THE MESSAGE OF EVIL AND SUFFERING
Light into darkness
By Peter Hicks. IVP. 272 pages. £9.99
ISBN 978-1-84478-148-9
The latest in The Bible Speaks Today books on major themes looks at this thorny issue. There are six major sections covering ‘evil and suffering and God’, ‘evil and suffering and Jesus’, ‘the nature of’, ‘the reasons for’, and ‘living with’, evil and suffering, and finally, ‘from the evil one to Our Father’. Each section has a brief summary, and a ‘pause for thought’. The book is rounded off with a study guide.
Each major section is comprised of sub-sections, which are running commentaries on or summaries of major Bible passages relevant to this theme. So, for example, in the first section Peter Hicks starts with ‘the end of the story’ in Revelation 15, then moves to ‘the beginning of the story’ in Genesis 6, before covering Exodus 34 and Psalm 2. His expositions are thoughtful and suggestive. Preachers trying to get a message outline from a passage, or developing a topical approach on the theme of suffering, from the many angles the Bible considers it, will find help.
