I am not in the Philippines right now— my wife and I are visiting with our new grandson— but there is a big typhoon going overhead where we normally serve and reside. A missionary acquaintance of mine put up on social media speculation that this storm is God’s judgment for <I won’t put his theory here… it’s not the point of this post>. It got me thinking about this issue of declaring,, whether confidently or speculatively, that a disaster (“act of God”) is God’s judgment.

Concern #1. Playing the Prophet. In the Bible, there are many times when a prophet declares that some bad occurrence is an act of divine judgment. However, as Evangelicals, we believe that those speakers/writers of the Biblical text are not simply “winging it.” Rather, they are speaking with divine authority based on unique access to divine revelation. There are people today who claim the same thing. However, often they clearly fall short. A few years ago a self-styled prophet claimed that disasters where coming to the Philippines because of <the same reason as above and so I am not mentioning it here.> Of those “prophetic utterances,” one seemed to come true, but that one thing was more than balanced out by numerous ones that did not come true. Of course, some people don’t prophecy about future events but try to give a specific spin to past events— but that is still taking on the role of a prophet. I just wonder this— If God was in the room where such a person was declaring such things as from God, would that person still hold to this with confidence, or be far more cautious. I know I would be much more reticent to declare why God did something, or allowed something, if I could perceive His presence. Perhaps however we should recognize that God is present whether we “sense” Him or not.

Concern #2 Not everything is God’s Doing. Job’s suffering was not divine judgment. Ecclesiastes and some of the Psalms point toward a doctrine of common grace— good and bad people both undergo blessings and suffering. Even when looking at theodicy, suffering can occur due to (1) the sins that we do, (2) the sins done unto us, and (3) simply the results of living in a sinful (broken) world. Often we may be tempted to grab that third category as being divine action, but often we are only guessing.

Concern #3. Is this our Role? Is it the role of the church (or Church) to declare specific events as divine judgment? I am not sure… but it just doesn’t seem like it is to me. First, while there are examples of prophets speaking of bad things happening in the future in the New Testament (Jesus, Agabus, Peter, Jude, and John to name a few) none of them seem to be link to specific and correctable bad behavior for those outside the church.. Perhaps when Agabus warned Paul not to go to Jerusalem— that he would suffer if he does— could be seen as an example. However, it wasn’t a moral warning, it was directed to someone in the church, it was not tied to an “act of God,” and (frankly) Paul ignored it. Chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation do give some specific warnings to those in specific churches, again, this is not acts of God “targetting” the general population. While this is not a very strong argument, it is strengthened by the example of Jesus. When asked why some local tragedies happened, Jesus refused to address speculation as to why they happened. The early church SEEMED to be more interested in responding in a Christlike manner (helping people during famines or plagues) than on focusing on who to blame for God’s disfavor. That being said, I am sure there were people who did point fingers. I wonder if that is the best use of our opportunity to address the world around us.

Concern #4. What about the Good Stuff? If bad stuff is God’s judgment for our bad behavior, what about the good stuff. After Typhoon Yolanda went through Central Philippines in 2013, there has really been no natural disaster nearly on that scale since then. Is that an evidence of God’s favor? The US has had some big natural disasters, but as far as hurricanes, the last huge disaster was Katrina. Do we look to Hurricane Katrina as evidence of God’s judgment? We could, but overall we have less major disasters than the Philippines (arguably) even though the issue that I avoided bringing up above is actually bigger in the US than it is in the Philippines. Should we draw meaning from that, or not?

It seems to me to be better use of our time to find a better role than being Job’s friends, or worse– reveling in the suffering of people we think we are better than.