A Brief Book Notice from Books at a Glance
As Tim Chester says in the Foreword:
Melvin Tinker invites us to walk with Job through the confusion sufferings creates. If God is so good why are things so Bad is like a guidebook, helping us navigate through unfamiliar territory.
It is a book for all those who suffer. Don’t worry, you will not be offered glib platitudes or quick fixes. Here is a context in which you can express your pain honestly. But here, too, is a context in which your questions are brought to God rather them leading you away from God. What we are offered in this book is not so much a theory or a solution, but God himself.
About the Author
Melvin Tinker is Vicar of St John Newland, Hull, where he has served since 1994. He is the author of numerous books and articles, including That Hideous Strength: How the West was Lost (EP Books, 2018).
Endorsements
Mark Lanier, Author of Christianity on Trial:
Melvin Tinker writes with a theologian’s mind, a Biblical scholar’s attention to detail and a pastor’s heart to minister. Using real life stories, he puts the book of Job under life’s microscope to find practical insights that help us in times of suffering.
Dr Dale Ralph Davies, Former Professor of Old Testament, Reformed Theological Seminary, Jackson, Mississippi:
Here is a book for the valley of the absence of God, a book that can make us more compassionate in our counseling, more informed in our suffering, more faithful in our grieving, more comforted in our anguish, and more knee-prone in our worship; and it s a book with an after-life it raises matters that we, like Mary, will go on treasuring up in our hearts. And yet Melvin Tinker has cloaked these hard and heavy matters in such a clear and readable style.
Revd Tony Jones, Christ Church, Durham:
Whilst there are no easy answers to suffering, this book provides an invaluable framework through which to engage with the problem of pain. “If God is so good why are things so bad” is a rare combination of careful exegesis, doctrinal clarity and Christ-centered theology. Melvin Tinker writes as someone who has clearly wrestled with the question of suffering and applies his material both as a pastorally sensitive preacher and an evangelistically compelling apologist. Christians, churches, and non-believers alike will benefit immensely from this book.
Buy the books
If God is so Good, Why are Things so Bad?