I was listening to the Bible in a Year Podcast when these lines came up from 2 Chronicles 28:3: “[King Ahaz] burned incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burned his sons as an offering, according to the abominable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.”
“Pause that,” interrupted my six-year-old. I hadn’t noticed that he was listening more attentively than I was. “Why did he do that?” My son understood the gravity of it, and his tone revealed abhorrence and confusion. “Because he was evil,” came my startled, less-than-inspired response. But little kids have a way of outsmarting their parents, especially when they receive unsatisfying answers. “Why was he evil?”
“Because he chose to disobey God,” my wife chimed in. “When we don’t follow God’s will, men’s hearts can turn to darkness, and then they do evil things as a result.” Our son, well-schooled in The Lord of the Rings and improperly schooled in Batman, courtesy of his older brothers, comprehended the connection between darkness and evil. The conversation ended there.
But I continued to consider, not so much his question – the perennial problem of evil – but how the
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