In conjunction with my studies for the Trial: Eight Witnesses from 1 and 2 Peter series I am preaching over the course of seven months, I have done a great deal of theological reflection on suffering. This has been incredibly helpful to me personally and I felt that a series of blog posts on the issue of suffering from a biblical-theological framework might be used by God to help some people.

I recommend this book on suffering.
The following series of blog posts is offered to that end. Their content is, in part, harvested from an amazing book published by my friends at Crossway. Suffering and the Goodness of God, edited by Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson, is a wonderful gift to all of us who seek to help those who are hurting and suffering. I am deeply grateful that Crossway publishes books like this because they provide a theological richness that is often lacking in Christian publishing.
While the entire book is helpful, I found Walter Kaiser’s chapter, “Eight Kinds of Suffering in the Old Testament,” to be particularly insightful; much of this blog series expands upon his wonderful work in that chapter. Additionally, the full counsel of Mars Hill Church elders (currently thirty-four men) had a lengthy Bible study and conversation on this subject, and their input greatly enriched the content of this blog series.

Because the Scriptures are so painfully honest about the lives of real people, it is not surprising to discover that the biblical treatment of suffering is thorough but not systematic. Therefore, to arrive at a robust and full biblical understanding of suffering, we must examine the totality of Scripture and identify and categorize various types of suffering.

If we don’t understand types of suffering, we give bad council.
This categorization is particularly important for helping hurting people. Without a full biblical understanding of suffering in Scripture, we will wrongly diagnose the cause of someone’s suffering and in so doing offer them poor counsel. This inevitably occurs when someone is guilty of reductionism, that is, taking only some of what Scripture says on an issue and then wrongly applying it to all situations. Perhaps the most legendary example of reductionism concerning suffering occurred when Job’s friends only understood it as the result of God’s punishment for sin and thus rather than comforting him, they rebuked him unjustly.

Positive and Negative Suffering
As a general rule, the Scriptures categorize suffering as either positive (when it is for a good reason like Jesus’ suffering) or negative (when it is because of our sin). For example, 1 Peter 3:17 says, “For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.”

See Part 2