Understanding Why God Allows Pain, Suffering, and Evil

The coronavirus outbreak in China has caused many in Asia around the world to scramble and worry, and I must admit that I and my family have joined that crowd. It’s not been a fun several weeks for us, so I figured that finding a book like this about pain and suffering was providential.

When I first came across this fancy, hardcover book, I admit that I expected something a bit deeper. This isn’t to say that the book lacks value, but simply that it feels more like the publication of an evangelistic sermon than anything. On the one hand, I imagine that evangelism was the author’s main goal, but the very fact that it’s a Christian book suggests that most non-Christians would avoid ever picking it up. On the other hand, it’s helpful in offering up an introduction to the Christian perspective on pain and suffering, but for most Christians already familiar with the Word, it’s pretty basic.

Jim Scudder opens the book by offering up “The Big Picture” which relates the classic account suffering in the life of Job. He then introduces the roots of pain and suffering as described in the Garden of Eden and goes on to describe “The Undisputed Love of God,” “The Gift of Pain,” and few other aspects before finally bringing his readers to the Gospel and their moment of choice.

In my mind, I see the author’s target audience in terms of a space-shuttle illustration. Consider the angle required for a space shuttle to reenter the atmosphere safely: there’s one very specific angle that works, one target audience for whom this is the absolute perfect book. But on either side of that one angle, there’s both an impossible barrier that will bounce the unbelieving space capsule off into space, and the thin atmosphere that will shatter the Christian space capsule into a million pieces (just a mere illustration). Both extremes would prove ineffective to the believing and non-believing audience alike, but then again, there is that target audience. The author and his publisher envision those few needy individuals for whom this unique Gospel presentation will prove effective, and they have judged it worth the expenditure to print. For this reason, I pray that God would bless their gamble and expenditure by bringing this 38-page Gospel tract to those who need it most.

As I mentioned already, this book feels like the transcript of a great sermon, and perhaps it is. John MacArthur and a thousand other preachers have published works in a similar fashion, so there’s nothing wrong with the style. The fact remains, however, that the book will prove mostly ineffective unless God puts it into the hands of the most needy. I’m not sure if Victory in Grace has a way of distributing this book to, say, victims of natural disasters or to the down-and-out of our inner cities, but doing so could be one way of making sure that the book finds its target audience.

©2020 E.T.