If God Is Good, Why Is There Still Evil? (Proverbs 22:10)
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Proverbs 22:10
Drive out a scoffer, and strife will go out,
and quarreling and abuse will cease.
Every school teacher knows the practical truth of this verse. Have you ever been kicked out of class? I’ll admit it — I have. Get rid of the troublemaker, get rid of the root that’s producing all the ruckus fruit, and “strife will go out, and quarreling and abuse will cease.”
Now, draw that out a little further. Why is there still evil in the world? You know that question everyone asks: “If God is so good, why does evil still exist?”
Think of it like that same classroom. If there’s one perpetual disruptor, you expel them and calm returns. But what if the disruptive impulse lives in every student? You could clear the room — or you could change hearts.
Of course, there are layers to this mystery we can’t fully explore in a short devotional, but the basic idea is that if God were to remove all the evil in the world, He would have to remove every single one of us. To erase the strife, the quarreling, the abuse, He’d have to erase you. And me. Because in our natural state, we are the scoffers this verse describes. Every one of us.
So why hasn’t the strife in our world ceased? Why is there still quarreling and abuse everywhere?
Because we’re still here — and God loves us too much to blot us out. Instead, He’s patiently working to restore us. Christianity says God chose the harder, more loving route. He took judgment into Himself to create a new kind of human community.
In other words, rather than driving out the scoffer, God sent His Son into the classroom — to take our place. The only one who never scoffed was driven out, so that scoffers like us could be brought in. Scripture says:
“The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.” (Psalm 118:22; Mark 12:10-11)
And that speaks to two deep longings in us: our ache for a world without cruelty or contempt — and our fear of being written off ourselves. We want both a world made right and a grace that can reach us.
The cross is where those two longings finally meet.
So:
Where do you spot a scoffer and forget that once, that was you — until mercy made you new?
Who are you tempted to write off — that God might still be writing into His redemption story?
Let’s pray.
