> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://threefold.2x1.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Deliver Us From Evil – Seeking God’s Help Daily: Part 1 - URL: https://threefold.2x1.io/deliver-us-from-evil-part-1-torah-foundation/ - Published: 2026-10-15T12:19:26.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-15T12:19:26.000Z - Description: Who is responsible for the evil that assaults us? Part 1 traces the Torah, the rabbis, Maimonides, Augustine and Calvin before Jesus names the evil one. - Author: George Bakalov - Tags: Teaching, Deliver Us From Evil, Lord's Prayer, Spiritual Warfare, Jewish Roots, Church History *The Torah Foundation, Rabbinic Clarity, and the Question of Origins* It’s been on my heart to write something on the subject for a long time mostly thinking of dear friends who I enter into discussions with quite frequently on issues related to the daily struggle we have with evil in our lives. I can’t think of a single person’s life who hasn’t been affected by evil in this world. And yet even after many years of studying the Bible, many Christians are not quite clear who is responsible for this. I hope this blog post, as well as the next one, part two, will help bring more clarity in our minds on this critically important issue. ## Deliver Us From Evil - But Where Does It Come From? The Lord’s Prayer ends with a petition that many of us recite without pausing over its implications: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” (Matthew 6:13). To pray this daily as Jesus taught requires a clear conviction about who is responsible for good and who is responsible for the evil that assaults us. The teaching of Jesus and the apostles builds squarely on the Torah, yet it draws a sharper line than is commonly found in later Jewish or even many traditional Christian interpretations. Before we can receive the practical force of the prayer, we must see the ground from which it springs. Scripture begins with God declaring His creation “very good” (Genesis 1:31). He is the sole Creator. Isaiah 45:7 states the monotheistic claim with boldness: > “I form light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil; I, the LORD, do all these things.” Rashi (one of the most influential Jewish rabbis, who lived in the 11th century AD) comments that this means God forms light for the righteous and creates darkness (and the corresponding evil) for Babylon—He alone is sovereign over both blessing and calamity. The Talmud (Berakhot 11b) notes that the liturgy softens the wording to “creates everything,” which many read as guarding against any impression of dualism. The rabbis insisted that good derives from God and, ultimately, so does evil in the sense of sovereign control over events. Dualism—a second independent power—was anathema. As the Mishnah puts it, “Man should bless God for the evil which occurs in the same way that he blesses Him for the good” (Mishnah Berakhot 9:5; cf. Berakhot 33b). Maimonides refined this further. In the Guide for the Perplexed he argues that evil is not a positive substance God creates. Darkness is the absence of light; evil is a privation or negation of good. God produces existence, and all existence, insofar as it exists, is good. Moral evil arises from the free choices of creatures, not from any defect in the Creator. The yetzer hara (evil inclination) is part of the human constitution God formed; the Torah is its antidote (Kiddushin 30b). Reish Lakish’s famous statement in Bava Batra 16a equates Satan, the yetzer hara, and the Angel of Death as aspects of the same reality—an internal drive, an accuser, and the agent of consequence—always under God’s permission, never an independent rival. Why is it important for us to understand what the Jewish rabbis thought on this subject? Well, Jesus was a Jewish rabbi! And dare I say, he still is one! You can’t separate Jewish thinking from his teachings. Imagine going to Texas and hearing someone talk, think and behave like a New Yorker. He would be considered a strange duck, right? And yet we separate Jesus from his Jewishness in our minds, which is a great error past generations and Christian traditions have passed on to us. The truth is, traditional Christian theologians often stood remarkably close to this Jewish insistence on monotheism and the non-dual origin of evil. Augustine, for example, reacting against Manichaean dualism, wrote: > “Evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name ‘evil.’” Evil is a privation, a turning of the free will away from the greater good toward a lesser one. God creates only good; the corruption comes from creaturely choice. John Calvin (I’m not a Calvinist, but I have no problem reading Calvin’s writings, learning from him, and receiving the good that God gave us through men like him), commenting on Isaiah 45:7, is equally clear: > “Fanatics torture this word evil, as if God were the author of evil, that is, of sin… we ought not to reject the ordinary distinction, that God is the author of the ‘evil’ of punishment, but not of the ‘evil’ of guilt.” Both Augustine and Calvin affirm that moral evil does not originate in God’s character or creative act. It enters through the misuse of created freedom. In this they remain near the rabbinic refusal to posit a second eternal principle of evil. ## Jesus’ Teaching On Evil Yet the teaching of Jesus and the apostles does not stop at privation or internal inclination. It identifies a personal adversary whose characteristic work is the active origination and promotion of moral evil, deception, and destruction. This does not violate monotheism—Satan is a created, fallen, limited being whose power has already been broken. It does, however, introduce a clarity that shapes how we pray. When Jesus says the thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10), when He calls the devil a murderer from the beginning and the father of lies (John 8:44), when James forbids any thought that God tempts anyone and insists that every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights (James 1:13, 17), and when John declares that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one (1 John 5:19), they are not inventing a rival god. They are naming the agent who steals what God gives, twists what God speaks, and blinds those who reject the light. The next post will take up the Lord’s Prayer itself and the daily practice of seeking the Father’s protection in light of this distinction. For now, the foundation is set: God alone is the unchanging source of every good gift. The adversary is the personal originator of the moral evil that must be delivered from. Traditional Jewish and Christian voices rightly protect monotheism and the goodness of the Creator. Jesus and the apostles teach us how that same monotheism still requires us to pray, every day, “Deliver us from the evil one.” Does this resonate with you? Join our members portal to comment and meet other believers who seek first the Kingdom of God at: [members.threefold.life](https://members.threefold.life/?ref=threefold.2x1.io) [Join the Threefold members portal](https://members.threefold.life/?ref=threefold.2x1.io)