Suffering Is Coming
Introduction
“Keep on walkin’!” barked the gruff voice from the bench. I was a first-year Bible college student helping at a street mission run by retired Pentecostal church planters. I had come to Christ through others sharing the gospel with me on the street, so I myself would sometimes share Christ with people on the street, including after our evening service and meal for the homeless at the mission.
“I will, sir,” I replied, “but first I just wanted to let you know that Jesus loves you.”
“I told you to keep on walkin’!” the man shouted, bounding from the bench. Within moments, he was pummeling my face with nimble fists. Looking back, I’m pretty sure he was high. I had often shared Christ with people on drugs, but this was the first time one of them responded violently. He was kicking my legs, and I knew that if I fell on the ground—as I had done on other occasions when I was beaten—there would be nothing to stop him from finishing me off. On another occasion someone less angry was present to protest the beating, screaming, “Stop it, John! You’re killing him! You’re killing him!” and she pulled the aggressor off me as I kept preaching. This time, however, nobody else was even remotely in sight.
“Sir, why are you doing this?” I tried to protest while attempting to back up toward a nearby street corner. “I didn’t do anything to you.” His rage continued unabated, however. As soon as I reached the corner, I spun around quickly and walked briskly away, feeling that running—if I were still able—would look cowardly. Happily, he did not give chase. “Next time I see you,” he shouted after me, “I’ll kill you!” Jesus did say to flee from one city to another (Matt. 10:23), and Paul and Barnabas once fled an attempt to stone them (Acts 14:5–6), but I felt ashamed. Should I have just stayed and bravely kept preaching, as I did on earlier occasions when I was beaten? Was I a poor witness to my antagonist?
Certainly that night I could have been more sensitive to the Spirit than I was; I had felt the Spirit’s restraint but had assumed that a brief mention of Jesus wouldn’t hurt. On another occasion when I was beaten for my witness, my assailant was atop me, slamming my head repeatedly on the floor, tearing out my hair, pounding on my back. I expected death, yet I kept preaching and felt no pain. That was God’s grace. This occasion, though, was different. It hurt!
It Could Have Been Worse
Because I escaped when I did, my beating was less severe than what many have experienced. The next day I was sore and had a couple of black eyes, but at the mission we knew of street people who got beaten to death. For example, Pee-wee was on disability, and whenever his check would come some of the other street people would get him drunk and take his money. He became a Christian at the mission and stayed for a while with the Cooks, the retired couple who ran the mission. Eventually, however, he moved to a cheap, roach-infested hotel that was barely a step above living on the street. One day the others beat him close to the point of death. Finding him dying on the street, the police were going to take Pee-wee to the hospital, but he pleaded with them to let him die at the mission instead. The Cooks found him at the door of the mission early that morning, and he died in Sister Cook’s arms.
One young man on the street whom I shall here call Dylan used to get high on glue and then beat “Joe,” a tall and gentle older man on the street. Dylan had started sniffing glue after his wife left him. One day, Joe’s body was found in the bushes outside the Cooks’ home. Word on the street was that Dylan was responsible. I didn’t yet know Dylan when my much less severe beating took place, but piecing together my snippets of memory I have sometimes wondered whether Dylan was also my own assailant.
My most recent noncommentary book was on miracles, so it is only fitting that this book addresses suffering. Miracles display God’s power more directly, but God also provides testimony by sustaining us in hard times. When nonbelievers watch believers suffer the same hardships as nonbelievers, they can witness the eternal hope that sustains those who cling to God. While most stories in Miracles Today are encouraging, many stories here are heartbreaking. A balanced Christian spiritual diet, however, includes both kinds of accounts. (Compare the inclusion of both celebration and lament in the Psalms.) In 1950, World Vision founder Bob Pierce cried, “Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God.”1 Just as we “rejoice with those who rejoice,” we’re also called to “mourn with those who mourn” (Rom. 12:15).
