Philosophy of Suffering & Persecution

Am currently part of an online workshop looking at persecution in the world and as part of that had to write a personal philosophy of suffering & persecution. . . 

It was in the 1990’s that I first became aware that Christians were persecuted and harmed simply because they were Christians. From my viewpoint as a regular church-going Christian who was unaware of these things and who had never suffered for the faith, I could not wrap my head around the fact of it or why it was happening. And then I met some of these believers at a VOM conference. There was a Vietnamese woman, not much older than a teenager, who told her story about her family losing all their possessions and being expelled from their village because they did not give up their faith, and how (incredibly) she was going back to her home after the conference was over. The truly amazing thing about her however was not just the facts of her story but the joy she had and how genuine she was, how real her faith was. It was a genuineness I lacked.

Background and Challenge of Suffering & Persecution

Since then, I have come to realize that persecution, and suffering for that matter, is the normal course of things in a world that is not yet according to Christ. In a world where the devil has authority and people are in the flesh & apart from God, conflict is the inevitable response in this world to the people God has made alive in Jesus Christ. Suffering and persecution are assumed and promised in the Bible; Jesus said that His followers will have trouble in this world and they would be hated, even murdered, by others on account of Him. And what is surprising is not only the fact of having trouble, but that God often called His people into conflict and suffering when He could have directed otherwise.

Acts 16 tells the story of Paul while in Asia receiving a vision of a man from Macedonia telling him to come and help. After agreeing with Silas, they sail to Macedonia but when they get there they don’t find a man, they find women. A slave girl with a spirit of divination follows them around for days, embarrassing them by forcefully proclaiming them God’s servants. When Paul casts out the spirit, her owners take them before the authorities, where the crowd joins in attacking and beating them and afterwards they are thrown in prison. God called them to Macedonia; what a challenge to faith to be called to suffering.

The challenge to my head and heart was that the Bible also called for joy when faced with suffering; “Consider it all joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of various kinds (James 1:2); “…we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings (Romans 5:  ); Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad. . .” (Matthew 5:11). In the Acts 16 story above, Paul and Silas are found singing and praying after they were beaten and thrown in prison. In Philippians 1:29, Paul even writes that it is a gift from God, more and seemingly better than just believing in Him. How were pain and tears and the hatred of others not only God’s plan but also something to be desired?

Two things helped me towards an answer. As I became more familiar with stories of the persecuted church, there was something about them that was so attractive and appealing; the courage and boldness in telling the gospel in the face of threats, the love shown to their persecutors, the joy even when losing everything. There was a beauty in them that was more than them. It was when I started to realize that it was a display of Christ - that it was the Lord in them – that part of the answer came.  The courage and love and joy seen in them is what Christ in this world means. The “love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” from Romans 8  is seen most clearly in those who are faithful and true in Christ no matter the circumstances.

The other bigger vision that helped me answer the question was that God’s overriding purpose is that all things will be filled with Christ, that everything in this universe will reflect His Son.  Ephesians 1 says, “…according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.”  Later in Ephesians it talks of “…Him who fills all in all” and “…that He might fill all things.” When the kingdom of this world becomes the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, everything will be according to Christ, everything will reflect the character of Christ. If true, then there is something eternal – something of the Lord - in those who in faithfulness bear unjust suffering and yet love. Love to persecutors is not merely the temporal response of the faithful to suffering meant only for this world, rather it is the depth of love which is of God which is eternal. When a faithful believer loves his persecutor, there the spiritual presence of God in a genuine way is displayed in this world. . . there is the reality of Christ in them.

Seeing Christ in the faithful who suffer, and viewed thru the lens of the inevitable conflict between what is of this world and what is according to Christ, takes suffering out of the merely circumstantial and gives suffering an eternal value, and spiritual values in those who are faithful. 

A Story

Noora is an Egyptian woman, married to a Muslim sheik, a man important in the local mosque. When Noora converted to Christ thru the witness of her sister, she became afraid that her husband would find out she had become a Christian. Eventually when he did find out, he beat her so severely that her gallbladder ruptured. She was forced out of her home with no belongings. Her husband divorced her and her family disowned her. . . Noora said that had they been thirsty that they would not accept a cup of water from her.

After some time, she met & married a Christian man and together they minister in Egypt and help other believers. When asked about everything she has gone thru, her testimony is. . . "The secret of joy is having a real link with Christ. How can we be anything but happy?"

Her testimony is what is compelling to me, that of happiness and joy in the midst of great suffering thru a genuineness in Christ, “…a real link with Christ.” I believe that at the heart of it all is the issue of the heart. . . is Christ real within, is there life because He is present. If so, then He is the secret not only of joy, but also of peace and patience and wisdom and strength and faithfulness. Paul in 2 Corinthians 4 talks about this secret as a treasure, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” Christ within is the life and power and treasure within, given by God to us jars of clay. But then Paul goes on to say that this treasure of Christ within is seen in times of affliction, perplexity, persecution and being struck down. “We are afflicted, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed…” In all these situations of going down and going under things in this world, Christ is God’s but not that there will be life for His people in this world in the hardest situations. That is the testimony of Jesus in this world, that in the midst  of death and going under that Christ means life; the testimony of Jesus is resurrection, that there is life. If I am a follower of Jesus, I can find in Christ, and not in myself, the resource to bear all the suffering and pain and disappointment that comes against me in this world and thru it all, go thru and be found genuine and even have joy. But it will only be in Christ and not in myself that the life and resource are found.

