Registration is still open for GC Next—a gathering of young adults (ages 18-28) sponsored by Generations Ministries. The gathering will be held in Durham, North Carolina on January 13-16, 2017.
GCI’s church in Calvary, Canada, invites you to join them in celebrating their 50th anniversary as a congregation. On Saturday, October 22, they will have a supper club and dance (with a live band) at the Hillhurst/Sunnyside Community Hall from 7:00 to 11:00pm. Their anniversary worship service will be held at 2:00pm on Sunday, October 23, at Lakeview United Church in Calgary.
As noted by Pastor Colin Wallace, “All are welcome to celebrate with us in person or in spirit as we look forward to many more fruitful years ahead.”
People turn away from belief in God for many reasons, but one of the most prevalent is “the problem of evil”—what theologian Peter Kreeft calls “the greatest test of faith, the greatest temptation to unbelief.”
Agnostics and atheists often use the problem of evil as their go-to argument to either doubt or deny the existence of God. Their claim is that the co-existence of evil and God is either unlikely (agnostics) or impossible (atheists). This line of reasoning goes back as far as the Greek philosopher Epicurus (c. 300 BC), who made the following statement that, in the late 1700s, was picked up and popularized by Scottish philosopher David Hume:
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
David Hume (public domain)Epicurus (public domain)
Epicurus, and Hume after him, were painting a less-than-godly picture of God. I don’t have room here for a comprehensive reply (what theologians call a theodicy), but I do want to point out that this line of reasoning doesn’t come close to being a knock-down argument against the existence of a good God. As pointed out by many Christian apologists, the existence of evil in the world, rather than disproving God’s existence, proves just the opposite, as I’ll now explain.
Evil necessitates goodness
The observation that evil is an objective feature within our world is a double-edged sword that cuts agnostics and atheists much more deeply than it cuts theists. To argue that the presence of evil in the world disproves the existence of God, one must affirm that evil actually exists. It follows that there must be an absolute standard of goodness that defines evil as being evil. One simply cannot form a logical concept of evil without appealing to an ultimate standard of goodness. This leads to a huge dilemma in that it raises the question of the source of this standard. Said another way, if evil is the opposite of good, how do we determine what is good? And where does that understanding come from?
We are told in the book of Genesis that the world was created good, not evil. Yet, Genesis also tells of the fall of humankind—a fall caused by evil and resulting in evil. Because of evil, this world is not the best it can be. Thus the problem of evil points to a departure from the way things ought to be. If things are not the way they ought to be, then there must be a way they should be. If there is a way they should be, there must be a transcendent design, plan, and purpose for the way it should be, and if so, there must be a transcendent being (God) who authored that plan. If there is no God, then there is no way things ought to be, and hence there is no evil. All this might sound a bit confusing, but it’s not. It’s a carefully constructed line of logic.
Injustice necessitates justice
C.S. Lewis championed this logic. In Mere Christianity, he shares how he had been an atheist, due largely to the presence of evil, cruelty and injustice in the world. However, the more he pondered his atheism, the more he saw clearly that the concept of injustice was dependent on an absolute concept of justice. Justice necessitates a just Someone who is beyond humanity and has the authority to shape created reality and promulgate the rules that define justice within that reality. Moreover, he came to see that the origin of evil is not God the Creator, but the creatures, who falling into the temptation to distrust God, chose to sin.
Lewis came to see that if humans were the source of what is good and evil, they could not be objective since they were subject to change. Further, he deduced that one group of humans may pronounce verdicts on others as to what is right and wrong, but then the other group would impose their own version of right and wrong. Then the question would have to be asked as to what authority stands behind these competing versions of right and wrong? Where is the objective standard when what is unacceptable in one culture is deemed permissible in another? We see this dilemma at work throughout the world, often (unfortunately) in the name of religion and other ideologies.
The bottom line is this: if no ultimate creator and moral lawgiver exists, there can be no objective standard of goodness. And if there is no objective standard of goodness, how can anyone discover this to be the case? Lewis made this point with an illustration: “If there were no light in the universe, and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never have known that it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning.”
Our personal and good God overcomes evil
Only if there is a personal and good God who is opposed to evil does it make sense to lodge a complaint against evil or make an appeal to have something done about it. Were there no such God, there would be no one to appeal to and no basis for thinking that what we call good and evil is anything more than our personal preference (which we would label “good”) being in conflict with someone else’s personal preference (which we would label “evil”). In that case, there would be no such thing as objective evil, and thus nothing really to complain about, and certainly no one to complain to. Things would simply be the way they are, call them what you like.
