Great Question: Does God Cause Pain and Suffering?

Speaking of Grace

Great Question 4: Does God Cause Pain and Suffering? – Ken Wetmore

Considering, the story of Hagar and Sarah: In the Genesis version, there is a lot of difficult complexity - for instance, God sends Hagar back into bondage then tells Abraham to listen to Sarah and cast Hagar and Ishmael into the wilderness. Then, Paul does a REALLY horrible retelling of this story in Galatians. He makes a point we all like - that faith trumps the law - but he does it in a way that has resulted in much Inter-religious strife, gender oppression, etc. Why do all of these horrible things seem sanctioned by, or even motivated by, God?

#WholeLifeReflections for this week:

• Have you ever made a decision that harmed someone else? If so, what did you do to make it right?
• Do you identify more with Hagar or Sarah and Abraham? Why?
• Has there ever been a time when you knew God "saw you?"
• Do you view the characters in the Bible like Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, and Paul as real people with all the character quirks and defects that we have, or as one-dimensional characters? Why would this matter?
• Does everything God does in the Bible have to make sense in order for you to believe that God is good?

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NEXT WEEK 9/18/21: ‘The Messy Middle’ by John Monday

The theme music for Speaking of Grace was written, produced, and performed by WholeLife Church’s own, Phillip Burks - https://www.phillipburks.com/.

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