God intends either discipline or testing by what is suffered, and both produce the good of improved sanctification.[29] We are not allowed to take “natural calamity” out of that package of necessary suffering for the believer. God in His providential care designs the calamity as a blessing in sometimes macabre dress. We are to “consider it all joy . . . when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.”[30] Suffering is a foundational aspect of sanctification. 

We must acknowledge that the most troubling problem emerging from any large scale natural disaster is not that people die. That is a real human and emotional issue, but not the most significant one. Hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, fires, tornados or floods do not change the statistics on the number of the human race experiencing death by even one digit. A typhoon in Bangladesh swept away between 300,000 and 500,000 lives in 1970,[1] and the worldwide influenza pandemic of 1918 exterminated between 50,000,000 and 100,000,000,[2] but neither of these catastrophic events changes the grim prognosis that every member of the human race will die. We are dying at a hundred percent rate already.
It is also not the overarching dilemma that natural events destroy what we have made—our homes, buildings, roads, etc. No one should be surprised when a house or building is brought to nothing in a mudslide in view of the fact that God declares that decay will eventually destroy all things anyway.[3] We are promised the cataclysmic destruction of the entire earth as we know it in the future.[4] Some have lost these things earlier than they had hoped they would, but that they would be destroyed should never be in debate with evangelicals. So there is nothing new here either.
Furthermore, it should not be a conundrum to us that many people face an alteration of their existence due to catastrophe. A new order will come to everyone eventually; heaven and a new earth will be experienced by some[5], and hell for others. Death alters everything, as will Christ’s return.
We should also remember that there is no meaningful dissimilarity in the horribleness of death in a natural disaster as opposed to normal times. If it were possible to ask a man in the sanitary environment of a hospital what it is like to breathe his last breath when he is drowning in his own fluid, he would tell you it is every bit as horrific as being drowned in a flood. Because God mercifully allows the body to experience shock in times of fright, many will thankfully have some anesthesia when they die, whether natural or narcotic. But death is still a ravaging enemy wherever and however it is encountered. Some may linger in the hospital room for days before they die, while others under the rubble caused by an earthquake painfully expire from dehydration. A woman may die instantly when a hurricane pushes her house down, while her sister may end her two year struggle with an insidious malignancy with screams. Which is easier?
Everyone will die; everyone will lose whatever they have; everyone will face a completely altered existence; everyone will experience the horror of last moments on earth. We have already bought into all of these as theological verities. So what is so arrestingly unique about a natural disaster? Why do we become poetic and communicative about it? Why do we not hear news commentators saying, “Today an earthquake in India did the normal: It took a few thousand lives, destroyed property, took people to another existence and did it in the typically horrible way. The stock market was up today with heavy volume . . .”
We are alarmed because a natural disaster brings dramatic focus to these universal inevitabilities. It paints them in vivid color right before our faces so that we cannot escape them. We see how impotent we are. Our invincibility evaporates; our vulnerability parades in front of us and mocks us. We watch as people just like us, going about their business, lose everything and die in a moment. It grabs us precisely because it is us we are hearing about. Natural disaster is not about something new happening, or even about something unusual happening, but about something that has always happened and is inescapable for each of us—and more precisely, for me.
All death and destruction comes from the most cataclysmic event of history, the fall of man, and from the resulting just judgment of God.e[6] Our natural world groans under the resultant bondage.e[7] Believers, of all people, should learn to reconcile themselves to this fact. One pastor was reminded by God after the loss by flood of all his awards and letters from important people not to be concerned. Reportedly God said to him, “Don’t worry . . . I was going to burn them anyway.” Whether he heard these words directly or not, the sentiment was true.[8]
The certainty that death, decay, and destruction are going to happen anyway to all of us and to all of our things, however, does not eradicate the internal pain that believers may experience. Even Christ, who said, “Let not your heart be troubled,” was “distressed and troubled,” and “deeply grieved, to the point of death” by the weight of sin placed on Him. With perfect knowledge and absolute trust, He still worked out His peace with the cross on Gethsemane. Granted, His was an infinitely bigger burden than ours, but there is surely a lesson here.
Some of the greatest of saints have also been depressed about losses or disruptions (David, Elijah, Spurgeon, and Martin Lloyd Jones, etc.). Ongoing emotional troubles remind us that disaster of any sort is often an immense trial, spinning off secondary disasters, like hurricanes spin off tornadoes, even among believers. If this is so, we more-average saints must have much aid in understanding and coping with natural disaster when it affects us or those we love dearly. What can help?
When disaster occurs, the mental/emotional state of the believer is directly bound to his spiritual perception. Ultimately, and often immediately, believers can overcome a debilitating freefall into anxiety over what has transpired. It becomes the pastoral job to not only empathize, but to lead believers to have a biblical perspective about disaster and loss as soon as possible—preferably prior to the event occurring. It is concerning this perspective that I wish to direct our attention.
Nature Obeys God
The disciples said of Jesus, “. . . even the winds and the sea obey Him?”[9] This verse is often employed apologetically with skeptics for the purpose of proving that Jesus is actually God. The believing world has almost always asserted, in pacific times, that God controls nature. The farmer prays to God for rain for his dry fields, just as the Christian school teacher requests from God clear skies for the class picnic, because we assume that God has everything to do with it. But does this general, almost presupposed evangelical belief extend far enough when times are more difficult?
As an illustration of how God’s oversight of nature may be addressed, the Second London Baptist Confession clarifies the extent of God’s control in its first and second under “Divine Providence.” It is worth a careful reading:

