What the Bible says about Affliction
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Numbers 23:19 Job remarks that, as God's creations and recipients of His benevolence, we have no right to complain when He allows us to endure afflictions or hardships. Even in these times, we still reap the benefits of His goodness because it is good for us to be afflicted, to receive correction, because these trials will eventually benefit us. The result will always show God's goodness. Martin G. Collins Goodness Related Topics: Affliction | Benevolence | Correction | God's Benevolence | God's Goodness | Goodness | Testing | Testing of Faith | Trials | Trials, Purpose of | Trials, Shaping Power Of

Job 2:10 Should a Christian allow himself to bemoan God's goodness even during a trial? When Job's wife wanted him to curse God for bringing trials upon him, Job expressed the right principle of God's universal goodness and fairness when he rebuked her for grumbling. There are times when we may feel like God is not treating us fairly. Job points out that, as God's creations and recipients of His generosity and benevolence, we have no right to complain when He allows us to be afflicted or tests us through hardship. Martin G. Collins Fear the Lord's Goodness! Related Topics: Affliction | Complaining | Enduring Hardship | God Creates Calamity | God's Benevolence | God's Fairness | God's Generosity | God's Goodness | Grumbling | Hardships, Purpose of | Response to Trials | Tests and Trials | Trials | Trials and Tests

Psalm 69:1-2 The psalmist provides a vivid picture of a person dealing with so many pressing issues at once that he feels as if he were drowning. Undoubtedly, He bore His sacrifices, rejections, and reproaches without complaint to those He was serving (I Peter 2:23). But this does not mean they did not affect His feelings and did not take them to God for comfort and consolation. John W. Ritenbaugh The Offerings of Leviticus (Part Three): The Meal Offering Related Topics: Affliction | Anguish | Drowning as Metaphor | Drowning Metaphor | Fiery Trials | Supplication

Isaiah 53:4 When anah ("afflicted") is used in what is called the niphal stem, it means the pain, trouble, or discomfort is reflexive and thus self-inflicted. In English grammar, "reflexive" means the action of the verb is directed back at the subject. One of the things Isaiah 53:4 is saying, then, is that Christ voluntarily submitted Himself to this affliction. John W. Ritenbaugh Pride, Humility, and the Day of Atonement Related Topics: Afflict | Affliction | Anah | Submission | Submission to God | Submission to God's Will | Voluntary Submission

Habakkuk 1:14-17 Verses 14-17 use an extended metaphor in which the Chaldeans are seen as fishermen and the peoples of Judah and the nations around them are the fish. Habakkuk visualizes the people, especially his own, as fish in a barrel! They cannot escape—easy pickings for the cruel Chaldeans. Whether by hook or by net, these evil Gentiles will have their way with the Judeans—because God is letting them! This, of course, makes the Chaldeans pretty happy (verse 15). It is like shooting fish in a barrel! To the prophet, it makes no sense; it seems as if God is acting against His own people. The enemy is happy, wealthy, and powerful because God is not punishing their wickedness, and the Judeans are being killed, enslaved, robbed, and beaten to a pulp! In effect, Habakkuk is accusing God of letting them get away with murder! In verse 16, Habakkuk speaks of the Chaldeans "sacrific[ing] to their net." Their net is a symbol of their weapons of warfare, their means of conquering the nations around them and gaining wealth. This is similar to Daniel 11:37-39, where Gabriel prophesies that the King of the North will honor "a god of fortresses." Finally, the prophet asks, "Are You going to continue to allow them to get away with all this?" (verse 17). With this, his frustrations seem to abate, and he concludes in Habakkuk 2:1 with a remark that is very smart and wise. Richard T. Ritenbaugh Habakkuk Related Topics: Affliction | Babylonians | Captivity | Chastising | God's Judgment | Habakkuk | King of the North | Slavery

Matthew 5:4 When Jesus gives this beatitude, He does not say, "Blessed are those that have mourned" but "Blessed are those who mourn." He states it as a present and continuous experience. Repentance is not a one-time experience, nor does human nature, "the old man," simply disappear after we receive the new nature. Christianity involves a continuous learning and growing process. We are not instantly created in the image of God by fiat. God has decreed that we must live by faith, and that requires time and experience. We are created in the image of God through the fires of life's sorrows and adversities, as well as its joys. Even of our Savior, Isaiah writes, "He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3). Paul adds, Who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. (Hebrews 5:7-8) The Christian is one whose mind is attuned to God's through an ever-deepening relationship. He has much to mourn over because the sins he commits—both of omission and commission—are a daily sense of grief and will remain so as long as his conscience stays tender. A tender conscience becomes hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. An active and growing relationship with God will lead to an enhanced discovery of human nature's depravity because God will faithfully reveal the massive gulf between His holiness and our corrupt and ever-polluting heart. He will make us conscious of the distance and coldness of our love, the surges of pride and doubt, and the lack of fruit we produce. John W. Ritenbaugh The Beatitudes, Part Three: Mourning Related Topics: Adversity | Affliction | Conscience | Mourning | Relationship with God | Repentance | Sorrow | Tender Conscience

2 Corinthians 12:7-10 Paul turned what could have sent him into deep bitterness and passivity (an affliction God decided not to heal when Paul felt he needed it) into a strength (humility and a deeper reliance on God). As painful, frustrating or hindering as it was, his circumstance never deterred him from being an apostle who by the grace of God labored more abundantly than all others (I Corinthians 15:10). John W. Ritenbaugh The Sovereignty of God: Part Two Related Topics: Affliction | Healing | Humility | Submission to God | Submission to God's Will | Thorn in the Flesh

 

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