Following Sunday’s sermon (link) on Judges 2:7-15, someone asked me a good question about God’s discipline. I figure if one person is thinking this question, there are probably others. So hopefully this is helpful. Here’s the question:
“Is all suffering discipline? Is suffering ever just suffering?”
If you didn’t hear the sermon, or you don’t plan on hearing the sermon, here’s what I said to prompt that question:
“When God’s enemies suffer, they are being punished. When God’s children suffer, they are being disciplined. Pain and suffering, for God’s children, is a good thing that softens the heart – It’s purpose is transformation. On the other hand, pain and suffering, for God’s enemies, hardens the heart and leads to further rebellion – It’s purpose is retribution.”
So, to rephrase the question, “Does this mean that every time I (as a Christian) am experiencing pain or suffering, God is disciplining me?” or “Is the suffering in my life always an act of discipline from God?”
My short answer to that question is “Yes.” But I think my “yes” will be confusing without a couple additional points about God’s discipline…
1. There is a difference between God’s discipline of his children and man’s discipline of his children. I think that point has to be made because when we hear the word “discipline” we probably think of our parent’s discipline of us, or our discipline of our children. And while man’s discipline and God’s discipline should share a common purpose (see point 2), they are prompted and carried out differently. Let me explain…
Biblically, and simply put, man’s discipline of his children involves meeting a child’s disobedience with a painful consequence (Proverbs 13:24; 22:15; Hebrews 12:7, 11). While God’s discipline is prompted and carried out this way at times (i.e. Jonah, Peter, David) this is not the normative way of God’s discipline in the Bible.
Can you see how this understanding would look if it were exhaustively applied to all suffering people in your life? Do you know anyone with cancer? Let’s say her name is Rachel. If we say God’s discipline is the same as man’s discipline (“meeting a child’s disobedience with a painful consequence”) then we’re saying Rachel’s fight with cancer is a painful consequence resulting from her disobedience.
But that interpretation doesn’t work if you’re reading John 9. There, Jesus and his disciples encounter a man who was born blind. Their question for Jesus, based on the above understanding of discipline, was “who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). Do you remember Jesus’ response? He said “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:3). So Rachel, who let’s say is 6, and has cancer, is not suffering because God is giving her a metaphorical spanking. Rachel, according to John 9, has cancer so that God can display something beautiful in her.
While man’s discipline is more of an event, connected to a particular sin, God’s discipline is more of a purposeful process.
2. There is a similarity between God’s discipline of his children and man’s discipline of his children. They are both, (assuming man’s discipline is carried out in a Biblical, God-honoring way), driven by the same purpose. And what is that purpose? Transformation. When we discipline our children, we are on a rescue mission, seeking the transformation of our children for the better.
So it is with God. When he brings suffering into the lives of his children, it is part of his great rescue mission, as he seeks the transformation of his children for their joy, knowing that pain and suffering will ultimately be for their good.
Hebrews 12:7-8; 5-6
It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
"My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
6For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives."
Hopefully my answer to the above question now makes more sense - Yes, when a Christian is suffering they are being disciplined, as long as we understand that God’s discipline is the loving, purposeful introduction of pain and suffering into someone’s life as a means of transforming them into something far more beautiful and honoring to God.
Finally, I think this truth is more for the comfort of the suffering than the curiosity of the content. This truth, while not making suffering any less painful, keeps it from being trivialized or seen as arbitrary. The good news, seen in God’s loving discipline, is that God is often loving us most when we feel it the least.
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