God who, in infinite power and wisdom, has created all things, upholds, directs, controls and governs them, both animate and inanimate, great and small, by a providence supremely wise and holy, and in accordance with His infallible foreknowledge and the free and immutable decisions of His will. He fulfils the purposes for which He created them, so that His wisdom, power and justice, together with His infinite goodness and mercy, might be praised and glorified. (Job 38:11; Ps. 135:6; Isa. 46:10,11; Matt. 10:29-31; Eph. 1:11; Heb. 1:3)
Nothing happens by chance or outside the sphere of God’s providence. As God is the First Cause of all events, they happen immutably and infallibly according to His foreknowledge and decree, to which they stand related. Yet by His providence God so controls them, that second causes, operating either as fixed laws, or freely or in dependence upon other causes, play their part in bringing them about. (Gen. 8:22; Prov. 16:33; Acts 2:23)[10]

This historic confession has not overstated the biblical principle. The Psalmist speaks convincingly concerning the control of God over natural events:
Whatever the Lord pleases He does, in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deep places. He causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth. He makes lightening for the rain; He brings the wind out of His treasuries.[11]
It was God who ordained each of the natural plagues on Egypt, for instance, including turning water to blood, filling the land with frogs, sending hail, and devastating locusts. Even Pharoah recognized this.[12]
Moses stretched out his staff toward the sky, and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and fire ran down to the earth. And the Lord rained hail on the land of Egypt.[13]
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Jesus was a master at engaging people within their culture, whether they approached Him as friend or foe. He related to people without typical cultural filters. Even His primary followers had different backgrounds and livelihoods. A classic example is Jesus engaging a woman of questionable character at Jacob’s well near Sychar in the region of Samaria. It was culturally inappropriate for a Jewish man to engage a Samaritan woman in conversation.

It’s been said that history is a wonderful teacher, but a terrible master.
In this guest article, Trip Kimball uses history as a teacher. It’s a scholarly look into three significant ways that Christians throughout history have responded to the changes around us —  both good and bad —  to give us a better understanding of how to respond to today’s cultural shifts in a biblical way.
— Karl Vaters

