World Missions Topics: SPQ 2020 (Mar-May) [eBook]

I remember the testimony of a dear Saint in my first church home. She told me how she once had an undiagnosed ailment that left her bedridden for almost a year. Not only were the doctors stymied by her case, but the persistence of the malady disturbed her community of faith as well. She vividly recalled one visiting preacher who was frustrated that his prayers for her healing had not been answered. “Have you done something the Lord is punishing you for?” he asked. She protested that she knew of no secret sin in her life, but she came to fear her church family didn’t believe her. 

It is wired in us as human beings to want to find meaning in suffering. We are extremely uncomfortable with the vagaries of life. Sudden calamity, like natural disaster and unforeseen illness, can seem haphazard; therefore, we struggle to find God’s purposes behind events of this sort. Sometimes, our presumptions have been far too glib, like claiming the AIDS epidemic or Hurricane Katrina were God’s judgment on America. We are often too quick to blame the victims, in hope that it will relieve our own angst.

However, the Church has been called to minister to the afflicted, and mistaken beliefs about the nature of tragedy and suffering will only hinder that ministry. We are fortunate that we have a resource, the Word of God that can adjust our perspective of this topic. This quarter we will turn to the Book of Job to assess the biblical doctrine of pain and suffering, and to apply those lessons to our interactions with a hurting world.