Leader preparation · 2–3 minutes
Your aim for this conversation
Read Genesis 1:31, Genesis 3, Psalm 51, 2 Corinthians 4:16–18 and Revelation 21:3–4. Greg drew on each.
The aim is for each person to see evil as everyone's problem, to own their part in it, and to take hope from what God is doing about it.
Questions 3 to 5 were asked in the Think Biblically question time, which Conrad Wozniak moderated. Let the group answer first; Greg's answers are in the leader notes, to share after.
Timing plan
45 minutes
- Opening
- 4
- Passage
- 5
- Questions
- 24
- Application
- 7
- Prayer
- 5
Total · 45 minutes
The Big Idea
Real evil points to a real God, and God's answer to evil is Jesus on a cross at Calvary.
Remember the message
Message reminders
Evil Is Something
Evil is real, and real evil needs a real standard. If there is no lawmaker over the universe, there are no broken laws, so the problem of evil rules out relativism and atheism and points to God.
Evil Is Not Some Thing
God did not create evil, because evil is not a stuff. It is a hole in goodness, like a shadow where light is missing.
Evil Is an Intruder
God made the world very good. When people chose what they wanted on the inside over God's boundary on the outside, they broke the world, but the story is not over yet.
A Good Thing Made Evil Possible
God wanted to share his happiness with people who could choose the good. Moral freedom with no possibility of evil is a contradiction, like a square circle.
What God Is Doing About Evil
One answer is to do anything that makes you feel better: a choice a person can make, but not a good one. The good answer is what God is doing: holding back evil through government, family and the church, giving his Spirit, returning to remove evil, and sending his Son to die so we can have mercy instead of justice.
Wednesday’s conversation
Reflect & discuss
Read Genesis 1:31 and Revelation 21:3–4 together.
Essential · 4 minutes
A way things should be
Greg said that if things are not the way they're supposed to be, "there is a way they're supposed to be." When have you felt most strongly that something in the world was wrong, not just unpleasant, and what did that feeling point you toward?
Leader notes
Follow-ups to have ready
- Greg said you tell a good bowler from a bad one by the score. What score do you use, without thinking about it, when you call something wrong?
- Where have you heard someone say morality is personal opinion and then complain about evil? How could you ask them about it?
Background you may need
- Some will think of a tragedy in their own lives. Let them name it without asking them to explain it, and do not offer a reason God allowed it.
If it stalls
Use Greg's speed-limit picture: on a road with no speed limit, nobody can break one. Ask what it means that everyone believes some things are truly broken.
Essential · 5 minutes
God and my evil
Greg said people ask why God doesn't stop evil, but they never ask, "why doesn't God do something about my evil in my life?" Where do you want God to hold back other people but leave your own choices alone, and what would it look like to ask for his help with your own evil this week?
Leader notes
Follow-ups to have ready
- Greg said "salvation is all God. But sanctification is a partnership." What is your part this week, and what is God's?
- Optional, more personal: Where are you most tempted to follow what you want on the inside over what God has said on the outside?
Background you may need
- Someone in the room may have been badly hurt by another person's evil. This question is about each person's own choices; it does not blame anyone for what was done to them.
If it stalls
Allow a quiet moment before anyone answers. Offer a general example, such as wanting God to stop a rude driver but not our own impatience.
Essential · 5 minutes
Evil and suffering
Asked at Think Biblically: What is the difference between evil and suffering? When a hard season came to you, did you expect it as a Christian or did it take you by surprise, and what difference did that make?
Leader notes
Follow-ups to have ready
- How would being warned ahead of time change the way you walk with a friend through a hard season?
- What helps you tell the difference between something that is hard and something that is wrong?
Background you may need
- Greg Koukl's answer at Think Biblically: Suffering becomes a problem only when we treat it as something wrong, something that should not be, so an atheist who denies objective morality, like Alex O'Connor, smuggles morality back in when he complains about suffering. Christians often ask why God allows suffering in their own lives, but the New Testament is "thick with" warnings that the Christian life will include suffering. Hebrews, 1 Peter and 1 and 2 Thessalonians were written to suffering Christians, and Paul wrote four of his letters from prison: "you've been forewarned."
- Greg said Christians should not ask why God allows their suffering. Do not press that on anyone who is grieving, and do not tell anyone why God allowed what they went through.
If it stalls
Offer a general example, such as a long illness or a hard job, and ask what people expected from God when it began. Let people pass.
Psalm 51:4 · Optional · 5 minutes
Eternal consequences
Asked at Think Biblically: Doesn't condemnation for eternity seem harsh for people who sinned during a short time on earth? When has that question troubled you, and what has helped you think it through?
Leader notes
Follow-ups to have ready
- Greg said the weight of a wrong depends on whom it is against. How does that change the way you see your own sins that seem small?
- How does this question change the way you pray for people who do not know Christ?
Background you may need
- Greg Koukl's answer at Think Biblically: He is sympathetic, because people made in God's image value justice and want the punishment to fit the crime. He holds "the standard classical conviction of eternal conscious torment," and said there is some debate about it, but he is guided by what Scripture teaches, not by what seems right to him. The punishment for a crime does not depend on how long it took to commit: a child who slaps a parent does something worse than a child who slaps another child, because the weight of a crime depends on whom it is against. All sin is against God first, as David confessed in Psalm 51, and we rarely see how holy God is.
- Some in the room may be thinking of someone they love who died without faith. Do not speak about anyone's eternal destiny; keep the talk on what Scripture says and how each person holds it.
If it stalls
Read Psalm 51:4 aloud and ask whom David says he sinned against.
Optional · 5 minutes
Guilty from birth?
Asked at Think Biblically: If the fall darkened our minds and wills, how are we to blame for the evil we do? Where do you notice a pull toward wrong in yourself that you never chose, and how has God met you there?
Leader notes
Follow-ups to have ready
- Greg called this question "enigmatic." What do you do with a teaching you believe but cannot fully explain?
- How does knowing you needed mercy from birth change the way you treat people who struggle with sin?
Background you may need
- Greg Koukl's answer at Think Biblically: It is one of the hardest questions for him. Adam and Eve were not fallen, and we are morally crippled from birth, but that does not change the moral equation: "Our corrupted natures themselves are damnable," and we are guilty from the womb, which he called basic Christian theology. His picture was the Uruk-hai in The Two Towers, bad from birth and still deserving justice. We are not that bad, he said, but we are pretty bad.
If it stalls
Ask parents how they saw selfishness in their children before anyone taught it. Allow silence.
Carry it into the week
Next Steps
From the message
- When someone says evil rules out God, ask Greg's question: "What's the alternative?"
- Stay alert in conversations: people who deny objective morality often smuggle it back in when they talk about evil.
- Ask God for his Holy Spirit to deal with the evil in your own life. "You cannot do it on your own."
- Bend the knee before God and own your sin: "my fault. Nobody else, just mine."
- Fix your eyes on the hope of Christ's return.
- Invest your life in what lasts: "Only what's done for Christ will last."
Application
Before next Wednesday, when news of evil or suffering reaches you, stop and pray for the people it touches, and thank God that the story is not over yet.
My notes
Close in prayer
Thank God that evil is an intruder in his good world, and ask him for his Spirit to deal with the evil in us and for hope until Christ returns.
Scripture quotations marked ESV are from the ESV Bible, © 2001 by Crossway. Text Edition: 2025. Used by permission. Permissions. Prepared for this small group from the October 14, 2026 message; questions and applications are editorial study material.