Walking with God through Pain and Suffering by Timothy Keller

Author:Timothy Keller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group, USA
Published: 2016-07-20T17:53:12+00:00

Glorifying God to Others

Trusting God in suffering also glorifies him to others. When believers handle suffering rightly, they are not merely glorifying God to God. They are showing the world something of the greatness of God—and perhaps nothing else can reveal him to people in quite the same way. “It is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering out of a conscious commitment to God,” writes Peter (1 Pet 2:19). Patient endurance of suffering, when onlookers know that the sufferers are Christians, can reveal the power of God. Paul puts it even more vividly: “We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus [suffering], so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body” (2 Cor 4:10).

In the early church, the first martyr was Stephen, who was stoned to death for his public preaching of the gospel. The account of his death is told in Acts 6:8–8:1. When he was on trial for his life, we are told he was not fearful but radiant—“his face was like the face of an angel” (Acts 6:15). And as he was dying under the hail of stones, he prayed aloud, “Lord Jesus, do not hold this sin against them” (Acts 7:60). The young scholar Saul of Tarsus was present and saw the entire scene (Acts 7:58, 8:1). Later Saul is on his way to imprison Christians and destroy the church in Damascus when he meets the risen Christ. Jesus says, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads” (Acts 26:14). Goads were sharp sticks used to move animals in a right direction, and Jesus is indicating that although Saul was angrily opposed to Christianity, there was something deep inside that was pushing him unwillingly toward acknowledging its truth. Many believe that one of those “goads” was the seemingly inexplicable joy, peace, and lack of bitterness that Stephen showed as he was dying. How could Stephen have been that calm? How could he have been that sure that he was right with God? That able to forgive people even as they were killing him? It didn’t make sense. The way Stephen bore up under suffering was more than just “commendable”—it stuck in Saul’s soul.

This was perhaps the first example of what later Christian writers such as Ambrose, Cyprian, Ignatius, and Polycarp said over and over. Christians died so well, leaving onlookers wondering where they got their power. “Christians used suffering to argue for the superiority of their creed . . . [because] they suffered better than pagans.”286 Paul never forgot the principle after his conversion. That is why later he could write to believers not to be discouraged by his imprisonment (Eph 3:13) because his suffering was a way to show people his Savior’s character. He said to the Philippians, “I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear

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