Christians can endure suffering by the power of the Spirit. God often alleviates our suffering, but when he does not, he enables us to go through it (as Paul describes in 2 Cor. 12:9, whatever his debated thorn entailed). I will provide some examples of suffering that perhaps more closely resemble what most of my readers (and I) ordinarily endure, but this book is also meant to stretch us with other examples of greater hardship.
Some stories may sound far removed from where we live, yet we can learn from them. Suffering often comes in unexpected forms. When Médine Moussounga was growing up, her French-speaking country of Congo-Brazzaville was peaceful. She felt sorry for the Ethiopian refugees she saw pouring into her homeland, but she could not imagine that her compatriots would ever experience civil war or famine like Ethiopia had. We don’t always give much thought to what others suffer, especially when our hands are full with our own issues. Médine went on to receive her PhD in France and returned to her country hoping to teach in a university. Instead, she landed in the midst of a civil war and eventually became displaced for eighteen months herself. Today Médine is my wife, and I will tell some more of her story later.2 My point here is just to note that hard times come unbidden and often unexpected.
Merely Samples
Suffering is such a wide topic (including suffering from judgment, war, hunger, and the like) that one could not produce a thorough study on it in Scripture without a volume at least as long as Scripture. Scripture itself spends much more time than I will advising us how to handle suffering. Voice of the Martyrs (VOM), in fact, has produced a devotional using biblical texts meant to encourage those needing to stand firm in their faith—366 passages, one for each day of the year (including the extra day for a leap year).3 (Because of the accessibility of VOM’s material, it is the source of many of the vignettes in this book.)
I therefore don’t intend this small book to be comprehensive; I write it in my preaching mode rather than my academic mode.4 It gives examples of a few kinds of suffering, with a particular but not exclusive focus on suffering for Christ. I am following here the same pattern I used for Miracles Today. That book focused more on healing, with just a few nature miracles. Miracle accounts are too numerous to begin trying to recount them all, just as suffering accounts are too numerous to try to recount all of them. Most of the miracles in that book were preceded by suffering, which was why the miracles were needed. In this book I supply examples from both the Bible and elsewhere; I appeal to Scripture as authoritative for us as Christians and use the other examples as illustrations of biblical principles.5
Others have contributed far more complete volumes on the subject of suffering in the Christian life, especially regarding persecution today.6 For example, my friend, New Testament professor Chee-Chiew Lee in Singapore, wrote a recent book about persecution in the New Testament.7 Earlier, Romanian Christian Joseph Ton wrote a five-hundred-page book on suffering, martyrdom, and heavenly rewards.8 After being exiled from Romania in 1981, he was invited to teach a course on theological issues in Eastern Europe. He spent half the lectures on being ready to suffer and die for Christ.9
Of course, conditions in Eastern Europe are very different now from what they were four or five decades ago, but the lessons Ton preached remain relevant in much of the world today. Illustrations of persecution in some countries today are current as of this book’s writing, but as international affairs shift (some undoubtedly already by the time of this book’s publication) they will remain no less relevant for our lives than illustrations culled from more distant history.
Many have written books about theodicy, answering questions about God’s righteousness in the face of suffering. Though worthy of attention, it is not the primary subject of this book, which is more the reality of suffering, a reality from which many of us want to shield our gaze. Still, for the record, I don’t believe any alternative worldview offers a more satisfying explanation than the Christian one. Is suffering a punishment for sins in a past life, or working out bad karma? Is it simply personally meaningless, as in atheism? We have a God who suffers with us on the cross, who thereby consecrates our involuntary suffering as worthy of his favor. Jesus’s resurrection has guaranteed our future hope of deliverance, comfort, and vindication.
Who Wants More Suffering?
The reality of suffering is so pervasive that I originally wondered why anyone would need to write a book about it. Various charismatic friends, however, have pressed on me the problem that in some charismatic circles, where we expect healing and deliverance, many Christians are confused when it comes to how we should feel about suffering. Does embracing pain express lack of faith? Does suffering reflect God’s disapproval, like a spanking or being sent to our room would?10 These questions might point to imbalance in some of our teachings. In our finitude, even the most zealous Christians sometimes latch onto one truth in a way that obscures other truths.