God the Father by Conegliano (public domain via Wikimedia Commons)
Only by believing in a personal and good God do we have grounds to object to evil, and Someone to appeal to for its eradication. Having the conviction that there is a real problem of evil and hoping that evil will, one day, be undone and everything put right, serves as a good reason to believe that a personal and good God exists.
Though evil lingers, God is with us and we have hope
Evil exists—the evidence is all over the news. We’ve experienced evil and know its destruction. But we also know that God did not leave us in our fallen state. As I pointed out in a Weekly Update article a couple of weeks ago,God was not surprised by the fall. He did not need to revert to a plan B, for he had already set in motion his one plan to overcome evil, and that plan is Jesus Christ and the atonement. Through Christ, God overcame evil by his authentic love, and he had his plan in place from the foundation of the world. In the cross and resurrection of Jesus we see that evil will not have the last word. Evil has no future because of what God, in Christ, has done.
Do you yearn for a God who confirms that there is evil, who graciously takes responsibility for it, who is committed to doing something about it, and who will make everything right in the end? If so, I’ve got good news for you—that’s exactly who the God revealed in Jesus Christ is.
Though we live in a time Paul calls “the present evil age” (Galatians 1:4), God has not abandoned you, nor left you without hope. [1] God reassures us all that he is with us, having broken through to us in the here-and-now, and therefore giving us the blessing of experiencing the “firstfruits” (Romans 8:23) of the “age to come” (Luke 18:30)—a “deposit” (Ephesians 1:13-14) of the goodness of God’s rule and reign as it will be in the fullness of his kingdom.
Today, by God’s grace, we embody through our life together in the church, the signs of God’s kingdom. The triune God, living in us, enables us to taste, even now, the relationships he originally designed for us to enjoy in communion with God and one another—true life never-ending and without evil. Yes, we have our struggles on this side of glory, yet we are comforted knowing that God is with us—his love lives in us at all times through Christ—by his Word and Spirit. As Scripture assures, “The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).
Grateful to our good God who has overcome evil, Joseph Tkach
[1] For another Weekly Update letter on the hope that is ours despite the presence of evil in the world, click here.
Here from Mission Developer Rod Matthews are updates from various places in GCI’s Southeast Asia and South Pacific regions.
Thailand
In late June, Southeast Asia Senior Pastor, Wong Mein Kong, and his wife, Chew Yeng, traveled to Thailand to visit a man named Goro who leads our Karen congregation. Unable to gain permission to visit the refugee camp where the congregation is located, the group traveled to a village further north along the border with Myanmar, where several member families are living. There they conducted a Bible study with communion in the home of one of the members (pictured below). A few members who live in the camp were able to come to the house to join in the study.
The highlight of the trip to Thailand was the baptism of a young couple in a stream near the home mentioned above. These members are hoping to construct a small church building in their village since they cannot join the members in the camp. One encouraging development is that a member’s son is in seminary and will graduate at the end of the year. He is already helping Goro in his pastoral ministry.
Newly baptized young couple in front; Wong Mein Kong at left; Goro, third from left
India
On July 14, the Alwal Pastors Prayer Fellowship, of which our Secunderabad, India congregation is a member, conducted their monthly meeting in our church building (see the group picture below). The main message to the group was given by host, GCI Pastor Daniel Zachariah, on the subject of Pastoral Responsibility. He recounted some of the salient points that GCI had learned through our transformation and, utilizing a Trinitarian focus, challenged the pastors to ask “Who is the God that we preach?” and “Are we faithful to the scriptures and willing to be corrected?” The message was translated into the predominant local dialect by Praveen Kumar Chinta, Dan’s pastoral assistant.
Vanuatu
The drought affecting our congregation on the island of Malekula has continued for a year now, and we are needing to provide regular food assistance for the members to supplement their meager local supplies. Thanks to a donation from the GCI Disaster Relief Fund, we purchased a 6000 liter polymer water tank, which was installed in July on a new concrete base. However, there has been no rain to fill the tank, and no water is available in the local reservoir. Until rain comes, the members collect water in bottles and containers at a river two kilometers away.
The New Zealand churches have been providing food assistance for nearly a year, and we are grateful for a donation from the Australian Mission and Emergency Fund that will help us continue this assistance over the next three months until the next cyclone season begins. Hopefully then there will be normal monsoon rains that will replenish the reservoirs and tanks, and soak the ground for the annual crops. Thank you for continuing to pray for our beleaguered members in Vanuatu.
Prayer is requested for Deben Sam (pictured below), GCI’s ministry partner in Nepal. Deben’s wife Manju informed us that Deben is very sick and has been hospitalized. He is suffering from high blood pressure and blood sugar, vomiting, severe headaches, and double vision.
