[upbeat music] Does God cause our suffering? How is it a privilege to suffer for Christ? And what happens to a person's faith when experienced suffering, and how can we have joy in adversity? We'll answer these questions and a whole lot more with our guest, Dr. Craig Keener, from his new book entitled Suffering- Its Meaning for the Spirit-Filled Life. I'm your host, Scott Rae.
Sean McDowell:And I'm your co-host, Sean McDowell.
Scott Rae:This is Think Biblically from Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. Craig, so glad to have you with us. We're delighted to read your book. So welcome. Good to have you with us.
Craig Keener:Well, it's, it's always, it's always great to be with you, Scott and Sean. I'm, I'm, happy when I get to see you at conferences-... And happy to get to talk with you, even when we can't see each other.
Scott Rae:That's right. [chuckles] Now, Craig, this, this book is really different from your other scholarly works. I mean, you've produced over 20,000 pages of commentary on different books of the Bible. But this is different than that. And what prompted you to write on this subject of suffering at this particular time?
Craig Keener:I know that there are people in the US, of course, who have... I mean, there's plenty of people with suffering, people who are grieving the loss of loved ones, or, you know, people who are sick with cancer or, a whole variety of things. But I've long felt that the church in the US isn't really ready for the full kind of scale, collective suffering that's seen in many parts of the world, and we also neglect what our brothers and sisters face around the world. In 2024, one of the estimates was that about 10,000 of our brothers and sisters in Nigeria were martyred- ... For their faith.
Scott Rae:Mm-hmm. Yikes.
Craig Keener:And of course, Christians being martyred in Mozambique and Cameroon and, yeah, so many other places.
Sean McDowell:Craig, you've experienced suffering, and especially your wife has, and you share some of these experiences quite freely in the book. Will you tell us a bit about both of those experiences?
Craig Keener:Sure. I mean, some of mine has been when I've been sharing my faith on the street, sometimes I've been beaten, and had my life threatened. That was more in my younger days. Usually in scholarly forums these days, I don't get really physically abused, happily. [chuckles]
Sean McDowell:[chuckles]
Craig Keener:But my wife, she actually is probably a much more relevant example. When, when she was young, her country was very peaceful, and so, you know, when they would see Ethiopian refugees come into their country, she would feel badly for them, but she thought,"Oh, that'll never happen to us."
Scott Rae:And just, Craig-
Craig Keener:But-
Scott Rae:... Let me interrupt you. W-what-
Craig Keener:Oh
Scott Rae:... What country did your wife grow up in?
Craig Keener:I'm sorry. Yes. She grew up in Congo-Brazzaville. There are two countries in Africa named Congo. She's from the smaller one. Both countries ended up in civil war, and she ended up spending 18 months as a refugee, having to, forage for food for her family. So sometimes she would go, like, five miles a day, through snake-infested swamps and fields-
Scott Rae:Really?
Craig Keener:... Of army ants, having to pick the ants off her body as she would get through it, just trying to get food for her family, pushing their disabled father in a wheelbarrow-
Scott Rae:Oh
Craig Keener:... As they were fleeing from, fleeing from the fighting. So she has, Yeah, she had some incredible experiences of suffering that she could recount.
Scott Rae:Now, Craig, you say in the book, quoting you directly, "It's God's will that we suffer." this raises a lot of questions that believers might have about whether or not God causes our suffering. How would you answer that, and what might be some of the other reasons that we suffer?
Craig Keener:Maybe I'm not saying that it's always God's will that we suffer, but, looking at particular texts, where certainly sometimes we're suffering according to God's will. Of course, there's a whole debate, Calvinists and Arminians have been debating, like, [chuckles] how much, is God's will, and how much does he micromanage, and so on. And, I don't- I'm not trying to solve that debate in this book.
Sean McDowell:Sure.
