A Theology of Christian Suffering

Every Christian that desires to live godly in Christ Jesus can expect to be persecuted. While many Christians in western culture in general and in American culture in particular are in the middle of advocating religious freedom as if it were an inherent right, some of us understand the Christian Scripture provides a stark contrast to such thinking. Scripture nowhere implies that Christians in any culture ought to seek out political mechanisms by which to avoid the persecution promised not only by the NT writers but by Christ Himself. The purpose of this post then is to help you think better about what Scripture teaches about the value, benefit, and blessing of all suffering, especially the suffering produced by persecution. It should be noted that I operate on the presupposition that AD 70 did not, in any way, alter the NT teachings on Christian suffering and persecution. Eschatologically, I am a humble, historic-premillennialist. I admit that I hold that view with a very loose grip.

The Christian begins his theology of suffering with a study of Job. Job’s attitude toward suffering serves as a model attitude for all of us when things don’t go just as expected or worse, when tragedy strikes. When my dad’s first bought with cancer proved successful we all thanked God. But when the disease returned to prove fatal and my dad was snatched away at the young age of 58, who did we thank then? Who was there to thank? Recently, my Sunday school teacher was talking about the power of prayer. And in the middle of the hype that is War Room, the conversation seemed appropriate. He was leaning too far in the wrong direction in my view. And I could not resist asking the question, what happens when the baby dies? What happens when you bury your father at the young age of 58? What do you do with those thoughts of jealousy when others are still talking about their dads living into their 80s and your heart is breaking because you wish you could see and talk to your dad just one more time? Do we thank God for the time He graciously gave us and embrace the suffering with the understanding that God is working great things in our life? Or do we buy into the nonsense of the theology behind War Room and think that if we just pray, and pray hard enough and in the right way, it will all work out? Sometimes, the spouse leaves anyway. Sometimes the divorce happens no matter how hard you pray for reconciliation. Indeed, an unbiblical theology and philosophy of suffering can create far more pain than is necessary. To make sure your theology of suffering is informed by Scripture, begin with Job.

Jesus Christ Himself was also a man who was acquainted with suffering. God in the flesh came to His own and His own not only rejected Him, they conspired with the Roman pagans to murder Him. He was despised, rejected, and beaten all because He loved His own enough to tell them the truth. Not only does Jesus’ life provide the picture perfect model for suffering, His words promise that His followers will suffer as well. Jesus promised us that the world would hate us for His name’s sake. He promised us that they will slander us and say all sorts of things against us falsely. Indeed, we will be persecuted for His name’s sake because we are not better than our master. We are not above Christ. If Christ should suffer, be rejected, and murdered for the message of hope He brought, how shall His followers escape the same fate?

The apostle Paul was well-acquainted with suffering, writing a number of his letters while he was in prison and in the end, giving up his life for the gospel that had been placed in his charge. Paul prayed the Lord would ease his suffering at one point and it is revealed that God refused to answer that prayer. I know, some people like to say that God always answers prayer, its just that sometimes He says no. I really have little use for such nonsensical sayings. Jesus told us to always pray that God’s will would be done. And in that sense, God always says yes because God’s will is always accomplished. Christianity repudiates the very thought of a frustrated Deity. Such thinking is really the product of an ungodly rationalistic philosophy, not biblical Christianity. The suffering you are going through right now is the direct result of God’s eternal decree. What God used to bring it to pass may be of some interest but make no mistake about it, God is not sitting in heaven hoping the best for you cheering you on and hoping your prayers are just right and your faith is strong enough to see you through. God holds His own in the palm of His hand. There is no question as to whether or not they will endure and pass the test. To contrary to this is plainly ignorant in light of revealed Scripture. Let us think better of suffering, better of our Lord’s promise to keep us by His power.

Peter provides us with an excellent text on how we ought to think about suffering. First, Peter tells us in his fourth chapter NOT to be surprised by our trials. Christ suffered in the flesh and so shall we. That is Peter’s guidance. Not only that, Peter tells us to rejoice, in fact, he tells us to keep on rejoicing. Peter tells us if we are reviled for the name of Christ, we are blessed. We are blessed because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon us! How remarkable is that! We are NOT to be ashamed to suffer for the name of Christ. We are only to be ashamed if we suffer as an evil doer. Those who suffer for Christ’s sake entrust their souls to their faithful Creator in doing what is right.

Why then do we see numerous American Christians engaging in the sort of political activism that seems to think that Christians have a right to avoid the kind of suffering that is produced by persecution? We want our religious freedom and we want it right now! Think about that. Read Scripture and tell me where exactly in the text do the apostles ever even come close to implying that we ought to do whatever we can to force the governing authorities to grant us our right to freely worship Christ without the threat of persecution? The idea is completely missing from Scripture.

