Patrick Morley

A man who became a Christian bought a Bible. He said, "Have you seen this thing?"

The Bible is daunting. At roughly 770,000 words, that's about 2,500 normal book pages--equivalent to 12 non-fiction books!

Bible reading falls into that special category of things we all know are important but struggle to do, like diet and exercise.

Every year since 1988 I've read the Bible cover to cover. This is certainly not required, but I've learned some things along the way that may be helpful to you.

C. S. Lewis wrote in The Problem of Pain: "If God were good, He would wish to make His creatures perfectly happy, and if God were almighty, He would be able to do what He wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore, God lacks either goodness, or power, or both. This is the problem of pain in its simplest form."

Of the many questions raised by suffering and evil, these four capture most of the heart issues:

1. Does God know? (the issue of His omniscience)
2. Does God care?·(the issue of His benevolence and love)
3. Can He do anything about it? (the issue of His omnipotence)
4. If He knows, cares, and can do something about it, why doesn't He?·(the·issue of His purposes and will)

So much about suffering and evil remains opaque and impenetrable. On the other hand, a lot is knowable.