1. What someone might really be saying when they say, “I’m confused.”

In your conversation with others, whether it be sharing the Gospel or teaching from the Bible, you may get the response, “I’m confused,” so how do you deal with this? What a lot of people mean when they say I’m confused, is that they’re confused about how to get out of doing what has been made so clear. This means you cannot leave the statement alone, you must ask the question:

1.1. What (specifically) were you confused about?

2. Understanding God and the problem of evil and sin.

2.1. Reconciling God and the problem of evil and sin:

2.1.1. God exists.

2.1.2. Evil/Sin exists.

2.1.3. God is sovereign over all that exists. (Pro 16:4; Isa 45:5-7; Lam 3:37-39)

2.2. This means God is the author of sin.

2.3. God is not (however) the guilty author of sin. This because guilt implies responsibility, and the one things God’s sovereignty never violates is human free will.

2.4. The reason God does not stop humans from committing sin or evil is that He has created us in His own image: free-willed beings.

3. What is sinful/crude joking (and what it is not). (Eph 5:41)

3.1. What sinful/crude joking is not:

3.1.1. Sinful/crude joking is not defined by what the culture defines as crude, coarse, filthy or foolish. Otherwise, God Himself would be guilty of such sinful/crude joking. (Ezekiel 23:19-20)

3.1.2. Sinful/crude joking is not sarcasm meant to make fun of what is sinful or wrong, otherwise known as mocking. (1Kings 18:27)

3.2. What sinful/crude joking is:

3.2.1. Sinful/crude joking is any entertaining or discussing those things that God’s Word views as sinful or immoral (literally: “unclean”) in an approving way (e.g. dirty jokes, joking about people doing bad things as if it’s fun or funny, etc.)