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The existence of evil in our world is impossible to deny. Sadly, the pages of history and the stories of our daily news provide endless examples of evil at the individual, national and even international levels. As a result, atheists often claim that the clear existence of such widespread and ongoing evil proves there cannot be an all-powerful and loving God. 

According to this thinking, the existence of evil and the existence of God are mutually exclusive. If God exists, and he is good, the argument goes, why would he allow such terrible evil and its resultant suffering to continue?

As Christians we may occasionally wrestle with this conundrum ourselves, and we are very likely to hear it spoken by friends or others who are not believers.  The natural reaction in such situations is for us to try, where appropriate, to explain the temporary necessity of evil in the plan of God –  that God must allow evil in order to grant us free moral agency and the opportunity to develop the character he seeks. 

This explanation for the existence of evil is one that makes sense to most Christians and it is one which the Bible itself addresses.  In his epistle to the Romans, the apostle Paul summarizes the situation in saying that “… the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God (Romans 8:20-21).

In these verses we could easily substitute the word “evil” for “decay,” and the sense is clearly the same – God allows the present situation in order to fulfill his purposes in our lives.  And, as  Paul specifically stresses, in the long run allowing evil to exist will be worth the end results: “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).

However, this argument is a theological one that may make little sense to many whose minds have not been opened to understand the plan of God (Luke 24:45, Ephesians 1:18). But there is another and much simpler explanation that we should consider giving to others who question God’s existence in the face of the evil that is evident in the world.  To say that the undeniable existence of evil indicates that God does not exist, we must also admit that by the same argumentation, the undeniable existence of good in the world must indicate that he does exist.

​Although it does not explain the existence of evil, this answer is as sure as it is simple in showing that evil does not prove the non-existence of God.  If an individual can see this, it is likely that they may be receptive to begin to understand the underlying reasons the Bible gives for the present existence of evil in the plan of a good and loving God.

“…To the one who is victorious, I will give … that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it” (Revelation 2:17).
 
Today, people change their names because they do not like the name they have or because they see some advantage to having a different name.  This is particularly common for actors and musicians, of course, who change their names or take “stage names” they feel might be easier for people to remember and better for their chosen careers.  Some past and present examples include John Wayne, who was born Marion Robert Morrison, Bob Dylan who was born Robert Allen Zimmerman, Kirk Douglas –  born Issur Danielovitch Demsky, Alan Alda – born Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo, Martin Sheen –  born Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estevez, Elton John –  born Reginald Kenneth Dwight, and Natalie Wood – born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko.
 
But name changing is not just a modern phenomenon. The birth name of the great theologian Martin Luther was actually Martin Luder. He later changed his name to “Luther” (based on the Greek “eleutherios” meaning “free”) as being more appropriate to his beliefs.

There are also many instances of name changes in the Bible, though the ones we find there almost all occurred because someone else changed an individual’s name rather than the person changing it themselves. An exception was Naomi, the mother-in-law of Ruth (Ruth 1:20), who changed her name to Mara, meaning “bitter,” after losing her husband and sons.

More commonly, the names of individuals were changed when they entered the service of the king of a foreign culture, just as Joseph was renamed Zaphenath-Paneah –  the meaning of which is unknown –  by the Egyptian pharaoh (Genesis 41:45), Daniel was renamed Belteshazzar – a form of  “Bel protects the king” – by the king of Babylon (Daniel 1:7), and the Jewish girl Hadassah was given a new name, Esther (meaning  “star,” Esther 2:7)  when she was taken into the court of the Persian king.

Many think that the apostle Paul’s name was changed by God from “Saul,” though the New Testament shows that the name Paul –  the Greek form of Saul –  simply began to be used of him when he started to work in Greek-speaking areas (Acts 13:9).  Yet it is also possible that there was some significance in the changed name. In Greek, paulos means small, and it was perhaps a mark of humility to willingly exchange the name of the Hebrew king Saul for the humble Gentile name Paul, just as the apostle became a humble servant to the Gentiles (Ephesians 3:8).

More important, biblically, are the clear examples where God did change the names of his servants. God renamed the patriarch Abram as Abraham (“father of nations,” Genesis 17:5), for example, and his wife Sarai as Sarah (probably meaning “princess,” Genesis 17:15). He also renamed their grandson Jacob as Israel (meaning either “prince of God” or “he who overcomes with God,” Genesis 32:28).  There was deliberately expressed symbolism in these new names given by God, of course, each new name expressing a new identity based on what the individual had accomplished or the person’s potential in the plan of God.  