If you want to understand what our attitude should be regarding suffering, read Job, read about Joseph, read about Christ, read Paul, and read Peter. It is there alone that you will find the fodder that ought to inform your theology of suffering, not the American Constitution.

Kirsten Powers New Love or is it?

Perhaps those who jumped on the Kirsten Powers "conversion" when it came out have learned a valuable lesson. Never, ever celebrate the announced conversion of modern American celebrities prematurely. Give the individual a chance to produce fruit meet for repentance. I was hopeful but patient when it came to the Powers profession of faith. And then I started to see signs that gave me a glimpse into the sort of conversion Kirsten had actually experienced. For instance, I read her article on why Christians have to stop rejecting gay marriage and start accepting homosexuals into their community, repentance or not. The message is that God loves everyone just the way they are and makes no demands on anyone's life to change in any way, well, unless they are really, really bad as we define bad.

As it turns out, Kirsten has found Rome much more to her liking than the Tim Keller, PCA, version of Christianity. Of course Powers details of her visit by Jesus and her subsequence conversion should have been enough for any discerning Christian to recognize that there was a problem with Powers Christian conversion from the very start. Powers said the most profound impact her Christian conversion has had on her life is that she came to "view everyone as God's child and that means that everyone deserves grace and respect." If you can't see anything wrong with that statement, you need to read your Bible. You know, where Paul said, Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin. (Ro 3:9) And again, There is none who does good, There is not even one. (Rom. 3:12) No Kirsten, no one deserves grace...thats why it is called grace...because no one deserves it. And oh, not everyone is a child of God. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. (1 Jn 3:10)

Why do these things happen? It really is quite obvious according to the Scripture. They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us. (1 Jn 2:19)

There is no question that the Roman church is an apostate church. She left the faith centuries ago. Genuine Christians are or shortly after conversion become protestant Christians, protesting the heresy spewed forth from the Vatican. It is not shocking to see people like Kirsten Powers attracted to an organization like Rome because Rome has perverted the image of God and the truth of Christ for centuries.

Millennials and Confessions

In an article that appeared in 1:1 Answers Update, Ken Ham calls our attention to some very disturbing trends among twenty-something-year-olds, or as they are called, Millennials. Over 40% say they are not born again. 35% declare the Bible has errors or they don’t know if it has errors. 45% say that Sunday School did not teach them how to defend their faith. 45% say homosexual behavior is not a sin, or they don’t know if it is a sin. 40% believe “gay couples” should be allowed to marry and have legal rights. 20% say there are books (other than the Bible) that are inspired by God. 65% believe that if you are a good person, you will go to heaven. What is shocking about this demographic group is that they are regular church attenders (at least 3x month). Ham points out that these Millennials are going to fundamentally change the church and the culture if these beliefs hold.

Now we know why so many people are leaving the Church. They were never really part of her to begin with. I suspect it has always been this way whether people are visibly leaving the Church or choosing to remain in the community for other reasons. I am not alarmed by the trends. Actually, in a way, I celebrate what I see as a necessary purging. What alarms me is not the people that leave the church. What alarms me more than anything else are those who remain in the community. If you believe that all it takes to go to heaven is being good, then either your belief must change or I really, really, really want you to leave my church. There are far too many unregenerate, secular thinking members present in the church. Those of us who know Christ ought to have the love and decency as Christians to discipline them out of the body or bring them to repentance in Christ.

The second question Ham wonders about is why there are so many people still in the body of Christ who are so entrenched in secular thinking. We downgrade sin, soften divine justice, cheapen grace, and open the floodgates to worldly thinking from our homes to our business right down to our Sunday school classes. People cannot find basic doctrine with both hands and we are busy convincing them they can discern the hidden will of God if they pray long enough, hard enough, and just in the right way. Why do we think War Room was so incredibly popular? It feeds off poor thinking about issues like prayer and the Christians daily struggle with sin. Millennials have adopted autonomous human reason as their sole authority for how they live and think. They place Scripture in the dock and God along with it and issue their judgments. Genesis 1-3 cannot be accurate because science says so. Women can lead because modern minds understand better than the authors of Scripture God’s true design for the sexes. Homosexual prohibitions in Scripture are the product of cultural bias against the practice. Modern minds are more informed, more enlightened, and yes, more loving. Once Scripture goes, anything goes.

