WHEN EVIL PROSPERS
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One of the perennial questions of Christian apologetics is why bad things happen to good people. Why do the innocent suffer? How do we explain the apparently unfair nature of evil, and why doesn’t God do more to intervene? But we can also be tempted—as were many of the Bible authors—to ask the counterpart of that question: Why do so many people seem to prosper while doing evil? Why does the world seem to reward those who lie, cheat, exploit, and scam their way to success? Both sets of questions reflect a world that is out of alignment with how it ought to be—with broken relationships and the real presence of evil in people and systems. In many of his psalms, David did quite a bit of fretting about the seeming injustice of how our world appears to work, so perhaps he was speaking to himself as much as those who would sing, hear, or read his thoughts when he said, “Do not fret.” He emphasized the temporary nature of ill-gotten gain and anticipated a turn of events in which the apparent success of those who do evil will wither away, whether through their own hubris, by their inevitable death, or because of the direct judgment of God. Anticipating Jesus’ teachings in the Beatitudes, David urged that “the meek will inherit the land and enjoy peace and prosperity” (Psalm 37:11).
The psalm goes on to describe, affirm, and celebrate the reversal that God will bring—an expectation that should refocus how we live and where we put our hope. “Better the little that the righteous have than the wealth of many wicked; for the power of the wicked will be broken, but the LORD upholds the righteous” (Psalm 37:16, 17).