In the New Testament we see exactly the same process in action when Jesus renamed his disciple Simon as Peter –  meaning “stone” (John 1:42).  Peter had certainly not earned this new name to that point, but with the coming of the Holy Spirit he was transformed into a stable pillar of the New Testament Church (Galatians 2:9).

Interestingly, however, there are relatively few such changes recorded in the Scriptures where God gave his servants new names.  The phenomenon was uncommon and always full of great meaning when it did occur.  Yet despite the relative infrequency of God’s acts of re-naming, the Bible does make it clear that every faithful believer will be given a new name in eternity as we see in the scripture at the top of this post (Revelation 2:17).

At that time the changed names of believers will apparently be as meaningful and relevant to our potential roles in eternity as the names changed by God in the past.  The answer to Shakespeare’s question in “Romeo and Juliet” “What’s in a name?” may be “very little” –  unless it is a name changed by God. But then the answer will doubtless be “a great deal!” And the best news of all is that when a name is changed by God, the new identity is certain. 

​Just as Abraham in his great age became a “father of many nations” according to his new name, so we can all be encouraged by Numbers 23:19 which tells us that: “God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?” God will fulfill his promise to give every believer a new name. 

​Does God punish the children and other descendants for the sins of their “fathers” – their parents or ancestors?  Some scriptures – including the Second of the Ten Commandments – seem to show this to be the case:

“I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me” (Exodus 20:5).  

​The principle is repeated in Deuteronomy 5:9 and appears again in the Book of Exodus with only slightly different wording: “… he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation” (Exodus 34:7).

Yet other scriptures, which are equally clear, seem to contradict this principle of the punishment of children for their parents’ sins.  In the Book of Deuteronomy, we find: “Parents are not to be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their parents; each will die for their own sin” (Deuteronomy 24:16).  The prophet Ezekiel repeats this opposite approach: “The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them” (Ezekiel 18:20).

In order to untangle this seeming contradiction, we must realize that the situations covered by these two sets of scriptures are different.  First, notice that in the first set of verses (Exodus 20:5; 34:7; Deuteronomy 5:9) nothing is said about death, whereas in the second set of verses (Deuteronomy 24:16 and Ezekiel 18:20) the death penalty is mentioned in each case. 

Moses and Ezekiel both make it clear that under God’s law no one was to be punished for someone else’s crimes or sins.  The context is a specifically legal one regarding punishments meted out under human justice.  In the Second Commandment and parallel verses it is God who is being said to punish –  in a general manner that does not apply to humanly applied punishments.

This is not because God somehow deals out “tougher” justice than he commands humans to do in specific situations, but because God has set in place spiritual laws (summarized in the Ten Commandments) that have an effect when they are broken. Just as we cannot act against the physical law of gravity by dropping an object on the ground without risking breaking it, or jumping from a height without risking hurting ourselves, we cannot break a spiritual law without hurting ourselves – and often others as well.

The scriptures that speak of the sins of parents affecting the individual’s children and other descendants are simply speaking of the unavoidable consequences that people bring upon themselves and others through breaking spiritual laws.  Children who are born to drug-addicted mothers will unavoidably be affected by the parent’s addiction. Children who grow up in homes where parents routinely break spiritual laws almost always get hurt by the result of those behaviors. Unfortunately, those children often then pass on the negative results of such choices by following the same behavioral patterns themselves –  so the problems suffered by those who reject God’s laws may indeed last till the “third and fourth generation.”
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But these unavoidable ongoing effects of the behavior of individuals on their families and others are separate and different from situations where individuals are condemned and punished by society through specific laws for specific crimes. In such cases, God’s law stresses, children should never be punished for the behavior of their parents. 

​In 1952, the Congress of the United States of America established a National Day of Prayer as an annual event by a joint resolution. This resolution was signed into law by President Harry Truman, who called for the nation to take time “to turn to God in prayer and meditation.” Every president over the last 62 years, regardless of political or religious affiliation, has proclaimed a National Day of Prayer which is now set by law to be observed on the first Thursday of May each year.

The roots of this day of prayer may be said to go back to 1775 when, on the very eve of the U.S. War of Independence, the First Continental Congress called for a day of prayer.  Today such public devotion may seem foreign to many, but the principle of approaching God in a spirit of national rededication is itself an echo of such days in biblical times. 

This year, the National Day of Prayer falls on Thursday, May 3. and its theme is unity.  It is a great opportunity for us to both give thanks for our national blessings and to remember the spiritual problems and the needs of our nation at this time.

* If you would like more information on prayer, you can download a free copy of our e-book Your Call: Using the Direct Private Line of Prayer (available in different versions to view on computer, e-reader, or phone) from our sister site here.