Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?

Audio reading: Deut 15:1-23, Job 20:1-22:30, 2 Cor 1:1-11, Psalm 40:11-17, Prov 22:2-4

Audio reading: Deut 16:1-17, Job 23:1-27:23, 2 Cor 1:12-2:11, Psalm 41:1-13, Prov 22:5-6

Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do the righteous suffer and yet the wicked seem to prosper? These are the questions that Job is asking of the LORD GOD. There are no easy answers. Yet, as we read through the book of Job, and witness his many sufferings, we catch a glimpse of Yeshua there also.

Yeshua was a man acquainted with sorrows and he suffered deeply. If we want to follow in Yeshua’s footsteps, Paul tells us that we will have deeper fellowship with him when we drink from Yeshua’s cup of suffering:

Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ. and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Phil. 3:8-11

Yeshua Himself warned about this cup of suffering, when His disciples began arguing about who would be the greatest in the kingdom:

But Jesus answered by saying to them, “You don’t know what you are asking! Are you able to drink from the bitter cup of suffering I am about to drink?” “Oh yes,” they replied, “we are able!” Matthew 20:22

Are we willing to drink from that cup?