Providence - The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Part 1)

Recently we preached through Ruth and my love for the literary masterpieces of the Old Testament has been rekindled. Ruth is a book loaded with puns, wordplay, and double entendre which are all woven together to tell a wonderful story. For this post I want to focus on one of the central theological themes woven through Ruth - the doctrine of Providence.

The Good 

The Westminster Shorter Catechism says, “God’s works of providence are, his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures, and all their actions.” This teaching is found in many places throughout the Bible but Proverbs provides some punchy examples:

Proverbs 16:1 “The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.”

Proverbs 21:1 “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will. 

Proverbs 16:33 “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.”

In all three examples we find God working out his eternal plan in time through the actions of human beings. The man's heart planned, but the very words of his tongue are attributed to God. The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord and the Lord turns it wherever he wills in order to accomplish his ultimate purposes. God even governs the seemingly random things such as the casting of lots. 

In the book of Ruth God's providence is woven into the story itself when we read, "As it turned out, she was working in the field belonging to Boaz..." (NIV). The author of Ruth is not for a second communicating that Ruth was really lucky and that she just so happened to end up in Boaz's field. Rather God is working out his eternal plan in time by providentially "preserving and governing" the actions of his creatures to accomplish his ends. 

The Bad

When reading Ruth we see these so-called "god-oinces" (God ordained coincidences in Christian parlance), and we smile in joy over God's provision for Ruth. However, it can be all too easy for us to forget that the reason why God providentially brought Ruth to Boaz's field was because her husband, brother-in-law, and father-in-law died in Moab after a famine in Bethlehem. What are we to make of those events? Were the famine and the deaths of the men disconnected from God's eternal plan and from his providential governing of all things? 

Not according to Naomi - "...the hand of the Lord has gone out against me" (Ruth 1:13). Upon returning to Bethlehem she repeats this same idea when she said, “… Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me" (Ruth 1:20). Is Naomi's bitterness just getting the best of her and causing her to say things she shouldn't? I mean, she couldn't be silly enough to actually imply that God had a part to play in the losses she suffered - could she? 

Consider a similar situation in Job 2:10 where Job's wife had just told him to "curse God and die" from the loss of all of his possessions, the death of his ten children, and being smote with boils from head to toe. Job's response is remarkable, "But he said to her, 'You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?' In all this Job did not sin with his lips" (emphasis added). 

Job not only attributes the evil which had fallen on him as - somehow, someway - being received from God, but then we are given the narrator's note which clarifies that even though Job attributed the evil done to him as being "from God," yet, "In all this Job did not sin with his lips." 

In God's providential governing of all things, then, there is someway that even evil is included in God's plan. Our first instinct is to say that "the Bad" elements of providence must not be according to God's plan because that would make God unholy, and according to James 1:13, "...God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.”

How are we to navigate these seemingly contradictory passages? It seems that we must seek to say all that Scripture says on this topic. Of course we dare not say more than Scripture says, but we also dare not ignore what Scripture teaches no matter how uncomfortable it may make us.

Next week we will look at an explanation which some might call "the Ugly" definition of providence. In particular we will take a look at how a robust understanding of providence is required to make sense of the cross. Think on this verse until we continue our study next week, "this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men" (emphasis added).

You can read Part 2 here.