Skip to main content

Does suffering serve any communal purpose?

Trials and afflictions have a levelling effect among believers. It has often been said that “the ground is level at the foot of the cross.” That is, regardless of our wealth or power or station in life, we are all alike in our need for a Saviour  In the same way, we are all alike subject to adversity. It strikes the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak, the superior and the subordinate, all without distinction. In times of adversity we tend to set aside such notions of “vertical” relationships and relate to one another on a horizontal level as brothers and fellow sufferers. John could have rightly identified himself as an apostle of Jesus Christ, as one in a position of spiritual authority over the suffering believers in Asia. Instead he chose to identify himself as a brother and companion in their suffering. Trials and afflictions also have a mutual drawing effect among believers. They tend to break down barriers between us and dissolve any appearance of self-sufficiency we may have. We find our hearts warmed and drawn toward one another. We sometimes worship together with another person, pray together, and even serve together in the ministry without ever truly feeling a bond of fellowship. But then, in a strange way, adversity strikes us both. Immediately we sense a new bond of fellowship in Christ, the fellowship of suffering.
- Jerry Bridges
(Source: Trusting God)

This is wonderfully expressed. In the book, Jerry Bridges helpfully notes that St Paul praises God in an interesting fashion in his second letter to the Corinthians : "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God".  He observes the three-fold nature of God's comfort. First, God comforts us. Secondly, God comforts us in our troubles. And Finally, the purpose of our comfort is that we may comfort others. In other words our afflictions are not just for ourselves, but so that we may comfort others. We must never waster our suffering but must rightly recognise that part of the wonder of the Christian calling is that we have not only joined the fellowship of love and happiness but also the fellowship of suffering. We are to share our suffering as Christ has shared his suffering with us. In Jesus we are called to share the suffering of our Saviour by taking up the cross and denying ourselves. And so St Paul rightly says in his letter to the church of Colossae, "I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church". 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Shame of Worldly Joy

Only a Christian can be joyful and wise at the same time, because all other people either rejoice about things that they should be ashamed of (Philippians 3:19) or things that will disappear. A Christian is not ashamed of his joy, because he is not joyful about something shameful. That is why the Apostle Paul in [2 Corinthians 1:12] defends his joy. He says, I don’t care if everyone knows what makes me happy, because it is the ‘testimony of my conscience.’ He means, let other people can be happy about base pleasures that they are afraid to admit; let other people rejoice in riches, fame, or popularity; they can be happy about whatever they want, but my joy is different. ‘I rejoice because of my conscience.’ A Christian has a happiness that he can stand by and prove. No one else can do that. They will feel embarrassed and guilty if their happiness is found in something that is outside of themselves. They cannot say, ‘this is what makes me happy’. But a Christian has the approval of his ...

Incarnation and Modernity

[The Bible] resituate modernity's prejudices within a wider context from which they were originally wrenched, showing them to be reductive heresies of a more complex biblical reality. So whereas modernity privileges an unchanging a-historicity, in the incarnation God enters history at a particular moment to gather a people to be with him not in a Greck eternity of unchanging timelessness, but in a biblical eternity of never-ending and ever-renewed intimacy and relational richness. Whereas modernity subordinates the particular to the universal, the Bible perfectly marries the universal "image of the invisible God" together with a particular first-century Palestinian Jewish man. Whereas modernity seeks the abstract over the material and finds itself painfully akimbo between the twin idols of materialism and immaterialism, in the same gesture the incarnate Christ validates material reality and prevents his followers from ever worshipping it. Finally, whereas modernity secks ...

Pride vs Humility

Spiritual pride tends to speak of other persons’ sins with bitterness or with laughter and an air of contempt. But pure Christian humility rather tends either to be silent about these problems or to speak of them with grief and pity. Spiritual pride is very apt to suspect others, but a humble Christian is most guarded about himself. He is as suspicious of nothing in the world as he is of his own heart. The proud person is apt to find fault with other believers, that they are low in grace, and to be quick to note their deficiencies. But the humble Christian has so much to do at home and sees so much evil in his own heart and is so concerned about it that he is not apt to be very busy with other hearts. He is apt to esteem others better than himself. JONATHAN EDWARDS  (Source: The Works of Jonathan Edward’s, Volume 1)