We were saddened to learn that Joanna D’Costa, wife of Joseph D’Costa, GCI’s pastor in Bangalore, India, recently suffered a stroke. Here is Joseph’s prayer request:
Joseph and Joanna D’Costa
We were at church and Joanna gave a prayer. When I began the sermon, she momentarily lost consciousness and became stiff. She regained consciousness quickly and asked that I carry on with the sermon. But we felt that something was wrong so we called an ambulance and rushed her to the hospital. On the way her blood pressure shot up and treatment was administered in the ambulance.
In the hospital it was determined that there was a ballooning of one of the blood vessels in her cranial cavity (outside the brain) from which blood was flowing. This was causing her severe headaches. A procedure was conducted, and she is now recovering, replying normally and even making a few jokes.
It appears that things are coming back to normalcy. Please pray for Joanna’s complete recovery because in such cases there is the possibility of complications.
Cards may be sent to:
Joanna D’Costa Post Bag Nol 3786 Marathahalli Bangalore 560 037 INDIA
In the late 1830s, American artist and inventor Samuel F. B. Morse perfected the electromagnetic telegraph. Then in 1844, using his new invention, Morse sent a telegram from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore, Maryland. Tapped out using what we now refer to as Morse code (which reduces words to dots and dashes), his message was quite short: What hath God wrought? (Old English for What has God done?) Morse’s now-famous question got me thinking about how God the Father, by sending his incarnate Son in the power of the Holy Spirit, both revealed to us who he is, and reconciled us to himself.
Revelation and Reconciliation is What God hath wrought.
The triune God in action
Holy Trinity by Czechowicz (public domain via Wikimedia Commons)
Our triune God is a God of action. From all eternity his being is that of doing. The Father, Son and Spirit were always in relationship—always interacting, always loving. As Jesus said, there was a knowing, loving and glorifying of each other before the foundations of creation were laid. There never was a time when God was lonely—he never was the solitary Unmoved Mover some have wrongly imagined. The Triune God is a living fellowship of holy love among the three divine Persons.
Accomplishing Revelation and Reconciliation
We know these things about God only because he acted towards his creation in such a way that we, his creatures, can know him. As Scripture declares and the early church taught, only God knows God and only God reveals God. God did not remain at a deistic distance expecting us to guess, instead he made a personal appearance, revealing himself to us in the person of the incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ. Scripture also declares that humankind, having become alienated from God, is in need of reconciliation with God. We all need the regeneration of our beings that has been accomplished by the Father, through the incarnate Son, and by the Spirit.
To truly know God means to know both who he is and what he has done in relationship to us. Who God is in his being is revealed to us through God’s doing on our behalf. Unlike humans, whose being and doing are separated, and often in conflict, there is no separation, no conflict between what God does and who God is. As T.F. Torrance notes in Theology in Reconciliation, when we carefully and prayerfully take this truth into account, we will arrive at an “astounding conclusion”:
God has made possible, and actual in Jesus, a true human knowledge of himself, not just as God is toward us, but in some real measure as God knows himself, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, from all eternity. (p. 238)
The triune God has brought about both Revelation and Reconciliation.
In and through the God-man Jesus Christ
Icon of Christ(both God and man) at St Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai (public domain via Wikimedia Commons)
Scripture tells us that the fullness of the Godhead dwelled in the human-born Jesus. The author of Hebrews put it this way: “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (Hebrews 1:3). In and through his incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit, God the Father has revealed to humanity who God is and what he has and is doing to bring humanity into right relationship with himself. Reconciled to God in Christ, we come to know not merely something about God, but who God actually is.
It’s only an analogy, but we might make a comparison between the coming of the Son of God to us in the person of Jesus with one of us going to a bunch of ants in order to have a relationship with them. While remaining who we are (human), we become one of them, dwelling within their anthill. We do this to be with them and to interact with them without losing our identity as a human.
In like manner, God the Father, through the Spirit, sent to us his Word in the person of Jesus to reveal himself to us, and in so doing to bring us his reconciling, saving grace. What the triune God has done reveals who he is—our Reconciling God!
The scientific theology of T.F. Torrance essentially says that the way of knowing God is the same as the way of salvation. Jesus is both the Truth of God (revelation) and the Way to God (reconciliation). Though God is not a part of his creation, nor is creation a part of God, God is not cut off from his creation. As Karl Barth noted, “God is not imprisoned in his transcendence.”