Finally, why is the Church not reaching the culture with biblical truths the way the Church once did? While I am not convinced the slippage here is as great as some think it is, it would be silly to deny any slippage at all. The gospel includes repentance from dead works and rebellion. The modern message rarely includes this. The law and the justice of God have been stripped out of the gospel. The gospel used to be good news for the undeserving and the helpless. Now, the gospel is good news for those who want a better life, a happy marriage, a healthy family, and a solid career. In modern western culture, it seems the Christian life is little more than a shallow embrace of what appears to be Christian morality coupled with some religious activities on the weekend and perhaps some social causes sprinkled in here and there. That is to say that western Christianity is not unlike its religious counterparts. The decision to become a “Christian” is either the result of a rationalistic exercise based on an examination of logical arguments and scientific evidence or it is simply the holding to family tradition in many, many cases. The Millennials appear to believe that being a Christian means being a good person, exercising your own opinions about the most basic of Christian doctrine, and not hurting anyone. Essentially, the final authority in the Millennial Christians’ mind is the Millennial himself. Traditional worship has been set by a huge majority of Millennials, not for exegetical reasons, but simply because it’s old, outdated, or because it belongs to someone else.

Millennials want their own cake and eat it to. This is why they insist on a new version of Christianity, a Christianity not inherited by 2,000 years of Church history, but one that they can put their fingerprints on. This is why Millennials reject Genesis in the name of science and the enlightened mind. It is why they challenge the Church’s teachings on Scripture. It is also the reason that Millennials are more likely to question or accept homosexuality as an acceptable sexual expression even in the Church. They want their Christianity, their music, their sermons, their theology, their way! Nothing less will do.

The Millennial phenomenon points us in the direction of the ancient biblical practice of confessional Christianity. Modern Millennials tend to look down on old music, old worship, old creeds and confessions. But they have very shallow reasons for doing so. Most of them simply have not bothered to educate themselves to form an opinion either way. There are exceptions of course, but for the most part, the thought of engaging in such a dry, emotionless project is painful to say the least. If you can’t give it to the Millennial in a short Facebook post or a Tweet, then forget it.

Paul wrote to Timothy that he had made “the good confession” in the presence of many witnesses. What is “the good confession?” The Greek word homolegeo, contrary to what modern culture thinks, does not simply mean to say something out loud. Far too many people understand that confessing Christ is merely saying they want to follow Christ. “I am a Christian” has truly become a claim that carries very little meaning. For the Koine audience of Paul’s day, the word carried a sense of agreement. It meant to agree with someone. It meant to agree to do something. “The legal connotation is common and poss. dominant. A person agrees with another’s statement, concedes or confesses something (such as guilt before a judge), agrees to something (e.g., someone else’s wish). This agreement expresses itself in an act of commitment, promise, or confession in a court or legal contract. The noun ὁμολογία plays a role in philosophical discourse: it does not merely indicate “theoretical agreement” but “implies consent to some thing felt to be valid, and in such a way that it is followed by definite resolve and action, by ready attachment to a cause. The religious use of the words may have derived primarily from the language of treaties and law courts. A legal agreement that involved binding oneself by an oath implied an obligation to the deity. A solemn admission of wrongdoing before a court of law could naturally have been transferred to the confession of sin in a religious setting. These concepts were found esp. in the oriental cults, as may be seen from Lydian and Phrygian expiatory inscriptions.” (NIDNTTE)

The Christian Confession is far more rich and more meaningful in ancient Christianity that it is today. Today, lip-service is given by many false Christians as they sit in Church week after week, hearing the sermon but rejecting the authority from which it comes. They meet with the pastor, who is all too eager to bring them into the fold because it makes him feel and look good, go through the motions of signing a card and agreeing to a covenant, all the while having no clue what it means to follow Christ.

Ken Ham’s article should serve as a bit of a wake-up call to us. What are we to do with these young Millennials who want to claim our Christianity all the while rejecting our Christ. They claim to love God but reject God’s commandments in many areas. They claim the Bible but only those parts that do not contain errors. They say that music should not be an issue but insist on changing it. The irony is embarrassing. What are we to do with these individuals. First, keep an eye out for them. They are not our friends. They are not friends of Christ. Those who call Scripture into question have to be confronted, rebuked, and if they prove obstinate, they must be removed from the congregation. A little leaven leavens the entire lump. They who question such basics as the Christian sexual ethic must be dealt with harshly. This is not a game. Intolerance is the order of the day for those young biblically inept Millennials who are so arrogant that they think they don’t have to study Scripture to formulate their opinions. They can come with their pre-made opinions and then make Scripture support them one way or another. There is no room in the body for people who have not truly made “the good confession.” What do we say about these Millennials who dare question Scripture at such basic areas like sexuality, creation, and the authority of Scripture itself? We remind one another of Jude’s ominous words:

But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they were saying to you, “In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts.” These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.