Craig Keener:But in 1 Peter 4-19, "Let those who suffer according to God's will," and in the context, it's persecution-... "entrust their lives to the trustworthy Creator. You entrust yourself to Him by continuing to do what's good." And in 1 Peter 3-17, "For it's better to suffer for doing good, if this is God's will, than to suffer for doing wrong." And even in the case of Jesus, Isaiah 53-10,"It was the Lord's will to crush him and to cause him to suffer." It's like when Jesus prayed in Gethsemane,"Father, please take this cup from me, but nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done." And, and the Father's will is very loving, and sometimes things are for our sake in the long run. It's better for us in the long run, but sometimes it's not for our sake, it's for other people's sake. So in Jesus' case, it was God's will for him to suffer for the sake of the rest of the world. And sometimes it's, it's so the Gospel may spread more. So, the persecution in Acts 8, the Church was scattered, and it says they preached the Word wherever they went. Or in Philippians 1, Paul says, "Because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord to speak the message much more boldly." In the six years after the Boxer Rebellion, which martyred a lot of missionaries in China, indigenous Chinese Protestants more than doubled in their number.... And even more so after Mao's Cultural Revolution there, Protestants alone may have multiplied 20 times over. So it can help for the spread of the gospel. It can also help to shape us. Like the Psalmist says, "Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I obey your word." And Romans says, "Tribulation yields perseverance, and perseverance, proven character." Romans 8 shows us that God works everything for our good, in context, that doesn't always mean short-term good, although-
Sean McDowell:Mm-hmm
Craig Keener:... He can do it in this life, like we have in the case of Joseph and his brothers, but also conforming us more to the image of Christ, which is our ultimate goal- ... Of being glorified and conformed to His image.
Sean McDowell:And, of course, our good is not our subjective good or what-
Craig Keener:Yes [chuckles]
Sean McDowell:... We think is good, but what-
Craig Keener:Exactly
Sean McDowell:... God knows is best for us-
Craig Keener:Yes
Sean McDowell:... Like you said, in conforming us to His image.
Scott Rae:Yeah, just one quick follow-up on that, Craig. You cited a couple of passages that put a conditional clause before God's will, that we suffer. You know, if it's G- you suffer if it's God's will. Are, are you implying from that, is the text implying from that, that there are times when it's not God's will that we suffer?
Craig Keener:[chuckles] Well, in the, [clears throat] in the context of the 1 Peter passages, sometimes, we suffer 'cause we're stupid. [laughing]
Scott Rae:[laughing]
Craig Keener:We, we walk into trouble that we shouldn't walk into, or we provoke it, and so I think that's the, that's the qualification there. But it is true. I mean, the Bible says that not a hair on our head falls to the ground apart from our Father. He's- He sees every situation that we're in, and we can, we can trust Him that He's with us and that He's working things for good. Now, sometimes we actually can, can be delivered from our situation by praying for it. It, it's true. You see, a lot of the people expressing their faith in the Gospels as they approach Jesus, they express it with desperation. Might not feel like faith at the time, but, I mean, the friends of the paralyzed man wouldn't let the crowds be an obstacle. They were willing to tear up their neighbor's roof to get to Jesus or the woman with the flow of blood. You know, according to Jewish law, I mean, she renders impure anybody that she comes in contact with. She's not supposed to be touching Jesus, Leviticus 15, but she's so desperate that she reaches out knowing that Jesus is her only hope. And so sometimes we actually... He wants us to be reaching out to Him, but sometimes also, it's like what He says in 2 Corinthians 12, where Paul says- "I asked Him three times, and He, and He said, 'My grace is sufficient for you.'"Just, it- you know, "My power is made perfect in weakness." Just, basically, no. [chuckles]
Sean McDowell:That's a good clarification, that sometimes it is God's will that we suffer, but not always, and sometimes we suffer because we do stupid things, or we make mistakes, or other people sin. So to not just assume our suffering is necessarily caused by God, especially tied to some morality or lack of morality, I think it's important to keep in mind. Now, you talk about, Craig, you talk about how it's a privilege to share in Christ's suffering. I'd love to hear why you... What does it mean to share in Christ's suffering, and why do you think that resonates in many ways in kind of the Global South and in the early church, but not so much in the US today?
