1st Sunday Question?: Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People?

The popular question has to be "Why do bad things happen to good people?" And I think there are about 4 main answers to the question.

The 1st and probably most common answer is that God doesn't exist or isn't powerful enough to prevent the bad things from happening, or that he might be powerful enough and he just doesn't care. While many people might entertain this as a possible answer, I'm just going to reject it here as the non-Christian answer and move on....

The 2nd answer is that bad things don't happen to good people. This idea receives a bunch of support from Proverbs, as well as Romans 8:28. There is merit to this idea, and we do know that God loves to bless and edify those who love Him; however, following this logic often leads to the notion that "if something bad is happening to you, then you must not be as good as we all thought you were." Many people (many Christians) do feel this way and act this way, and oftentimes it is for this reason that people don't come to the church in times of crisis.

Also receiving some biblical support is the 3rd idea that bad things do happen to good people, but God is there, standing by to provide help, redemption, and comfort. You can read a lot about this in the Psalms that David wrote when he was fleeing from Saul and from Absalom. The book of Job also gives this impression. This is probably the number one answer from a ministry or counseling perspective. Many people become Christians thinking life will be easy and fun after their conversion, only to find that life is harder and tougher than it was before. As Christians we try to show people verses like John 16:33, when Jesus tells his disciples that they will have trouble in this world but that he has overcome the world. This answer is right, but not quite complete.

But I have reached the 4th conclusion that the complete answer is this. Bad things don't happen to good people now. The reason is that there are no good people today. Bad things did happen to (THE) Good Person*, about 2000 years ago. And when bad things happened to Him (he was arrested, falsely tried, torured, and crucified) the result was that our future was secured. Why do bad things happen to good people? They happen to give us bad people everlasting life. Was Jesus the only good person that bad things happened too? Was not Job a good person in a sense?