What does it mean to Fear God? There are times when the troubles of life simply cannot be explained, or understood. In these hard cases, we can either tend toward blaming God, or toward revering God. The second provides us with the only path to hope.

In this third part of my series on the book of Job, we explore the wisdom tradition of the ancient near east and common philosophies explaining suffering. Sometimes having this discussion brings great consolation. But ultimately the final answers lie beyond what we can fathom.

When Bad Health Assails (Praise God): Lessons from Job in a dark night of the soul.

“There comes into all souls, at least once in life, a severe test. It is known as the Dark Night of the Soul. It is when we are beleaguered by darkness: spiritual and mental and where no hope seems to be near and everything we try to do it thwarted. It is where the soul is forced to persist and enter into the glorious Golden Dawn of Illumination and kinship with God, or relax into  the dull slumber of a mediocre physical existence. You cannot avoid it. If this test has not already come into your life-it will. How you deal with it is as important as life itself.” (From the preface to The Dark Night of the Soul by 16th century theologian John Cross).

The physical, psychological, and economic sufferings of the COVID-19 pandemic require that we think about the problem of suffering. When bad circumstances occur, how are we to understand them? Is God powerless to stop bad things? Is God good? In this study of Job, I explore these questions through the age-old inquiry: “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

“I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there’s gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.” so begin the tribulations of the children’s classic hero, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day?

The book has a positively puritan title (check out the length and descriptive nature in all its glory!). But it also captures a great truth. This little boy’s struggles have enchanted generations of readers because every one of us has terrible, horrible, bad days. More seriously, it reminds us that not every day in this world is a good day. The 19th Century American Poet H. W. Longfellow has penned: “Into each life some rain must fall, / Some days must be dark and dreary.”

How do we know that we know what we know? Its the great question today. Some say that faith is passé, that believers should become enlightened and move on. Others say that they are right and Christians are wrong.

The Christian faith welcomes these challenges. The Apostle Peter urges all Christians, “always be ready to give a reasoned defence for the hope that is within you” (1 Peter 3:15).

Many today suffer from an easily curable problem. They believe that being faithful to the Scriptures means figuring out the ancient text personally. The challenges of time, culture, and language separate us from Scripture, making this difficult. Christianity, however, teaches we know truth when it is, “evident unto all men diligently reading holy Scripture and ancient Authors” (Anglican Ordinal).

According to the Scriptures

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father; through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures

Find out what this means in todays episode from the GoodFaith Podcast series on the Nicene Creed.

The GoodFaith Podcast

The GoodFaith podcast takes the wisdom of collective church history and apply it to the problems and concerns we have today. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, or your favourite feed by copying the following into your client (http://chadwgraham.com/feed/podcast), or by clicking on the RSS feed links on the home page of ChadWGraham.com

Gandhi is credited with saying, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” But what if I cannot change what I want to see in the world?

According to the United Nations, conflict and persecution has forced some 30 million refugees  from their homes. Every nation and every community, and even every family shows forth some level of injustice (try being a middle child!). The longer we live the more we see that all the collective efforts of humanity (although they do some good) have not ended poverty, or restored justice in the world.

We begin to see the unchangeable in ourselves and cannot rid ourselves of every bad habit. Our bodies cannot be stopped from the decay of aging. Though we can delay, we cannot escape the inevitable decline.

And we see a want in society. We do not live in a perfect city, a perfect nation, or a perfect world. We need to change so many things. But we begin to see that what stands in the way is not systems, but people. It has been said, “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. We vote in the change candidate, to see them become part of the establishment.

Is real change possible? The Chistian Faith says, unequivicolly, yes! True change is possible. There is hope for Jutice, hope for individuals, and hope for society through the death of death in the death of Christ, and the resurrection of hope, in the resurection of the crucified and risen Lord.

The Crucified and Risen Lord

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father; through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures;

Find out what this means in todays episode from the GoodFaith Podcast series on the Nicene Creed.