Craig Keener:Yeah, and it's not always easy to remember. I mean, I confess, it's not always easy for me to remember as well. But [clears throat] like Paul says in Philippians 1-29, "It's been granted to you, not only to trust in Christ, but also to suffer on His behalf." And in chapter 3, he says that his goal is to know Christ in the, in the fellowship of His sufferings, in the power of His resurrection. And so often, Paul talks about our identification with Christ. You know, we died with Him, we rose with Him. There's the privilege of identifying with Him, even in His sufferings. Helen Rosevere, when she was captured by, rebels, when she was in- sh- she was a medical doctor. She was running a hospital in, the larger Congo, and she ended up being physically abused in captivity, and during the midst of it, she felt like she had the privilege of identifying with Christ, and as she was being beaten, she felt the Lord saying, "These are not your sufferings. These are my sufferings." And that gave her hope. Um- ... Miriam Ibrahim, who was being basically tortured in a Sudanese prison, for believing in Christ, and she was remembering John 15, "The world that hated me will hate you also," and that gave her strength to know that it wasn't meaningless, but she was suffering with Christ. And under the former communist regime, Romanian Christians were sentenced for singing about Jesus in public, and so then they knelt and thanked God for the privilege of suffering for Christ. In much of the world, that's, that's how Christians can endure their sufferings. They, they look back to the cross, and they say, "We love Jesus so much, and we have the privilege of identifying with Him." I think in the US-... We are used to all the things that shield us from sufferings. I mean, again, not always we- suffering is unavoidable, but sometimes we are so much a part of our culture that we can't see where our culture [chuckles] is impacting us. Like, if materialism or everything being driven by marketing, consumer Christianity, [chuckles] and so on, some other parts of the world can see that in us, and we can often see the weaknesses that Christians in some other parts of the world have. Sometimes it's harder to see our own because we're so used to them.
Scott Rae:Craig, people handle suffering in a wide variety of different ways, and some people handle it really well, others hand- don't handle it very well at all. So for better, for better or for worse, what are some of the things that happen to people's faith when they experience suffering?
Craig Keener:Yeah, some people have said that suffering can make you bitter, or it can make you better. Biblically, you've got, like, 1 Peter 1-7, "The testing of your faith may be found to result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." Or Romans 5, "Tribulation yields perseverance, proven character." Or James 1-3,"The testing of your faith produces endurance." You know, when the devil is looking to test us, he wants us to fall. But at the same time, when it speaks in the Bible of God testing us, God is testing us to show that He's able to keep us. He's, He's testing us for a positive outcome. And yeah, people can respond either way. And I have to confess, this isn't my favorite suff- my favorite[chuckles] topic. Like, I did a book on miracles, a couple books on miracles, and the testimonies there are very enjoyable. And the testimonies in this book are more, Well, it's the other side. I mean, the Bible has both. So, the testimonies in this book are just to remind us that, yes, these things happen to everybody, and we need to be, we need to be ready for them.
Scott Rae:Some of these, some of these stories, Craig, were hard to read.
Craig Keener:Yeah.
Scott Rae:And I mean, there's... And there are, there are a lot of, there are a lot of stories in here that are very powerful. So what do you, what do you say to the person for whom God seems silent in the midst of their suffering? They pray constantly, fervently, and He just doesn't act to relieve it.
Craig Keener:Paul did pray three times before he got an answer, and then the answer was no. [chuckles] And the same thing in Gethsemane. It doesn't hurt to pray, but sometimes, like in Job's case, and you often have this in the Psalms, where God isn't answering or isn't answering on our schedule, and it's all right to pour out our hearts before God. We see in both of those books that they complain before God. [chuckles] They try to make their case before God. So it can actually drive us to a deeper form of prayer. Of course, the Bible also talks about when it's inarticulate, we can't even articulate-
Scott Rae:Mm-hmm
Craig Keener:... So we have these inarticulate groanings, but God hears those prayers, just like He heard the sighs of Israel because of their bondage and ultimately delivered them, but that took a few generations. [chuckles] God's time isn't our time, and He's promised us, I mean, there's coming a day when He's gonna wipe away every tear from our eyes. But God has all the time in eternity, and in the light of eternity, we'll look back, and we'll understand those things.