This problem is not exclusive to my fellow charismatic Christians, nor is this book addressed exclusively to them. But I do keep them in mind and sometimes appeal to them directly. Just as we charismatics rightly believe that the New Testament’s spiritual gifts continue, we also ought to believe that New Testament kinds of suffering continue.
Though some of my fellow charismatics believe that faith will always heal the sick11 or can even prevent some persecution,12 most of us recognize that suffering does challenge us whether we invite it or not. Prayer sometimes averts expected hardships (e.g., 2 Kings 19:20),13 but sometimes it just gives us strength to face the hardship that is coming (as in Mark 14:38).
Nor does the book address specific end-times views, even though I have one.14 I have met ordinary Christians who counted on a particular end-time scenario to exempt them from more severe suffering. Yet no view of the end-times suggests that Christians will escape persecution. That would be impossible, especially given the many persecutions Christians have already experienced through history. Whatever we teach, however, some people simply interpret what we or Scripture says to make it say what they would like to be true.
More commonly, some of us think of persecution in terms of friends who tease us about our faith or subtle acts of discrimination (or “microaggressions”). Many of us are familiar with difficulties in paying all our bills or health challenges for us or family members. In the wake of the pandemic, some 36 percent of Americans were suffering from frequent or continual loneliness.15 An estimated one-fifth of people even in the US suffer from chronic pain and the limitations it imposes on them.16 But many of us do not want to even entertain the possibility of having to endure still more severe sufferings. Nevertheless, smaller tests can get us ready for larger ones. We should be aware of the kinds of tests that believers face around the world.
Most of us do need to be reminded that God loves to bless his children and that he invites us to look to him with our needs. Some people have experienced so much trauma that they need to hear especially about God’s comfort in the midst of sorrow (e.g., 2 Cor. 1:3–5).17 The balanced kind of book we need most is a book about God’s character and his plan to restore humanity at the ultimate cost to himself. That book is the Bible, and there is no need to try to duplicate it here. But many of us also grew up in a culture that relegates all suffering to the same category. For those who have suffered abuse, suffering can feel like God’s anger.
Yet most of us who have raised children also recognize that, no matter how much we protect them, children learn some things the hard way. Sometimes we have to balance protecting them with respect for their choices, especially as they become older and must learn responsibility. They will inevitably experience the fruit not only of their choices but also those of others—whether siblings, classmates, teachers, employers, or strangers—from which we cannot always protect them. Sometimes they also suffer for the family’s greater good, as when a family must relocate for ministry or even for a safer environment for the children, but the children must leave some friends behind. We suffer with our children when they suffer, but suffering is part of a real world.
The God of the cross is a God who suffers with us. He invites us to work to reduce this world’s suffering, but suffering will remain with us until Jesus returns. Death was not God’s creation ideal for sinless humanity, but humanity (inevitably?) sinned. In this fallen world, however, the cross demonstrates that obedient suffering can serve God’s redemptive purpose.
Romans 8 describes this suffering as pangs that prepare the birth of a new creation (Rom. 8:22). That is, our suffering in this life is not meaningless; Christians suffer in hope, in expectation for the world made new. In the meantime, creation (8:22), we ourselves (8:23), and God’s own Spirit (8:26) groan in eagerness for that day. More on that subject in my final chapter.
Suffering Is Coming
Sooner or later, all of us will face suffering—unless we suddenly die first. Whether grief, illness, financial hardship, or another crisis, challenges come unbidden. Given our world’s electronic and other vulnerabilities, there is nothing implausible about even the more apocalyptic scenarios some critics offer, such as economic collapse, terrorists contaminating water supplies, outright persecution, or war on our soil. Forewarned is forearmed; recognizing that testing will come (Matt. 18:7; Luke 17:1) helps get us ready. Being faithful to Jesus in our present tests helps make us ready for future ones. Understanding that eternal blessing follows helps us endure even our worst testing. Knowing what others have gone through also provides encouragement that we can make it too.
