here’s the classic statement of the problem: Either God is all-powerful but is not all good, therefore he doesn’t stop evil. Or he is all good but is not all-powerful, therefore he can’t stop evil. The general tendency is to blame all the problems of the world on God.

We’ve heard the question posed this way: If God is so good and loving, then why does he allow evil?

The first part of that question implies that God isn’t good and loving. Someone who asks that question is, in essence, saying they are moral center of the universe, and they determine what is good and loving.

Yet God doesn’t become good because that is our opinion of him or because we personally agree with his actions or his words. Rather, God is good because God says that he is good. Jesus said, “Only God is truly good” (Luke 18:19 NLT).

You see, God is good whether we believe it or not. God – and God alone – is the final court of arbitration. As the apostle Paul wrote, “Even if everyone else is a liar, God is true” (Romans 3:4 NLT).

Good is whatever God approves. To put it another way, good is what God says is good. And bad is what God says is bad.

Some might say that is circular reasoning, but I would describe it as biblical reasoning. We’re coming back to a source of truth, the Word of God, and to God himself, who is telling us what our values ought to be, what right and wrong are, and what good and evil are.

In the Old Testament book of Isaiah, we read, “‘My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,’ says the Lord. ‘And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts'” (55:8–9 NLT).

Let’s come back to the second part of that question: Why does God allow evil? Remember that Adam and Eve were not created as evil beings. They were innocent, ageless and immortal.

Of course, we know that our first parents made the wrong choice and did just what God told them not to do. But before we’re too critical of them, let’s recognize that if we had been in the Garden of Eden, we would have done the same thing, evidenced by the fact that we all make wrong choices throughout our lives.

As a result of the sin of Adam and Eve, sin and death entered the human race. The Bible tells us, “When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned” (Romans 5:12 NLT).

Therefore, we need to keep in mind that it is humanity, not God, who is responsible for sin.

Then why didn’t God make us incapable of sin? It’s because he didn’t want puppets on a string. He didn’t want windup robots, preprogrammed people who had no choice or free will. God doesn’t want us to love him because we have to. He wants us to love him because we choose to. He gave us the ability to choose.

Adam and Eve made the wrong choice, we make the wrong choices, and so much of the evil in the world and the wrongs that are done are because people make wrong choices.

Maybe you’re thinking, “I can accept that. But why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?” Most of us can accept the idea of suffering in general, especially when it comes as a consequence of bad behavior.

For example, if someone lives a wicked life, does horrible things, and then faces the repercussions of it, we might say, “Well, they got what they deserved. They reaped what they sowed.” We can accept the idea of suffering in certain instances. But we struggle with the idea of undeserved suffering, when suffering comes into the life of someone we think of as innocent or godly.

I think of Job, who was a man of integrity, a man of character. God himself said so, and Job could not have had a higher endorsement (see Job 1:8). But in one day, Job lost all his children and went from being the wealthiest person in the land to essentially being bankrupt. Yet the Bible tells us that “in all of this, Job did not sin by blaming God” (Job 1:22 NLT).

Job was a real man with real problems with a real God whom he turned to – the same God whom we can turn to in our time of need.

We can approach God at any time, based on the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and his shed blood for us. It is not about our worthiness; it’s about his grace extended to us.

The writer of Hebrews says, “So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most” (4:6 NLT).

Everyone suffers. Calamity comes into every life, both righteous and unrighteous. But our comfort is in Christ. Our hope is in God. And the place where we need to put our faith is in him.

Written by Greg Laurie

Official website; https://twitter.com/greglaurie

1 Comment

Robert Hagedorn says:

July 11, 2022 at 1:25 pm

“Of course, we know that our first parents made the wrong choice and did just what God told them not to do. But before we’re too critical of them, let’s recognize that if we had been in the Garden of Eden, we would have done the same thing, evidenced by the fact that we all make wrong choices throughout our lives.”

Yes, we all make wrong choices throughout our lives. But would we have done the same thing Adam and Eve did?

