Second meeting of the Lent group tonight. Big question from the group: if God is so generous in his giving, does Volf adequately deal with the problem of suffering? Not that we expect complete answers, but we wondered how Christians in the developing world might read his eulogy to God’s generous giving. Granted, he has all the stuff about how God sometimes gives through others in order that they may learn how to give – you might invoke that a little bit – but the issue wasn’t directly addressed and needed to be.
Big plus point to this chapter: near the end where he talks about how giving equalises between giver and receiver, as opposed to the way our culture elevates the giver and humiliates the receiver. We thought of TV telethons – Children In Need, Comic Relief, etc, where organisations proudly parade their giving. Yet as Volf points out, Christ who was rich became poor for our sake so that we in our poverty might become rich (and not in the prosperity gospel heresy sense of this verse).
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