Sean McDowell:Craig, persecution historically has arguably led the Church to becoming stronger, at least according to Tertullian and others.
Craig Keener:Yes.
Sean McDowell:But we also consider religious freedom a good thing, and I'm curious how you balance these two seemingly contradictory notions. 'Cause we often hear people s- talk about, you know, defending religious liberty in America, the right to live and proclaim the Gospel as a good. But you said earlier, suffering makes us bitter or better. If there were suffering, and we lost religious liberty, some could also argue that that would cause us to depend upon the Spirit, grow, and become better Christians. So in your mind, [chuckles] how do you balance these two seemingly contradictory notions?
Craig Keener:Jesus tells us that, to pray that we not enter into temptation. [chuckles] So we're not actually praying for persecution, although the Bible does say that all those who want to live godly in Christ Jesus- ... Will face persecution. But it's not to the same degree everywhere. So you have the Smyrna and Philadelphia, among the seven churches in Asia Minor, were suffering churches, and they're not rebuked for anything. And then you have the other churches, where they actually do get, rebuked in varying degrees. But we each have our tests. They're not always persecution, and whatever our test is, we're called to overcome. And sometimes that may be the test of materialism or consumerism or whatever, but persecution can be good for us. But we don't get to choose our tests. We just are called to overcome. We should celebrate religious freedom, we should celebrate the gifts we have, and we should work for that around the world. We, we don't volunteer for suffering. We're not masochists. But when it comes in the will of God, then, well, whatever situation we're in, we try to use it for God's glory.
Scott Rae:So Craig, on the subject of persecution in particular, you describe a lot of events in the book where persecutors come against the believers with the intent to beat them, kill them, rape women, take children into slavery. What, what, if any-... Right or obligation do these believers have in self-defense? How would you, how would you balance the notion of, you know, a ri- a right to defend our children, for example, and some of the instances of persecution here?
Craig Keener:Yeah. I know when I was beaten, obviously, I d- I didn't wanna... I didn't strike back. I was being beaten for my witness, and I didn't wanna hurt my witness. And actually, for that matter, the people who were beating me were stronger than I was anyway, [chuckles] so it wouldn't have done any good. [laughing] But this came up with a friend of mine from Northern Nigeria back in the '90s. So most of the stuff we hear about persecution in Nigeria has been in more recent years and, you know, going back to the founding of Boko Haram, but it was already going on in Northern Nigeria and the Middle Belt in the 1990s. I spent three summers there at that time, and a really close friend and I were debating this. I was, I was talking about, okay, turning the other cheek, and so on. At the same time, he was saying, "This isn't, like, individual persecution. This is like..." Well, at the current level, it's like genocide. It's a religious cleansing in some places. But he was, he was saying, "You know, so we get, we get chased out. We get displaced. Where do we go?" I mean, these are farmers. Nobody else is gonna give them land to farm on. What can we do? And actually, we both kind of flipped sides. [chuckles] Like, I was like, "Okay, non-resistance, turn the other cheek," but then I started thinking, "Well, actually, maybe this is a different kind of situation." and I kind of converted him more towards pacifism, [chuckles] and he kind of converted me more towards just war, I guess.
Scott Rae:Mm-hmm. Huh.
Craig Keener:But yeah, these are-
Scott Rae:Interesting
Craig Keener:... These are certainly debated issues, but on the, on the individual level or in evangelism contexts, obviously, we don't strike back. We're there to honor the Lord, who didn't strike back at the cross, who gave His life- ... For us, who were His enemies.
Sean McDowell:Craig, you have a lot to say about medical suffering, healing, and medicine. You've witnessed lots of medical healing apart from medicine, and, of course, you talk about some of these stories in your books on miracles. And you also point out that we see much more of this healing in the developing world than we do today in the West. Why do you think that seems to be or really is actually the case?