According to Torrance in The Mediation of Christ, God the Father, in Jesus, through the Spirit accomplishes both God’s self-revelation and his graceful gift of salvation-reconciliation:
Perhaps the most fundamental truth which we have to learn in the Christian Church, or rather relearn since we have suppressed it, is that the incarnation was the coming of God to save us in the heart of our fallen and depraved humanity, where humanity is at its wickedest in its enmity and violence against the reconciling love of God. That is to say, the incarnation is to be understood as the coming of God to take upon himself our fallen human nature, our actual human existence laden with sin and guilt, our humanity diseased in mind and soul in its estrangement or alienation from the Creator. This is a doctrine found everywhere in the early Church in the first five centuries, expressed again and again in the terms that the whole man had to be assumed by Christ if the whole man was to be saved, that the unassumed is unhealed, or that what God has not taken up in Christ is not saved. The sharp point of those formulations of this truth lay in the fact that it is the alienated mind of man that God had laid hold of in Jesus Christ in order to redeem it and effect reconciliation deep within the rational center of human being. (pp. 48-49)
Mission Developer Rod Matthews, who ministers for GCI throughout the South Pacific Region, told me about Bislama, a dialect of Pidgin English spoken in Vanuatu. In that dialect, Jesus, the Word of God, is called Tok blong God, literally translated talk belonging to God. No matter the language spoken, Jesus, for all humanity, is Tok blong God. To us, with us, and for us, Jesus is the Word from God—God-talk straight from the heart of God.
Dear sisters and brothers, Jesus is What God hath wrought. Joseph Tkach
PS: Along with Greg and Susan Williams, and Gary and Cathy Deddo, Tammy and I recently visited England to participate in a ministerial conference (pictured below), and to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of our London churches. Congratulations (and thanks) to all our members there!
GCI-Canada hosted two youth camps this summer: SEP Silver Meadows and Camp Connections. Here are reports from each one.
SEP Silver Meadows
This camp was held near Edmonton, Alberta. The 64 campers from several Canadian provinces (and one from the U.S.) were served by 37 staff members (3 were GCI interns). God’s love and blessings were evident. Despite heavy rains in surrounding areas (a near wash-out at the nearby Calgary Stampede), the camp was blessed with beautiful weather after the first day.
The camp theme, Celebratingthe Grip of God’s Love, was addressed in morning worship, chapels after breakfast, and evening worship. An afternoon reflection time used the “I am Second” video series, where famous individuals share testimonies about the grip God has on their lives. A spiritual highlight at camp was the baptism of two long-time campers in Lake Nakamum.
Camp activities included wall climbing, paintball and tubing—activities the campers would typically not have access to during the year. Camp concluded with a NoT-alent show where the campers were entertained with various talent acts. This was followed by a graduation ceremony where six senior campers were presented with Bibles and invited to come back as staff members next year.
This camp hosted 73 campers—21 more than last summer. The campers were welcomed into a loving, Christ-centered environment where they enjoyed a myriad of activities. Junior campers learned about the gifts of the Spirit while senior campers explored what it means to embark on a journey with Christ.
2016 was the inaugural year for Camp Connections’ Leadership in Training program. The young leaders not only learned, they served—contributing to the camp through a legacy project involving the finishing of canoe paddles that will be part of the camp’s equipment. The young leaders received separate messages and classes focused on helping them prepare for future leadership roles.
Among the campers were 19 refugees from various cultures and a young man from Restoring Hope Ministries, a street youth mission in Ottawa. As a result of fund raising support from various individuals and organizations (including the Peddling Kilometers program, which raised $17,000!), we were able to give financial assistance to all of our campers.
We were saddened to learn that early Sunday morning, September 11, Andrew Pickett, son of GCI Pastor Tom Pickett, died following a stroke he suffered several days earlier. Andrew was taken off life support on Saturday night.
You may recall that Tom’s wife Adrienne died earlier this year (click here for the report). Please pray for Tom, his surviving son David, and the rest of the extended family in their time of grief and recovery.
Here is a note that Tom posted earlier this week on Facebook:
The Picketts a few years ago: (L to R) David, Adrienne, Tom and Andrew
My dear family and friends, how can I state the profound truth that God loves us all unconditionally. He has received his precious child Andrew to be with his mother Adrienne in heaven. His organs will be given to others who need them to live full lives on this earth, and he lives on in the spirit. Thank you for your many and heartfelt prayers for Andrew, for me and for his wife and the rest of our extended family. Your continued prayers are appreciated as we move forward into our futures.
Registration for the Good News Festival in Ocean City, Maryland, on October 13-16 (click here for details), has been extended through September 16. When registering, be sure to register for the conference itself, then (as a separate step) reserve your room at the conference hotel. The reserved block of rooms at the hotel is filling fast, so register soon.
In addition to previously announced activities, here are three more that will be included in the festival:
a beach party hosted by the GCI interns for youth and young adults age 12 to 25
