For my money, Job 1:13-19 has to be the most ridiculously awful passage in the whole Bible.  If you know the story at all, Satan has contended before God that the only reason Job serves God is because He has made Job prosperous.  “Strike everything he has,” Satan says, “and he will surely curse you to your face.”  God proceeds to allow Satan to test out that theory, and what follows is the Job 1:13-19 nightmare:
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This week I’m taking a break from writing something original, but I want to recommend to you three very interesting things I found on the web this week, two of which will enhance the recent “Why Believe?” series.  The first is a “blogalogue” debate between N.T. Wright and Bart Ehrman on the subject of pain and suffering.  N.T. Wright is the Bishop of Durham for the Church of England, has taught at McGill, Oxford, and Cambridge, and has authored many books, including one that is relevant to this dialogue, Evil and the Justice of God.  Bart Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the author of God’s Problem:  How the Bible fails to answer our most important answer – Why we suffer and Misquoting Jesus, among others. 
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“Advance warning of Katrina’s path was wrested from mute Nature by meteorological calculations and satellite imagery. God told no one of His plans. Had the residents of New Orleans been content to rely on the beneficence of God, they wouldn’t have known that a killer hurricane was bearing down upon them until they felt the first gusts of wind on their faces. And yet, as will come as no surprise to you, a poll conducted by The Washington Post found that 80 percent of Katrina’s survivors claim that the event only strengthened their faith in God… Only the atheist realizes how morally objectionable it is for survivors of a catastrophe to believe themselves spared by a loving God, while this same God drowned infants in their cribs.”

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“The baby died.”

If there were a list of things you hope you never have to hear, “the baby died” would have to be up near the top, somewhere right above “I’m leaving you” and “It’s definitely cancerous.”  Last Wednesday, as I was on the phone with Andy Hood, my cell phone began to ring, with an unfamiliar Manchester number on the caller ID.  I had warned Andy that my wife was at an appointment at the OB/GYN office, and that she would be calling anytime, so he graciously said good-bye and allowed me to answer the incoming call, where I heard a hysterical voice punch me in the gut with those three words:

“The baby died.”

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I hesitate to write this, because I hate to give publicity to those who don’t deserve it, but since I find this line of thinking creeping into the heads of Christians in other subtle ways, I think it needs to be addressed, so here goes…

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I am sure that many of you are shocked and saddened by the tragic events that unfolded at Virginia Tech yesterday as you listen to the stories and imagine what it must be like to be a student or parent of a student there today.  Two couples who have been part of our church over the past couple of years, Jesse & Kim Christophel and Eric & Brandie Couch, are recent graduates of Virginia Tech.  I’d like to share with you Eric’s brother Michael’s thoughts on the situation (Michael is currently a student at Tech), and intersperse some words from the Bible throughout to help us lift our eyes to our loving sovereign God.  Sometimes it’s just better to let God speak for Himself.

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