All photos courtesy of Unsplash
When I wrote this piece, I was about to go to the airport to board a flight from Wellington, New Zealand, to the UK via Sydney, Australia. We were travelling home to Liverpool in the North West of England. Home is a wonderful place to be with your own ‘kith and kin’. It is never more appreciated than when you are away from them. Though we were not looking forward to the 30 hours of travelling, the anticipation of seeing our family and grandchildren again makes up for any minor discomfort.
Carole (my wife) and I had been away for about five weeks. We thoroughly enjoyed our time in the southern hemisphere. The plan was to visit some churches in Australia and New Zealand to speak at conferences and seminars on the world’s best-selling book, the Bible.
All photos courtesy of Unsplash
It never fails to amaze me how timeless and cross-cultural the Bible is. It addresses the most profound issues that we as humans grapple with, such as:
Where do we come from - our origin?
Why do evil and suffering exist?
Why are we all mortal beings who eventually die?
Where do our consciousness, identity, creativity, and intelligence come from?
Why is there order and design?
Why are we all morally aware of right and wrong?
Why do we need help to do what is right?
Where did the universal concepts of love, hope and peace come from?
These questions and many more have been debated and discussed for generations. There are answers, but they don’t come from philosophical arguments but from the revelation of God in the Bible.
A book I am reading puts it succinctly - ‘the Bible is the only book that makes sense of life 1’. The Bible goes beyond highlighting the problems and discussing the consequences as it delivers a solution.
The Bible’s explanation of our origin answers many of these questions. It states in Genesis chapter 1 verse 1, ‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,’ it goes on to describe the creation of humans - ‘Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them,’ Genesis 1. 26,27.
That covers the questions of origin, consciousness, identity, intelligence, creativity, etc., but what about evil, death, and suffering? Once again, the Bible provides the answer: ‘Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned,’ Romans 5:12. Evil, death, and suffering exist because we humans ignore what God says and have gone our own destructive ways.
What then of love, hope and peace? As we live in a fallen world, how can we have hope for the future, peace in our lives, or experience genuine, lasting love? You will not be surprised when I say the Bible has the answer. It is not found in religion or as the result of human achievement; the answer comes from our creator, God. I’ll leave you to read what the Bible says for yourself:
John 3:16-17
‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.’
Romans 5:1-2
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
All quotations have been taken from the English Standard Version of the Bible.
1. The Bible: A story that makes sense of life, Andrew Ollerton.
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