For thousands of years, the identity of the forbidden fruit eaten by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden story has been unknown. If the fruit is the traditionally believed apple, or another literal fruit, it would simply be called by its literal name, and not the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Because eating a piece of this literal fruit would give only knowledge of the literal fruit’s taste, not knowledge of good and evil. So…

If literal fruit is not the fruit in the world’s oldest and greatest mystery story, then what is the fruit? Why are the two super secret trees assigned the mystical names “tree of life” and “tree of knowledge of good and evil?” Is the talking snake Evil Angel speaking words, or does the talk represent something more subtle? Could two men have yielded to Adam and Eve’s temptation? Why would a smart man and woman eat from a forbidden fruit tree, instead of from one that is NOT forbidden, especially when both “trees” are right next to each other in the center of the Garden? How is the couple’s disobedience of the very first commandment to be fruitful and multiply while in the Garden linked to their decision to make only fig leaf aprons, instead of complete clothing, in this incomprehensible narrative, with its guesswork of interpretations and its hints of sexual behavior?

A lone exegesis combines all six questions for one answer, using only evidence in the dreamlike Bible chronicle, for an intelligent and sensible explanation of the world’s oldest and greatest fruit mystery. This evidence in the Genesis 2 and 3 Bible story identifies the fruit as carnal pleasure. The solid evidence offers no support for historical fruit identity opinions. But, even with the evidence, is this unique exegesis the correct exegesis?

*****
Bad Day in the Garden

They eat the fruit, but what do they eat?
We lift the veil, for a wary peek.
Through a forest of mystery hiding it all,
We see a body, naked and weak.

“The Random House Dictionary of the English Language” defines allegory as “a representation of an abstract, or spiritual meaning through concrete, or material forms; figurative treatment of one subject under the guise of another.” It’s difficult to imagine a better definition than this one. But it’s even more difficult to imagine anyone making any sense of the second and third chapters of Genesis by taking everything in the two chapters literally. When was the last time someone went into a grocery store and bought some knowledge of good and evil fruit?

Although most elements in Genesis 2 and 3 represent something else, there are a number of facts in the story that can be taken at face value.

1. Adam and Eve have real human bodies.
2. Adam and Eve are not wearing any clothes.
3. God has forbidden them to do something.
4. They have disobeyed God.
5. God has punished them both for their disobedience.

The above five facts form the basis for the religious beliefs of many people who are not interested in allegories, and of many who are. But there is an all-important sixth fact, the knowledge of which would do no harm to anyone’s religious beliefs.

This BODY is the Garden in whose center grow
The two famous trees, but nowhere a weevil.
Here is the tree of life and the one
Of knowledge of good and knowledge of evil.

This sixth fact is the key that unlocks the door, opens it, and solves the mystery: both trees are in the center of the garden. This fact is so important that it is mentioned, not just once, but twice: Genesis 2:9 and Genesis 3:3. (In Genesis 3:3 the tree of life is not specifically mentioned, but we know it is there, because we were told it is there in Genesis 2:9.) Technically, both trees could not occupy the center of the garden at the same time, unless they were entwined. But, there is no evidence for entwinement here. What these two verses tell us, is that both trees are very close to each other.

Because the two trees are right next to each other
Care must be taken to avoid the one bad.
For the fruit of both trees is pleasure,
So the pleasure is there to be had.

To be fruitful and multiply eat from the first.
But eat from the second and no one conceives.
So here we go now: one, two, three–
Pleasure, shame, fig tree leaves.

God’s first commandment to Adam and Eve was to be fruitful and multiply. To be fruitful and multiply, eat from the first. But eat from the second and no one conceives. Adam and Eve eat from the forbidden second tree, and as a result, produce no children while in the Garden of Eden. Instead of engaging in the procreative process as commanded, they use, as a procreative organ, a delivery system designed for delivery, but not for delivery of children.

This material is not just a brain teaser, nor hopefully is it an example of sophomoric cleverness. It’s really quite simple: explanations of certain fearful mysteries buried in the story for thousands of years, have been exhumed by using verse, rather than prose, to more easily reveal these explanations. The quality of the verse is both irrelevant and unimportant.

Please note: some parts of the story are totally acceptable as both symbolic and literal narrative, at least up to a point. For example, the symbolic garden can be juxtaposed with a literal garden, complete with fruit trees. Other sections can be taken as literal accounts, extra material such as Genesis 3:20-21, in which Adam gives Eve her name and God shows compassion for the pair by clothing them in animal skins for warmth, before evicting them from the garden, symbolic and literal, into the graceless and cold outside world.