Suffering is not the most popular topic. Yet we must teach what Scripture teaches, even when it makes us feel uncomfortable. When we stand before the Lord at the judgment, what will matter will not be how big our churches are or how many followers we have on Facebook. What will matter will be that we have prepared disciples who can persevere no matter what.
If you remain established and firm in the faith, not moved from the hope of the good news. . . . We announce Christ, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so we may present everyone complete in Christ. (Col. 1:23, 28)
When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I also sent to learn how your faith was, lest the tempter have tempted you successfully and our labor over you have proved worthless. (1 Thess. 3:5)
Although most of us understand that our suffering is not always the result of something wrong we have done, it can be easy to forget that. My own life overflows with the blessings of family, health, and friends, yet like a spoiled child my heart often still protests the fairness of comparatively minor inconveniences.
Perhaps in an ideal world where the righteous lived perfectly and everyone was righteous, there might be little if any need for the righteous to suffer. But that is not yet the world in which we live.
In contrast with my scholarly books, this one merely skims a vast subject just enough to make the point: Scripture is clear that suffering is a fundamental part of the Spirit-filled Christian life. This is even true—indeed, perhaps especially true—for apostles and prophets (treated in chaps. 2 and 3), two groups that interest many charismatics in particular (and, for apostles and prophets in the Bible, all other Christians as well). But first, let’s look at why Jesus is worth whatever cost in this world we need to pay to follow him.
1 “Poverty and Development.”
2 For more detail on both our stories, see Keener and Keener, Impossible Love.
3 Voice of Martyrs, Whom Shall I Fear?
4 There is, for example, no discussion of biblical documents’ dates or authenticity here, the focus being their canonical voice.
5 I mix and match some translations and offer some of my own. When I offer my own translation, I usually prefer simpler colloquial English (the receptor language), changing passive to active constructions and the like rather than echoing the Greek or Hebrew syntax.
6 See, e.g., Marshall, Blood; Marshall and Shea, Silenced; Shortt, Christianophobia, written by the Times Literary Supplement religion editor; Marshall, Gilbert, and Shea, Persecuted; Doyle, Killing Christians; “Eyewitnesses to Persecution.” One could also multiply individual accounts of suffering for Christ, sometimes with favorable outcomes in this life; in Europe, see, e.g., Bałuczynski, Afraid; Bubik, Bubik; Vorm, Lives.
7 Lee, Persecution.
8 Ton, Suffering.
9 Ton, Suffering, xii.
10 Even when clearly suffering for Christ, victims can question how they might have avoided the suffering had they done something differently; note, e.g., the story of Atamurat in Voice of Martyrs, I Am N, 298–99.
11 See Hagin, Healing Belongs to Us, 11, 27; Hagin, Key to Healing, 13; Hagin, What Faith Is, 7; Duplantis, “Faith the Facts”; Copeland, “Enforce Word.”
12 Pettis, “Faith Prevents.”
13 God heeded Moses’s prayer for Israel (Exod. 33:16–17) and would have heeded even Abraham’s prayer for Sodom had it held just a few more righteous residents (Gen. 18:32). God’s warnings are often conditional, so that he may relent about judgment if people repent (Jer. 18:7–8; Jon. 3:4–10). But sometimes God warns a prophet not to bother praying, because God won’t listen—rebellion has gone too far (Jer. 7:16; 11:14; 14:11). Sometimes he warns that even the prayers of Noah, Daniel, and Job could save only themselves (Ezek. 14:14, 20). In the New Testament, too, intercession sometimes goes only so far (1 John 5:16).
14 Readers interested in my own view may find it in Keener, Revelation, passim; and Brown and Keener, Not Afraid.
15 Young, Walking, 131.
16 Young, Walking, 145.
17 During the Japanese occupation, Korean Christians sought to learn from the grace that God had given their tortured pastors (Kim, If I Perish, 53).