The GoodFaith Podcast

The GoodFaith podcast takes the wisdom of collective church history and apply it to the problems and concerns we have today. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, or your favourite feed by copying the following into your client (http://chadwgraham.com/feed/podcast), or by clicking on the RSS feed links on the home page of ChadWGraham.com

 

What is the purpose of life? To whom, or to what do we owe loyalty? Do we owe loyalty first and foremost to our nation (patriotism)? Or to our family (Marriage)? To our society (social welfare/environmentalism)? Or to ourselves? Christians profess one ultimate loyalty to one Lord Jesus Christ.

This does not mean that Christians are not patriots (loving country). It does not mean that they are not great parents, spouses or children. It does not preclude participating in the welfare of the society. Christian theology demands that those who follow Christ ought to be the very best citizens and the most loving family members. Christians love their neighbours and do good to all men. But they do all these things, because, not despite their ultimate loyalty to Jesus Christ.

One Lord Jesus Christ

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only-begotten Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made,

of one Being with the Father;

through him all things were made.

Find out what this means in todays episode from the GoodFaith Podcast series on the Nicene Creed.

The GoodFaith Podcast

The GoodFaith podcast is intended to take the wisdom of collective church history and apply it to the problems and concerns we have today. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, or your favourite feed by copying the following into your client (http://chadwgraham.com/feed/podcast), or by clicking on the RSS feed links on the home page of ChadWGraham.com

Why is there something, rather than nothing? From where did that something come? For Christians the answer is found in the foundational statement of faith: We Believe in God.

We Believe in God

The Nicene Creed (AD 325/381) records the first, great, global, consensus of what Christian’s believe. For nearly two thousand years it has described what it means to be a Christian. It explains what Christians believe about the most important of all questions.

This Creed is presented in three articles of belief. The first, describes God as follows:

We believe in one God,

the Father, the Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth,

of all that is, visible and invisible.

We Believe God is the Creator

We believe that God created all things, visible, and invisible. What are things invisible? Could the world we live in be more mysterious and more wondrous than we can imagine?

Find out in todays episode from the GoodFaith Podcast series on the Nicene Creed.

The GoodFaith Podcast

The GoodFaith podcast is intended to take the wisdom of collective church history and apply it to the problems and concerns we have today. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, or your favourite feed by copying the following into your client (http://chadwgraham.com/feed/podcast), or by clicking on the RSS feed links on the home page of ChadWGraham.com

The English word Creed derives from a Latin term meaning “to believe”. When the Church quotes a Creed is quoting what “We believe.” Certain statements of Christian belief have come to be known as universal creeds, such as the Apostle’s Creed, or the Nicene Creed. What are these statements, what authority do they have? What is their value? Do we need them?

Creed and Scripture

The simple answer is, yes. Why? We only need these creeds to the extent that we need to have and understand the New Testament. The universal creeds are summaries of the standard of teaching, the form of doctrine, or the rule of the faith delivered by the Lord Jesus to the Apostles. They, in turn, delivered these traditions to the Churches. By this rule of faith, the Churches knew what was to be received as Scripture, and so the New Testament formed around it. “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter” (2 Thessalonians 2:15)

The GoodFaith Podcast

The GoodFaith podcast is intended to take the wisdom of collective church history and apply it to the problems and concerns we have today. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, or your favourite feed by copying the following into your client (http://chadwgraham.com/feed/podcast), or by clicking on the RSS feed links on the home page of ChadWGraham.com

Perhaps one of the most difficult beliefs of Christianity to get our minds wrapped around is the Christian understanding of God as a Triune Being. R.C. Sproul writes, “The concept of the Trinity has emerged as a touchstone of truth, a non-negotiable article of Christian orthodoxy. However, it has been a source of controversy throughout church history, and there remains much confusion about it to this day, with many people misunderstanding it in very serious ways.” (What Is the Trinity? at 1).

The GoodFaith Podcast

The GoodFaith podcast is intended to take the wisdom of collective church history and apply it to the problems and concerns we have today. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, or your favourite feed by copying the following into your client (http://chadwgraham.com/feed/podcast), or by clicking on the RSS feed links on the home page of ChadWGraham.com