Through Many Tribulations

Acts 14:21-23

When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.

N. T. Wright, Acts for Everyone (Part Two)

The worrying thing, of course, is this: when Paul and Barnabas laid hands on the newly appointed elders, and then left them to it, that didn’t mean they were automatically “safe.” Indeed, it probably meant that that was when new times of testing would burst in on them. That is often how it works. But Paul meant what he said in verse 22: it is through much suffering that we shall enter God’s kingdom. And sometimes the suffering comes in the form of terrible, church-dividing controversy (36).

Aaron Orendorff

There’s nothing romantic about suffering in the moment. Many beautiful and profound words may be said in expectation and reflection, but the point of suffering is just that: suffering. No matter how prepared you are or how cross-centered your theology, suffering hurts (particularly in the first round). We may arm ourselves so as not to be blindsided nor sinfully provoked, but pain is still (nonetheless) pain. This, of course, is not by defect, but by design. Suffering is supposed to hurt.

So then, what makes suffering bearable in the short term and profitable in the long? Just this: it is in the suffering that Christ is known. Paul described the pattern like this: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Phil. 3:10-11). Here in v. 22, Luke echoes Paul’s sentiments: “through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”

The journey isn’t easy. But again: that’s the point. To have a crucified King means living a crucified life.