*****
Preliminary Wrap

The Genesis story tells us in Genesis 2:9 and 3:3 both trees are in the center of the Garden. So the forbidden Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is right next to the allowed tree, the Tree of Life, and its fruit. If the forbidden fruit from the forbidden tree is literal fruit, the eating of this fruit would give only knowledge of the fruit’s taste, not knowledge of good and evil. But the covering of the genitals with fig leaf aprons following the eating of the “fruit” does indicate sudden acquisition of knowledge of good and evil, a knowledge that results in a certain type of shame. It is difficult to understand how eating literal fruit results in this type of shame. And it is difficult to understand how normal and necessary physical relations between Adam and Eve result in this type of shame, since the first and only specified commandment to them is to “Be fruitful and multiply” in the Garden, a commandment they disobey, because no children are produced until after the eviction from Eden, and after they have normal and necessary physical relations for the first time in Genesis 4:1. But their obedience is too late: guardian cherubim and a flaming sword prevent reentry into the Garden.

Adam and Eve execute a double disobedience when they eat of the forbidden fruit–they fail to procreate, by doing what they are forbidden to do. And they fail to procreate, by not doing what they are commanded to do. Both failures occur simultaneously. The fruit in the Garden of Eden is not forbidden carnal pleasure, but forbidden nonprocreative carnal pleasure–nonprocreative carnal pleasure derived from a specific forbidden physical act.

*****
Postscript: Traditional Identity of The Fruit Persists

The widespread belief that the fruit is an apple has its genesis in the 12th century, based on Saint Jerome’s earlier 4th century Vulgate translation, in which he substituted the later corrected “malum,” meaning “apple,” for “malus,” meaning “evil,” to identify the forbidden fruit Adam and Eve ate. And this error remains the apex identity reaching us in the 21st century, still based on no evidence for the existence of a literal fruit. But to end on a positive note, the acceptance of the evidence-based exegesis of the identity of the fruit in the world’s oldest mystery story is at last making headway, as increasing numbers of people manage to set aside the emotions and feelings spinning them in circles, and acknowledge–at least until a better exegesis appears–the evidence in the Bible story of the talking fruit snake. This long-forgotten exegesis explains everything as it superimposes the allegorical Eden Garden upon its literal counterpart. The exegesis offers enlightenment for the untrue and oft repeated, “Only God knows what fruit they ate.” Yes, a Deity would know what “fruit” they “ate,” but the evidence in the Genesis story reveals the Deity’s knowledge of the fruit’s identity to anyone who wishes to know, and has the courage to overcome their emotional resistance and uneasiness resulting from being exposed to this knowledge. Would this exposure be eating forbidden knowledge once again? Would a Deity want us to remain ignorant of the Genesis story’s meaning? No to both questions, because our garden is not their Garden–we are not living in the Garden of Eden’s state of grace. And secondly, the evidence in the story clearly tells us that Adam and Eve did not disobey the “be fruitful and multiply” Genesis 1:28 commandment for the purpose of acquiring knowledge of good and evil. Their acquisition of this knowledge was a byproduct of their disobedient behavior, which was to experience nonprocreative physical pleasure by eating allegorical fruit from the allegorical wrong tree in the center of an allegorical garden, while at the same time quite possibly living in a literal garden with literal fruit trees and literal snakes that do not talk to women.

*****
Just Another Doctrinal Neologism?

Is this exegesis beginning with Genesis 1:28, continuing through Genesis 2 and 3, and concluding with Genesis 4:1 just another neologism? No, it is not. If the exegesis is only another neologism, but not the exhumation and revelation of the original story, then not only do the individuals who first hear the story have absolutely no idea what the story means, but neither does the original storyteller. Imagine the storyteller saying, “Sometimes I just say things. I don’t know what they mean.” It is somewhat difficult to imagine this event happening.

If it does happen, then the original storyteller tells the story while having no understanding of the words being said, unless the storyteller decides to deliberately disguise and beautify the story, to hide its true meaning. This will certainly require complex ability, to intentionally mystify at the very dawn of human consciousness. It will also require the original listeners to not ask the original storyteller any questions about this new story–a story that makes no sense. So, the mystification probably happens later. And, of course, when it does, everyone will know the meaning of the entire story. For a while.

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