Craig Keener:Actually, just to throw this in, a couple years ago, at the Holy Spirit Conference at Biola, we were talking about healing, and somebody came forward at the end. You know, we were just doing an academic conference, but she had, she was effectively blind in one eye, and she asked us to pray for her. [chuckles] And so we prayed for her, and, she went, she went back to her seat. She was afraid to take the patch off her eye. She wasn't sure what was gonna happen, but she took it off, and then she runs up to us, and she says,"It's healed, it's healed!"
Sean McDowell:Oh, my goodness.
Scott Rae:Wow.
Craig Keener:Yeah, [chuckles] so that happened at Biola.[chuckles]
Sean McDowell:Why are you just telling us now, Craig?[laughing]
Scott Rae:[laughing]
Craig Keener:Well, you're just interviewing me about this now. Anyway. [laughing]
Sean McDowell:Fair enough. [laughing]
Craig Keener:So but in terms of why it happens more often in some parts of the world, I mean, keep in mind that we have, we have a great gift. I mean, medical technology is God's gift. In, in 2018, the US had 25.7 doctors for every 10,000 people. The Democratic Republic of Congo had one for every 10,000 people.
Sean McDowell:Oh.
Scott Rae:Yikes.
Craig Keener:So that's about 4% of the US figure. In some countries, the rate of babies dying during birth is 10 times what it is in the US. So I mean, we al- we already have a gift, and my friends in Africa, when I ask them about miracles, they say, "Hey, don't complain. [chuckles] You've got medical technology."
Scott Rae:Yeah.
Craig Keener:"That's God's gift."
Sean McDowell:Yeah.
Craig Keener:So, at the same time, I mean, He doesn't do miracles just to entertain us. So He fed the 5,000, then says, "Gather up the fragments that remain." Why? They're not gonna need a miracle for their next meal. [laughing]
Sean McDowell:[laughing]
Craig Keener:But also, the more dramatic signs and wonders, not that these are the only times God heals by any means, but the most dramatic tend to occur, like in the Gospels and Acts, on the cutting edge of evangelism. So where new ground is being broken for the Gospel is where we most often see them, not exclusively. But also, I think, and this is, this is more sad to say, I think that in many parts of the world, people are readier to trust God. Part of that is due to the influence of David Hume in the West, an Enlightenment philosopher, and I think part of it is that we are... We've become dependent on God's gifts and sometimes forget to look to the God who stands behind those gifts.
Scott Rae:Fair enough. Now, a couple more questions here, Craig. You've got an, a whole chapter on financial suffering, which I take it is a bit different in the developing world than in the West, but how do you reassure someone that God takes care of us without succumbing to the prosperity gospel?
Craig Keener:Not everybody defines the prosperity gospel the same way. Some people, I was surprised to find, some people, when they talk about it, all they mean is God supplying their needs, [chuckles] and they're praying desperately for God to supply their needs. But then you have the people who are talking about, you know, God giving us, everything we want or, you know, helping us buy yachts or planes or whatever. [chuckles] so yeah, in many parts of the world-... People are just looking to God for their daily bread, like we're supposed to pray for.
Scott Rae:Mm-hmm.
Craig Keener:And the Bible does invite us to trust God to supply our basic needs. But when Jesus says, you know, the, "Look at, look to the flowers of the field, look to the, birds of the air," what he talks about God supplying there are things like food and clothing. [chuckles] So not, not wealth by Western standards. And, oh, there's so much in the Bible about this, and then through church history, too. I mean, obviously, you have the m- different renewal movements. When the church was becoming very prosperous in history, you had monastic sects that tried to say, "No, let's not be corrupted by wealth." You had, the Wesley and his movement, in their first generation. You had, Charles Finney and others. Just lots of people calling the church back to, you know, "Let's use our resources for the gospel. Let's use our resources to share with, with those in need, and not, not just try to be wealthy for our own, our own sake."
Scott Rae:Craig, I'm gonna ask you perhaps the toughest question that can be asked, and, of course, we see this in The Brothers Karamazov, when the case is being made about evil. The suffering caused to kids is just, like, the worst example of evil, and I... You know, I went through different levels of suffering in my life, but seeing your own kids suffer is just-
Craig Keener:Yeah
Scott Rae:... In some ways, indescribable. Well, you talk about, in your summary at the end of the book, that suffering produces character. What would you say to someone who's lost a child, for example, and would gladly give up any character development to have their child back?