The Constantinian Christian

For a very long time now, American Christians have conflated biblical Christianity with a sort of American Nationalism integrated thoroughly with a Christianity that filters nearly every Christian doctrine through a distinctly American mindset. The American Christian begins, not with ancient biblical Christianity. Instead, it begins with American nationalism, American ideas, American principles and it proceeds to impose those ideas onto Christianity. The modern Christian in America is completely immersed in the constantinian shift. We do not see our nation as something distinct from our Christianity. We see the two as inseparable. That is how we view both our religious commitments and our commitments to this country. I wonder what Paul would have done if he had been told that he had to swear allegiance to Rome? The situation is so misunderstood in American culture that it has led to Christians confusing social and political activism with things like loving their neighbor. In some cases, Christians will accuse you of sin if you don’t vote along a particular party line. I used to be there myself. I know not only from reading what others are writing but from being one of the wrong-headed thinkers myself. The more I read Scripture outside the context that is American culture, the more I have realized that Christianity and America have really nothing to do with one another. That is to say that being a Christian says nothing about your being an American and being an American says nothing about you’re being a Christian.

I want to point out several myths that you must recognize if you are to ever break from the grip the constantinian shift has upon your worldview, and specifically, upon your Christian outlook.

American Christians suffer from the delusion that America either is or once was a Christian nation. America has never been a Christian nation. It is true that America was founded upon principles that appear similar to those in Christianity. But lets make sure we understand why that is. First of all, there is no country on earth that does not share at least some morality with Christian morality. The reason for this is because Christian morality is anchored in the nature of God. Humans are created in the image of God. We are born with certain innate attitudes about morality that are attributed to being created in the image of God. However, as do all unbelievers, Americans distort and pervert that morality to one degree or another. Perhaps, like the Jews, American Christians have sought to attain righteousness through legalistic rule-keeping as it relates to these moral principles. We have rules against movies, music, alcohol, etc. American Christianity has lots of rules. And those rules have often been used in the more legalistic areas of Christianity to beat and intimidate people into submission. But that sort of Christianity has always been an external wink and nod to Christ. It has nothing to say about the power of the gospel to change a sinner’s heart of stone.

This is why we ought to land somewhere between laughter and anger when someone quotes II Chronicles 7:14 as if God is speaking directly to America. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard this text quoted and applied to America by well-intentioned American Christians. The ignorance in these areas is pronounced and depressing. The text was addressed to ancient Israel. It is not a general promise to all the nations on the earth. It is address to “My people who are called by my name.” Only one nation was called by God’s name and that was ancient Israel. America is not and has never been a Christian nation.

The second myth is that America is the greatest country on earth. We really are proud Americans, aren’t we! We embrace our country and proudly talk about how we will defend it to the death and stand up for her as proudly as we possibly can. From a Christian perspective, America is not the greatest country of earth. America is a country that has probably had more exposure to Jesus Christ and the good news that any other single nation on earth. And what has she done with Christ? She has used Him to exploit His followers. Should Christians think of their pagan nation as the greatest nation on earth? America may be a good country relatively speaking to other countries in the world, but make no mistake about it, she is made up of mostly totally depraved God-haters. Her leaders in Washington are almost to a person, if not to a person, totally depraved God haters. The Supreme court is constituted by mostly if not entirely totally depraved God haters. She murders innocent unborn children and cloaks it in women’s health issues. She talks about marriage equality when what she really means is the celebration of some of the most unnatural and perverse sexual behavior invented by fallen sinful God haters. America is not the greatest country on earth.

Another myth is the notion that Christian love equals political or social activism. Some Christians think that the way we love our culture is to influence it morally and ethically. They wrongly think that if we can just get the culture to return to some of those external and apparent Christian principles that this is how we love our culture. I have news for you. Even if you were able to get America to adopt every commandment and conduct itself in a manner identical to how the Christian community conducts itself, it is still a dressed up, eternal, legalistic embrace of morality for all the wrong reasons. The only thing you would accomplish is the creation of another 300 million self-righteous hypocrites who think that God looks down on their country with favor because they don’t watch porn, kill babies, cheat on their wives or their taxes, and they are in church and contributing to the needs of the institution each and every week. What a wonderfully moral culture.

Putting the family first and maintaining the structure of the family is not the gospel and it is not the highest calling of the Christian. Eliminating the murder of innocent people to include children is not the calling at the Christian, not even a little. Eliminating slavery was never something that Christians were called to do. Stopping the sex trade is not something the Church is called to. Crushing the porn industry and making porn illegal is not the high calling of the Church. We do eliminate abortion in our midst. In the Christian community. We eradicate sexual promiscuity in the Christian community. We put an end murder, perverse sex, illicit divorce, the sex trade, and all such things within our Christian community. How do we do that? We preach the gospel, the good news, God regenerates those whom He has called to Himself, and through the power of the Holy Spirit as He applies the Word of God to the mind, we are slowly transformed into those having the mind of Christ. We start to look and sound like Jesus more and more each day!

Christians in America are not called to change the culture from a godless culture with more and more godless principles into a culture that is respectful and receptive to more and more Christian principles. We are called to live and preach the gospel to this culture. We are called to pray for this culture. We have been chosen by God to call American culture to repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is our high calling of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.