Truth Inspires

Idyllic Beauty Just recently I was thinking about this issue of evil as opposed to the condition of things on the earth before sin entered the world, i.e., the Garden of Eden from Genesis 1-3. The picture the Bible reveals is idyllic and absent from evil. It tells us that in the beginning God had created the world to be a place of unending peace--a utopia for His creation. Then sin entered the picture. Col 1:17 states: "And He [Jesus] is before all things, and in Him all things consist" In the original Greek, the word "consist," συνίστημι (sunistēmi) is a compound word with συν (son)and ιστημι (a "μι" verb), making one word from the two. When separated they mean "to gather or assemble," and "to stand," respectively. Compounded, they mean, "to come to be in a condition of coherence, continue, endure, exist, [and] hold together," (BDAG). The passage teaches that in Christ all things stand and are held fast togeth...

On Monday, September 16th all of us were again shocked as another act of evil was perpetrated at the Navy Yard in Washington. Another senseless act--another layer of hardness to many who have become desensitized to the evil around us. My heart goes out to the lives of the families who were affected by this senseless tragedy. Confusion, loneliness, heartaches that do not seem to ever go away, loss of companionship and oneness with a spouse, and even children crying themselves to sleep each night are just some of the by-products of evil. They are the unnecessary results of aimless living. Psychologists will give you a plethora of reasons why something can snap in the brain causing a person to go off into a delirium of evil rampage and many of those reasons are commendable. But if Jehovah is the Lord of the universe and the creator of all things, then surely we would expect that He has an answer as well. And if we take the time to look we will not be left wanting; He calls it Sin. But ...