The verse continues, “…always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our bodies.” The ‘but not’  of Christ, the life that is Christ - in not being crushed, not being in despair, not being forsaken, and not being destroyed - is seen in me if I carry in my body the death of Jesus. There is life in Christ for me, and not only for me but also to be manifested for others thru me, if I am willing to bear the death of Jesus. He invites me in all the gospels to follow Him by utterly denying myself and taking up my cross daily, calling me to lose my life so that I will find life in Him. In John 12 the Lord puts it positively, “…whoever hates his life in this world will keep it…” and in Luke 14 He puts it negatively, “…any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be My disciple.” It is what is found in the life of the Lord; often He makes the statement that He doesn’t take the initiative, that He only speaks what He hears the Father saying and does what He sees the Father doing. Never is the Lord doing what He in Himself could do as of Himself, but always it is out from the Father, and in doing that He is the example for those who would follow Him. If I find in Christ the resource to bear suffering, and turn from that in me that would react in violence and vengeance from my anger, there is life within my soul that is a testimony of Jesus in the world. Paul in Ephesians 4, writing about unbelievers who react in ungodliness in this world, says, “But that is not the way you learned Christ – assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self. . . and to put on the new self…” The truth in Jesus is that there is life in Christ for me as I daily turn away from what I am in myself, all that is unlike Him, and find in Christ a new life that will mean life to others.

God’s Purpose in Suffering

It helped me to consider God’s purposes in suffering in view of God’s greater purpose of glorifying His Son in all things, that all things would be filled with Christ and be conformed to the character of Christ. When I first realized that Christians were persecuted, one of the questions that bothered me was why did God allow His people to suffer in this way? If the purpose of God was to call a people to Himself and save them, why didn’t He keep them from suffering or just take them to heaven rather than let them go thru suffering? It was helpful to me to realize that God must have a purpose in the suffering; that in view of God’s purpose of having a people like Christ in a genuine way, there was a benefit to His people in taking them thru the suffering.  1 Cor. 10:13 says that God makes us able to bear things, that the way of escape is thru the hard thing; He doesn’t take us out of suffering but thru it. The Holy Spirit often takes me thru a hard thing in order to learn Christ; in going thru trials and suffering I find a way forward and life in Christ. And what is true of each believer is true of the church, His body, and probably from a better perspective, it should be said that what is true of His church is true of every believer. God has a purpose in His church and in each believer that in genuine way that Christ would be all.

In an outward way as well, God means for the excellence and glory of His Son to be seen and magnified; that in the world and universe but also to angels and spiritual hosts, that the superiority of Christ would be known and acknowledged and worshipped.  Paul in Ephesians 3 writing about the unsearchable riches of Christ and the mystery hidden in God, follows with, “. . . that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose He realized in Christ Jesus our Lord. . .”  God the Father means to glorify His Son, as Colossians 1 says, “…that in everything He might be preeminent.”

Man’s Purpose in Suffering

I believe that man’s purpose in suffering is derived from God’s purposes for it. If God uses suffering in the life of the believer to conform them to Christ, then the response of the follower of Jesus is not only to not be surprised or afraid of suffering and persecution when it arises, but in faith and trust embrace whatever God calls us to. If the Spirit leads me into a hardship it will often be to something that is beyond what I can handle; I find that I don’t have the resource in myself to get thru it. But in that hardship I can turn to the Lord and find in Him what I need. In the turning to God to find my resource and my way forward, I follow Jesus who looked to Father in all things.

But it is not a merely personal or individual matter. When in view of Christ I embrace whatever God calls me to, be it hardship or suffering or persecution, and I am faithful, there is a display of Christ in this world. In 2 Corinthians 2 Paul writes, “…thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other fragrance from life to life.”  If I will follow Jesus wherever the Spirit leads, yes there may be hardship and suffering, maybe I will be persecuted for having been there, but in the following there is the learning of Christ and the display of Him.  Left to me I would only want to go where it meant others would be saved, but often we are lead among the many so God can save the few; God’s purposes in me are best served when I go regardless.

Conclusion

There is a mystery to these things and the ways of God are often beyond knowing, but there is a purpose in these things. For those who in answer to the call of God follow Jesus in this world, there is often hardship and sufferings and sorrows. But in those who are faithful, there is the learning of Christ and becoming like Him. In view of the purposes of God that Christ be all, there is great comfort in knowing that “He must reign until He puts all His enemies under His feet.” (1 Cor. 15)  I can embrace whatever God calls me to and know that whatever the circumstances, and whatever the outcome in the circumstances, that God’s purposes are being worked out in me, in His church and in the world.