A)Explain how the Bible shows the Goodness of God
...o ought to love one another, no one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and HIS love is perfected in us.’ (1 John 4.7-12) Because God loves us, there are other attributes that also come into play, such as the faith, not only from humans towards God, but the faithfulness of God’s love towards the human race. Faithfulness is a particularly important one as the entire Old Testament is based around it. In a human relationship, being faithful to one another is because love, trust and friendship are involved. A good example of this is God’s covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15. God makes the covenant but Abraham doesn’t actually agree to do anything. This was God saying that no matter what Abraham does, He would keep His promise. ‘’Then and there the Lord made a covenant with Abraham. He sad, “I promise to give your descendants all this land…” (Genesis 15:18) Another example of God’s Faithfulness is through a story about Hosea, who marries a whore, even though he knew she would cheat on him, and their children would be the same for generations and generations. ‘When the Lord first spoke to Israel through Hosea, he said to Hosea, “Go and get married; your wife will be unfaithful, and your children will be just like her. In the same way, my people have left me and become unfaithful.” (Hosea 1:2) Through this chapter we can see that although Hosea’s wife strays away from him and becomes unfaithful, he still loves her and remains true to God and his wife. Just like Hosea and his wife, God created a relationship with the world, even though we strayed away from His love, He remained true to us and has remained constant. ‘Israel, I will make you my wife; I will be true and faithful: I will show you constant love and mercy And make you mine forever.’ (Hosea 2:19+) In the Psalms, we see examples of the other attributes of God, and his consistency within them: Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Psalm 85:10 Righteousness and justice are the foundation of thy throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before thee. Psalm 89:14 His righteousness endures forever; the Lord is gracious and merciful. Psalm 111:3-4 Gracious is the Lord and righteous. Psalm 116:5 They shall pour forth the fame of thy abundant goodness, the shall sing aloud of thy righteousness . . . The Lord is just in all His ways, and kind in all His doings. Psalm 145:7, 17 Exodus gives us guidelines from God, ways to live a better life and to fulfil God’s commands. He does not do this to spite us, but to protect us from ourselves, just like a Father would do to his children. For instance, the 10 commandments in Exodus 20; “I am the Lord your God . . . You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol . . . You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God . . . Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Honour your father and your mother . . . You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony . . . You shall not covet . . . anything that belongs to your neighbour.” In the New Testament Jesus was asked which was the greatest commandment. He replied: “ ‘ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it; ‘love your neighbour as yourself’” (Matthew 22:37-39) Most of the commandments are against sin, so the rules we are sent are to defend us from that and ultimately to live a better life. The on-going creation process is another example of God’s decency. Although many people do have a problem with evil and suffering, such as the latest kidnappings of Holly and Jessica, September the 11th, the Bali Bombings and the long, drawn out debate over war. Many people’s question would be ‘Why doesn’t God just stop all the evil?’ and a Christian response would talk about the fact that every one of us sins, and we have to accept that. The only thing we can do about it is to accept we have done wrong. If God were to stop all the evil in the world, He would in effect be changing our choices to live like this, and therefore taking away our free will that He gave to us. Suffering is quite a difficult concept to deal with, but as shown in the New Testament, Jesus was able to heal the sick and suffering through God’s love alone. In the Old Testament, Adam and Eve were tempted by the Serpent and were given knowledge of what was evil and what was good, so because they could judge themselves, God could no longer let them live in harmony, but gave them rules to live by and made them work hard for the rest of their lives, and the rest of humanity. A Christian response to this would be that humanity today is paying the price for all the sin that our ancestors caused. God created us in His form, ultimately giving us character and the will to choose for ourselves. God would ultimately be unfair if He stopped all the human sin, but let us live against Him all out lives. If He did stop all evil, He would have to destroy the Earth completely. But then, God has given us new chances to rebuke ourselves, the ultimate being shown in the New Testament, with Jesus . . . . .. . . .. God’s goodness, really, is shown right from the beginning in Genesis, when He creates the world, gives us life and the tree of knowledge, right through to Revelation, after Jesus died for us and our sins, when God again, gives us a new heaven and a new earth and forgives us. God saw what the world was coming to and sent Himself down as the image of His Son, a sinless man who travelled and healed the sick and gave hope to the poor. He was separated from God for our sins, and died for us, in our place. ‘But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.’ (Romans 5:8) A similar story to this is the one of the Honest Policeman. He caught someone speeding in his or her car, only to find it was his girlfriend who he dearly loved. A dilemma was posed, does he uphold the law and fine his girlfriend, or does he ignore it and let her pass?? This was the situation God was in. He loves us dearly and does not want us to perish in Hell because that was the place created for the devil and his angels. So, the policeman came to a conclusion, just like God did, he fined his girlfriend, but paid the fine himself. God did the same, instead of sending us all to Hell for our sins, He sent Himself down, as Jesus, to perish in our place, to be separated from Love and Heaven for a time to pay for our sins. Could this be the most powerful act of Love shown in the Bible? B) ‘A Good God would not make so many rules and regulations- discuss’ Rules and regulations apply everyday in our lives, whether they are set to us by our parents or friends, or by our workplace, college, university or church. Many, in fact most probably the majority of them, are there to protect us from something. Especially, from our parents and family, we are given rules to abide by, like what time to come home at night, what you are and aren’t allowed to do when you are young. All of these are there because our parents love us, just like God loves us, so He gives us rules to live by to protect us from ourselves. In Romans, chapter one, it talks about Submission to the Authorities. ‘Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgement upon themselves.’ (Romans 1:1-2) Because God cares for us, He gives us rules so our lives can be good, and so we can have a reputable relationship with Him. ‘Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after lo...