The Theology of Pain and Suffering?

[SDG]

Beauty From Pain[click here]

(removed photo - a bit graphic)

[Felicity]

Originally Posted by Coonskinner

I personally believe that the greatest difference between us and the early church is in our attitudes toward suffering.

We think it is horrible, and they rejoiced to be counted worthy to suffer.

In fact, I mentioned that in my lesson last night.

But then, Calvary wasn't 2,000 years old then. It was still very fresh and real to them.

For the most part the North American Church is very wimpy and is probably generally falling into apostasy.

There IS hunger though. It's there. I'm not sure that spiritual succour. nourishment, restoration or power will come through the church as we know it. The Church is anemic and lethargic and not real healthy.

God will respond to the hungry heart crying out to Him and time will reveal how He does this -- how we see true revival and restoration come to the North American church, if indeed it does.

[Truly Blessed]

Originally Posted by Coonskinner

I personally believe that the greatest difference between us and the early church is in our attitudes toward suffering.

We think it is horrible, and they rejoiced to be counted worthy to suffer.

In fact, I mentioned that in my lesson last night.

But then, Calvary wasn't 2,000 years old then. It was still very fresh and real to them.

I agree with your point about attitude toward suffering. However, even though Calvary happened 2000 years ago, there are many Christians all over the world who suffer for their faith in Jesus Christ daily in 2007 with the same passion and love for Christ. I have personal knowledge of this in China. During my recent trip to Egypt I fellowshipped with folks who are persecuted and discriminated against on a daily basis. One man I spoke to was falsely charged with murdering his wife and imprisoned for 16 months during which time he was tortured. His wife was actually murdered by hostile Moslems.

Just this week I had a man who attends our church share with me his testimony of how God brought him out of the Moslem religion into the Christian church. He is from Kurdistan. When he returned to Kurdistan three years ago and shared with his family that he had become a Christian, he said they immediately began to persecute him and disowned him. He is going back to Kurdistan at the end of April and needs prayer as he attempts to connect with his family.

He told me that he is blessed because he lives in Canada. He has cousins and friends in Kurdistan who have been killed because they became Christians.

North American Christians are so blessed, yet they are the most unthankful of all Christians. Pentecostals were stronger when they were being persecuted for leaving the denominational world to become Pentecostals.

[J-Roc]

Thanks for that perspective, TB!

[SDG]

Originally Posted by Truly Blessed

I agree with your point about attitude toward suffering. However, even though Calvary happened 2000 years ago, there are many Christians all over the world who suffer for their faith in Jesus Christ daily in 2007 with the same passion and love for Christ. I have personal knowledge of this in China. During my recent trip to Egypt I fellowshipped with folks who are persecuted and discriminated against on a daily basis. One man I spoke to was falsely charged with murdering his wife and imprisoned for 16 months during which time he was tortured. His wife was actually murdered by hostile Moslems.

Just this week I had a man who attends our church share with me his testimony of how God brought him out of the Moslem religion into the Christian church. He is from Kurdistan. When he returned to Kurdistan three years ago and shared with his family that he had become a Christian, he said they immediately began to persecute him and disowned him. He is going back to Kurdistan at the end of April and needs prayer as he attempts to connect with his family.

He told me that he is blessed because he lives in Canada. He has cousins and friends in Kurdistan who have been killed because they became Christians.

North American Christians are so blessed, yet they are the most unthankful of all Christians. Pentecostals were stronger when they were being persecuted for leaving the denominational world to become Pentecostals.

What will it take TB ... for us to have an attitude of gratitude?

Aren't we also reaping the consequences of our sins? All one has to do is see how it is wreaking havoc, pain and suffering in our lives. Is anyone immune?

[SDG]

Perhaps it's as CS has said ... sin/leprosy has desensitized us ???

[Coonskinner]

The wise man recorded these words...


Pro 23:29 ¶ Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?


Pro 23:30 They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.


Pro 23:31 Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, [when] it moveth itself aright.


Pro 23:32 At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.


Pro 23:33 Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.


Pro 23:34 Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast.


Pro 23:35 They have stricken me, [shalt thou say, and] I was not sick; they have beaten me, [and] I felt [it] not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.

In admonishing about the dangers of drunkenness, Solomon described the desensitizing effect of alcohol.

Paul, in his epistles, as well as Peter, pleads with us to be "sober."

We are seeing many today who are insensitive because they are addicted to and drunk on many, many things, and not all of them chemical substances.

We need a general spirit of deliverance among us, to break the yokes of fleshly addictions that have us so drunken and desensitized that we are almost "past feeling."

[mizpeh]

CS, don't stop there, you just got started!

[Coonskinner]

Originally Posted by mizpeh

CS, don't stop there, you just got started!

Miz, like on most things, i believe it is possible to go to seed on this subject, and actually glorify suffering to the point that people could feel that there was some inherent virtue in it.

There is virtue in the patient endurance of suffering that is ordained by God; but some people get in jams all by themselves, and then think they ought to get a medal for it.

The Catholic church has glorified suffering to the point that they have people in South America nailing themselves to crosses at Easter. that is a perversion.

But the truth is that God does use sorrow and suffering to temper these vessels that he gave us to haul our souls around in.

No one can be mightily used by God without the element of brokenness.

And how do we achieve that? I believe that it is possible to achieve a measure of brokenness through consevration, prayer and fasting.

But the Scripture says this:


Pro 15:13 A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.

There is a dynamic that works in the life of every person who is truly used by God:

2Cr 4:17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding [and] eternal weight of glory;

"Worketh" there is energeo, or a derivative thereof.

It basically is the Greek word from which we get "energize."

There are things in us that come to us through the Holy Ghost baptism that seem to only be "energized" or set in motion by times of affliction.

[SDG]

So God did not "create" pain ... but can use it?