My comments were in a large part based on his often repeated statements in his sermon series that the kingdoms of this world belong to or are under the control of Satan, that as a people we’re part of a different kingdom altogether and the two essentially do not connect except as combatants, and other thoughts in this vein. In short, his approach seems to bear out Dallas Willard’s cautionary statement that when we do other than focus on the already in that already/not yet tension, the ‘not yet’ ends up dominating.

But then, I’ve never struggled with attributing evil to God as others seem to do. In fact, as I’ve mentioned more than once, it breaks my heart to hear someone wonder — often in great pain — why God would ordain the death of someone or allow some other great evil.

Our God is good, that which he creates is good, and there is no darkness in him. Death is the inheritance of sin and evil flows from that. God doesn’t really explain why he allows evil to exist at all, though along with many, I sense a connection to his love of us and his desire for us to love him as well. (Hmmm. Pope Benedict XVI’s Lenten message seems to fit here.) In other words, I see a connection to what we call ‘free will’. But it doesn’t bother me that God doesn’t give us a detailed blueprint of how or why it is this way. Hasn’t he done more than enough to show his love for his creation — even to the point of intimately becoming a part of it himself?

This path, while probably better than a perspective that attributes evil to God, seems to elevate Satan too far. Yes, he’s powerful to us. But if we correctly understand anything about our God, the comparatively speaking Satan is a rather paltry, pathetic being. Further, I know Satan told Jesus that he could hand him all the Kingdoms of the world during the temptation. Leaving aside for the moment the question of whether or not the Prince of Lies was actually telling the truth, that must be viewed in light of Jesus’ blunt assertion in Matthew 28 that ‘all power in heaven and earth has been given to me’ along with the many claims of Jesus’ Lordship over all creation throughout the Acts and Letters.

Satan is Lord of nothing. All power in heaven and earth belong to our Lord. Certainly we do all things for the Lord and participate in everything we do in his project of new creation. That’s basic. And in so doing, we oppose the lies of Satan, the failure of the powers to perform their God-ordained responsibilities, and all that continues to deconstruct creation.

But we do so in the way of Jesus. And that is something we don’t often capture. The way of Jesus is the way of service, the way of “power under” as Boyd calls it. It is the way of standing in the certainty of God’s rule against all assailants in overflowing love and forgiveness against the worst that evil can do.

And that’s where the picture of the soldier in Ephesians is so odd. We are not told that our task is to kill or destroy the enemy. Rather we are told to stand in truth, ‘right-living’ (‘obey all my commands’???), peace, God’s salvation, and the Spirit. We ‘fight’ by standing strongly, standing firmly, ever standing as citizens of God’s Kingdom, living under the rule of God.

Why does Paul need prayer to proclaim the Gospel, the news about the Lordship of Jesus, without fear? The powers are pretty frightening to us, whether they come in the garb of demons or the trappings of Caesar. Nevertheless, our God reigns! And the powers are nothing next to Jesus.

I don’t have any particular issue with the soldier metaphors in the Letters. I do have a lot of problems with the way I tend to hear them expounded and see them enacted. But the metaphor of soldier and war is not my problem with what Boyd is saying. I think he’s too dualistic in his segregation of the supernatural powers from the material powers. I see them much more intertwined. And I think, perhaps in an effort to remove some sense of responsibility for evil from God, he elevates Satan far too much.

If you think the book would give me a different perspective on Boyd than that which I’ve garnered from his series on kigdoms of this world vs. the kingdom of God and the reviews of yourself and others, I would be happy to read it. I like a lot of what he has to say, especially when he expounds power in God’s Kingdom. So I’m not averse to reading him.

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Christian orthodoxy has always (correctly) taught God is omnipotent. But it seems the question we should be asking is this: Does omnipotence necessarily entail that God is all-controlling, as our post-Augustinian tradition assumes? Does affirming omnipotence commit us to the view that a good divine purpose lies behind all particular events? If it does, then mustn\’t evil come from a heavenly Father\’s loving hand? Evidently bad things are supposed to happen to bad people–that\’s how God gets sinners…they deserve it! When approached from a pre-Augustinian tradition, bad things happen simply because we are in the midst of a conflict of Kingdoms. It\’s apparent from the study of both the Old (though it never takes center stage there) and the New Testaments.
As the church, we are to be about what Jesus was about: we have a charter of living out a revolt against the kingdom of darkness (the ruler of this world, of the air)who is the occupying army. We are not, as many so often do, to resign ourselves to a \’theology of resignation\’, accepting from God what Jesus fought as coming from Satan.

The most fundamental unifying theme throughout Jesus\’ ministry was that he was setting up the kingdom of God over against the kingdom of satan. Jesus exorcistic and healing ministry constitutes preliminary victories over this enemy, while his death and resurrection spell satan\’s ultimate demise. We live in the \’already\’ but \’not yet\’ tension of the establishment of this new Kingdom.

Though not popular these days, the Christian life is most prominently portrayed as the life of a soldier. To follow Jesus is to do battle with the ever present prince of darkness. For Paul, especially, the whole of the Christian life is an act of warring against the enemy. Ephesians 6, of course, provides a pretty thick battle motif we all are familiar with. But don\’t discount what Paul also wrote to the churches in Thessalonica, Rome, and Corinth as well. Paul goes on to exhort Timothy to \’endure as a good soldier\’.

Given Paul\’s view of the ever-present reality of satan and his kingdom, and given his understanding of Christ and the church, it\’s hard to see how he could have viewed the christian life differently.

At the very least, it should be evident that any perspective which would construe the spiritual warfare motif as being incidental is pretty ….mistaken. IMO, any attempt to sidestep the motif (whether to minimize the \’mythological\’ elements of the NT or to maximize the classical-philosophical model of the sovereignty of God by downplaying the indications of a pervasive battle) fails.

It seems the authors of the OT and NT never asked the question of bad things happening to good people. It was as if the world was so saturated with evil, they almost expected bad things. Further, the NT church understood (because jesus taught) taht if the Lord of creation suffered evil, they could hardly expect to fare any better (JN 15; 1 Cor 2).

Let the reader judge if it\’s \’too extreme\’. Perhaps someone will write as scholarly a book entitled \’God in the Garden\’ sometime soon.

On the one hand, his comments about being cautious of the powers of this world and remembering that we are citizens of a different kingdom from his sermon series were a good counterbalance to much of what we hear. In the same vein, it sounds like his thoughts in this book counterbalance a tendency to focus on visible ‘enemies’ and ignore the invisible powers within the present-day American church.

With that said, I get this sense he goes overboard in the opposite direction. The invisible powers and the visible powers are all subject ultimately to God. And Jesus was just as subversive in his confrontation of earthly power, from Herod to the High Priest to Rome, as he was in his confrontation of Satan and the invisible powers. In the same way, Paul did not just challenge Satan, he proclaimed an euvangelion that stood in sharp contrast to Ceasar’s.

It’s the tension between Matthew 28 (“All power on heaven and earth has been given to me”) and 1 Corinthians 15 (“Christ must rule until he puts all enemies under his control”). God ordains order in society, but the powers that rule that order are fallen. To the extent that they fulfill God’s charge, we come alongside them. Where they do not, we follow Jesus.