Craig Keener:Yeah, me, too. [chuckles] I mean, I can certainly empathize with that. My, my wife and I went through a series of miscarriages, and our son actually, due to a genetic thing, had, complete liver failure. But, I mean, God provided for him. This was, this was, again, through medical technology, and actually, maybe 20 years ago, this wouldn't have even been possible. But [clears throat] they... Once they listed him for a liver transplant, the next day they found a match, and [chuckles] the next day he had a new liver. Um-
Scott Rae:That's remarkable.
Craig Keener:But it was that, it was that urgent. So[chuckles] I mean, the anguish at the time when we didn't know what was gonna happen, though, reminds us of[clears throat] yeah, just there's a lot of suffering in the world, and this world groans in birth pangs for the world to come. But we live in light of hope. Jesus inaugurated the kingdom and, you know, demonstrated it with signs and wonders, but suffering and death remain until the kingdom's consummation at his return. So not every suffering... And again, I'm not trying to get into the Calvinism or Arminianism, but not every suffering is directly caused by God. Some things are just, you know, the world is fallen, and sometimes God delivers us from the effects of that, and sometimes he doesn't. But when he does it for anybody, it's a reminder to all of us of his ultimate promise and the world to come. So, it's not like people talk about, "Well, it's just pie in the sky. You just talk about the future." What God has done in history and what God does today show us that he is serious about this, and these are reminders of his promise that there is a better world coming. But on the existential, personal level, when we go through that, again, the Bible gives us plenty of examples of people just pouring out their hearts to God and saying, "God, I don't understand this."
Scott Rae:Craig, one final question. You bring up, that it's possible to have joy in the midst of suffering. How, how do you do that?
Craig Keener:Yeah, this was not s- this was not a chapter that I wanted to include in the book, because [chuckles] I'm not very good at this one. But one of my friends who was insisting that we put it in there, and he's in a situation where he faces potential martyrdom fairly often, he insisted this be in there, and it is in the Bible. So the Bible says, James 1- "Consider it all joy when you face various tests, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance." Jesus himself, Luke chapter 6, verses 22 and 23, "Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you, and insult you, and scorn your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and jump for joy, for behold, your reward is great in Heaven, for their fathers used to treat the prophets the same way." So we can look back at our place in history. We can look at those who've come before us, and also we look, we look ahead. Like it says, you know, Hebrews 11 gives us all these heroes of the faith, and then in chapter 12, it comes to the ultimate hero of our faith, Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, embracing its shame, and is set down at the right hand of God. Because we know God's promise, we can have joy in the midst of suffering, because we know what awaits us beyond that.
Scott Rae:Amen. That's good stuff, Craig. It's a great way... It's a great way to end this. Thanks so much for being with us. I want to commend your book to our listeners, Suffering- Its Meaning for the Spirit-Filled Life. It is full of accounts of, of various kinds, and there's really good material in there also about how to deal with suffering, how to find joy in suffering, and how to deal especially with the notion of, what our brothers and sisters around the world who are being persecuted for their faith are dealing with. So, Craig, appreciate you sort of taking a, a bit of a break from your, work on Bible commentaries and the-
Craig Keener:Yeah
Scott Rae:... Academic New Testament work you're doing to write this. I think this will be a big help to many folks out there.
Craig Keener:Well, thank you so much, Scott.
Scott Rae:This has been an episode of the podcast Think Biblically- Conversations on Faith and Culture, brought to you by Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, with programs in Southern California and online, at the, both the master's and the bachelor's, in those arenas. If you'd like to submit comments, or ask questions, or make suggestions on issues you'd like us to cover or guests you'd like us to consider, email us at thinkbiblically@biola.edu. If you enjoyed today's conversation with our friend, Dr. Craig Keener, please give us a rating on your podcast app, and do share it with a friend. And join us on Friday for our weekly cultural update. In the meantime, remember, think biblically about everything.[upbeat music]