Man, these are very very tough, theological questions. Some of which i have actually preached over. I have questioned the same things, and i would like to share what i have found, and what has provided me peace, and answers to these questions. I would like to enter my attempt at these questions by sharing Isaiah 55:9 that says "for as the heavens are higher than the earth, my thoughts are higher than your thoughts, and my ways are much higher than yours"

for the question on evil: We look back to Adam and eve ultimately created sin and is the most widely used scripture defending "free will". They ultimately chose to sin. Thus, giving birth to sin into the world. When sin was born, our desires became such. Paul talks about in the book of Romans about these things, in fact. Talking about how when we give in to sin, when we serve our sin, we are more prone to do sinful things. Just the same way as if you only hang around a certain type of people, 99% of the time, you begin resembling the traits of the people you hang around, right? The same is true with sin. If we are loving Jesus, pursuing Jesus, and being in the word, we will find ourselves doing things more like Jesus. This could even be tied in with the question about murder, genocide, rape, ect. This is a product of a sinful world, and a people serving that sin. Now, you could combat that with the Westboro Baptist Church, or other "Christian" affiliates who are militant. That is not Jesus. God never once talks about hatred for gays, or soldiers. Christ even forgave those who nailed him to the cross! So please, dont get these people confused with Christ. Ultimately at the end of the day, it IS a faith thing. My peace comes from Revelation 21 where John is describing Jesus at the right hand of the Father saying "look! i am making ALL things new!" There WILL be justice for these things.

Why does God wait? This is one i cannot answer. The bible alludes to it by saying that the entire world must hear the name of Jesus. and as of right now, there are i think somewhere along the lines of 3500 languages that haven't had the gospel translated into their language.

God IS a jealous God, yes. We are his bride. He loves us, as a husband loves his bride when she is walking down the isle. While we are filthy, he sees us in perfect white because he is so incredibly captivated by us. He desires us to love him! We are his masterpiece, created anew in Christ to do the good things he has planned for us. (Ephesians 2:10) It is all based on affection.


I hope i provided some sort of insight into these things. I answered the best that i could. feel free to PM me about them, if you'd like.

No these are good questions!
The only real answer I can think of, There is no such thing as right or wrong in gods actions.
When God does anything, it righteous. After all, God is who defines what is good and evil.
But do know, there is always a reason for each and every action.

If everything were perfect, would we as humans be able to convey emotions? They wouldn't be necessary.
Life would be dull, there would be no such thing as reward or punishment,
Imagine life as a movie for a second, how interesting would it be if nothing ever went wrong?
there cannot be good, without evil.. because they both need the other to define themselves.

i believe theres alot more positive things that happen to us than negative, but we disregard them and only focus on the negative.

hope this helps

This post was edited by DB_odin on Feb 15 2012 11:59pm

God didn't create evil, but he did give human beings free will. It's up to humans to either follow God (the Good) or to turn their backs to God (do evil).



I don't know how God will deal with evil, to be honest (that's because I don't know much about the Bible). I know that it will either be destroyed or quarantined.

I think God is leaving humans to freely choose what they want to do; and then when the time is right, He will judge our actions.

I see the world we live in as a way to grow into mature moral agents and to establish a relationship with God.



I don't think this is meant to be taken as literally. I think all that is meant is God deserves our love and attention since He is the one who created all of reality outside of Himself. So all respect and worship should go to Him, not nature, human beings, or false gods.

I have addressed this one before. Jealousy is not necessarily a bad thing. Our society in recent times has deemed that jealousy = bad, but that is not so. It is what you do with your jealousy that is "bad". Jealousy is an extension of love. Jealousy is often protection.

Another simpler way of putting it, that I heard:
Jealousy = wanting that which you deserve (that which is yours)
Envy = wanting that which you do not deserve (which you did not earn, and is not yours)

By this difference, we are more often envious than jealous. It also makes it clear that God has every right to be jealous, as everything is his.

Since God is righteous, by definition so is He when He is jealous. This also conveys that jealousy (and anger, and other emotions displayed by God), are not always wrong or bad, and in fact can and are righteous in some cases.

We were created in God's image, so it is improbable to believe that we would have been given emotions that God is incapable of. The difference is that while God is righteous, we are not, and we will often misuse our emotions for bad, rather than always for good as God does. If you examine every type of emotion, you almost always can find a causal relationship with love. Some things, like pride, are a love of self, while others like hatred are a complete polar opposite of love, the reverse of love (but I still contend that hatred is better than nothing, because if you hate someone, you at least acknowledge they exist, and are willing to invest your own emotions in them. If you are indifferent, you neither love nor hate them, which is a much worse fate for the recipient).

Jealousy is not a bad thing. It is your reason for being jealous, and/or your actions that are forthcoming that could be.

Very good and interesting points.

This post was edited by Sleepwalk on Feb 16 2012 02:16pm