Bad Things Today's Three-minute Bible Study Print, Study and Apply Title: Bad Things------------------------- Date: 12/20/2001 Keywords: "bad" "redemption" Welcome to eXXit, the web site designed to help you stand strong in the face of sexual temptation. Passage: Genesis 45:5-7* 5. And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. 6. For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will not be plowing and reaping. 7. But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. Questions 1. Why didn't Joseph want revenge for the wrongs done to him?   2. How can we apply this insight to our lives?   Practical help Why do bad things happen to good people? A best-selling book says that God lacks the power to bring the world into alignment with his good desires. A major world religion claims that God operates on a plane beyond our simple definitions of good and evil. But Judaism and Christianity make a more radical claim: God allows bad things — but can redeem them. That was Joseph's view ("God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance"). As believers who struggle with pornography, it can be ours, too. Porn is a great evil. But God can redeem it if we use our negative experiences to encourage others to avoid it. More and more Christians now share their failings with each other, instead of hiding them. And that will work a "great deliverance" in a people burdened with bad things. eXXit homepage Index of three-minute studies Copyright 2001 by eXXit *Scriptures are from The Holy Bible: New International Version, © Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. All rights reserved.