Culture is dynamic. Fluid and fickle. Culture changes over time, sometimes with extreme pendular swings. Popular culture is reflective of shared beliefs, values, and social norms.
Each swing of culture has its own trends, like currents within the ocean, as movements within the larger cultural context.
People tend to respond in one of three general ways to pendular swings in culture: to reject, embrace, or engage each swing. Only one of these approaches is effective in bringing helpful change or productive dialogue.
These pendular swings of culture have one fixed point — human nature. They all pivot on self, our basic nature. Not our identity but our being, our innate essence centered on self-preservation.
On the surface self-preservation makes sense. It’s expected, natural. But when the self is corrupt or fragmented it’s not so good. At its basest level, self-preservation is bound to cause conflict. These conflicts disrupt our shared experiences, resulting in culture clashes.
These culture clashes are very noticeable in cross-cultural missionary experiences, but they also happen across and within sub-cultures.
1) Rejection of Cultural Shifts
Rejection is the preferred approach of those who oppose a culture shift, especially when it impacts them personally. It’s not just resistance but rejection — an unwillingness to accept or consider a cultural change.
Rejection of a cultural shift is a defense of what was, an attempt to turn back the tide of change. On the surface, to those who are opposing the change, it seems gallant and right. But it takes on a sense of righteousness. And indeed, it may very well be a righteous stance.
It’s not hard to find exceptional examples of resistance to evil. The prophet Daniel and his three cohorts (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) refused to worship anyone else but their God, the Most-High God,  the Living God (Daniel 3:12–18, 26; 6:10–23, 26).
Their stand would cost them their lives, but God intervened.
Lessons from History
Taking a righteous stand against evil requires a willingness to die for righteousness’ sake. And God doesn’t always intervene.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a modern-day example of this. He was a Lutheran pastor/theologian who stood up to Nazism and paid for it with his life. His testimony is an example of resisting an evil trend.
Not all resistance to cultural change is so righteous or wise. The Jesus People Movement and the Charismatic Renewal of the mid 1960s and early -70s (parallel moves of God’s Spirit in America) were largely resisted and condemned by the established churches of that time.
The resistance proved foolish and fruitless. It reminds me of what Gamaliel warned Jewish leaders about when they considered contending with the followers of Jesus; …if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it — lest you even be found to fight against God (Acts 5:39).
This is as a lesson to consider when attempting to resist/reject present cultural trends. The resistance of Bonhoeffer and others in the German Confessing Church did not stem the tide of Nazism. That took a world war. And yet the Nazi mindset and influence lives on.
The Jesus Movement and Charismatic Renewal did prevail and reshape the practice of Christianity during the cultural upheaval of the 1960s and -70s. It powerfully impacted American culture, then sadly faded. What was once a powerful cultural influence morphed into the present common approach to culture.
2) Embracing Cultural Shifts
The flip side of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the German Confessing Church’s resistance to Nazism is the German Christian movement. This movement was composed of fanatic Nazi Protestants, a politicized church subculture that was devoid of the Spirit of God.
This movement embraced the political-cultural wave of Hitler’s Nazi regime. They reshaped theology to buttress their nationalistic beliefs, distorting the gospel into their own racist image.
Another spiritual movement in America during the 1970s and early -80s was a hybrid smorgasbord of Eastern religions and amenable philosophies. These quasi-religious groups became known as the New Age movement, a full embrace of the countercultural social revolution of the Sixties.
It epitomized what became known as the Me Generation of the Seventies.
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From the trauma of enslavement to repeated loss of loved ones and material suffering, Phillis’ story is a tragic one. Yet her poems show her unflagging belief in God’s providence within and beyond her circumstances. While acknowledging the sorrows of her early life, she praises divine mercy for allowing her to learn “That there’s a God, that there’s a Savior too; once, I redemption neither sought nor knew.” 

While we know her as Phillis Wheatley, the first African-American published poet remains a mystery to us in many ways. This is because she was kidnapped from her birth family and sold into slavery while still a small child. All we know of her origins is that she was born somewhere in West Africa around the year 1753, then transported to America, where she was purchased by a wealthy Boston couple, John and Susanna Wheatley. They intended for the little girl—around seven at the time—to work as a servant and companion to Mrs. Wheatley.
The Wheatley family named her after the Phillis, the ship on which she had made the Atlantic passage to America. Noticing how rapidly Phillis learned English, the family tutored her in reading and writing. She also attended Old South Meeting House, a Congregational church, alongside the family and showed an interest in Scripture and theology from a young age. Before Phillis was a teenager, she was avidly studying not only the Bible, but ancient Greek and Latin classics and English literature as well. She began experimenting with poetry and published her first poem in a newspaper at age 12. The Wheatleys encouraged Phillis and had a strikingly progressive attitude about education for their time; however, the fact remains that Phillis was enslaved by them until after she reached adulthood.When the famous evangelist George Whitefield died in 1770, teenaged Phillis published an elegy for him. She had likely heard him preach in Boston just the week before. Reflecting on Whitefield’s ministry she wrote this exhortation about responding to Christ:
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