Record Reached

I just want to point out (mainly to myself as a way to celebrate victory) that with this post I have officially achieved the number of posts by the end of March 2012 that I had the entire year of 2011. Wahoo! Perhaps I deleted some from last year. That's likely. But as they say, a win's a win! Next year we'll move our focus from numbers to content ;).

Insights for Sermons by Ellsworth Kalas

Hey preaching friends! Here's a worthwhile read published today by Dr. Ellsworth Kalas.

Insights for Sermons by J. Ellsworth Kalas

A challenging but very edifying word to press on in the worthy nature of the call and to avoid the other methods of a different nature.

Seminarian

Is God the Author of Evil?

Perhaps the question of whether or not God “created” evil is akin to the question of whether God created the chair. Of course, we easily dismiss the notion that God created the chair while understanding that nothing exists outside of God’s creation. Our explanation is that God created wood and God created humans with intelligence. With our intelligence and the gift of reflecting God’s creative energy, man created the chair while not doing so outside of or with elements beyond what God created. With evil, God created angels (good) and He apparently gave them free will (good) which He also gave to humans. Angels (namely, Lucifer) and humans (Adam and Eve first) used their life and free will (gifts within God’s good creation) to do evil, to turn from God in a rebellious fashion and do that which is against His character, nature, and desire, thus accomplishing evil. However, it would be different to say that God is the “author” of evil. God simply provided the resources and the freedom for His creation to accomplish evil. And the saddest irony: it was all out of love that He did so.