I love good, godly advice. But as I was sharing my preparation to teach the women in my church recently on a theology of suffering, someone online reached out to make sure I taught that it was always God’s will to heal, and if he doesn’t, it’s because we lack faith. I did not take her advice.
What this woman described is filed under the Prosperity Gospel. And the words she typed on her keyboard display one of the most harmful false teachings on the topic of suffering to have ever existed.
But it’s not the only one. After all, there are lies about suffering trickled into every denomination. Even those who seem to have all their theological ducks in a row are not immune to poor theology about suffering. These lies and half-truths are there every time a saint is judged for their tears or told to be grateful because others have it worse. Poor theology about suffering pops up in flippant comments like, “Just trust God,” or “Once you stop idolizing a baby, God will give you one.” It’s even there when sorrow strikes and our first thought is: Am I being punished? Do I not love God enough?
There are a myriad of ways bad theology about suffering is utterly harmful to the Body of Christ. Here are just three:
Bad Theology About Suffering Promotes Isolation
Imagine sharing with your small group about your loneliness and desire for a family only to hear the all-too-common response, “At least you have time to yourself.” Or maybe you open up to an older family member about your chronic pain and hear, “You’re young! Just wait until you’re old like me.”
Responses like these are unbelievably common in the Church. And they shut down the cries for help of the suffering. Instead of weeping with those who are weeping (Rom. 12:15), we encourage them to take their weeping somewhere else.
Those who subscribe to the prosperity gospel certainly feel the need to isolate when they are facing ongoing trials. They know that to admit their suffering would mean to those around them that they simply don’t have enough faith.
Both of these scenarios push people into becoming a recluse—a dangerous place to be for a believer.
Bad Theology About Suffering Skews Our View of God
If God’s people react with such dismissal of our tears, then how does that affect our view of God himself? If we feel we can’t take our pain to our brothers and sisters in Christ, then does God want to hear of our sorrow?
Bad theology about suffering can also come from within our own wayward hearts. We are all prone to unbelief. We might wonder, does God care? Or does he just want us to get over it? Is he frustrated by our struggle, looking down on us saying, “Don’t you know I’m using this for your good? Why can’t you just trust me?!”
No. God is our Father, and a gentle one, at that. He pays such close attention to our grief that David wrote, “You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?” (Ps. 56:8).
When we believe God is distant in our suffering, we will isolate ourselves from him, too. We won’t bow before his throne, bringing him our questions, our laments, our grief (Heb. 4:16). And in refusing to do so, we rob ourselves of communing with him in our suffering. Oh, what harm is done when we believe lies about how God relates to us in our suffering.
Bad Theology About Suffering Leads People Away from Christ
It’s easy to see how the lies found in the prosperity gospel lead people to question their faith. They have prayed for healing for many weeks and to no end. The people around them are telling them they just need more faith. But when your faith is measured by your earthly circumstances in a world full of brokenness, who can stand? Many have sprung up like seedlings in rocky ground under the rooftop of this false gospel, receiving it with joy, but because they have “no root in [themselves], [they] endure for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately [they] fall away” (Matt. 13:21).
But there are also many who have walked away from the faith due to mishandling of their suffering from church leaders and laypeople in otherwise biblically faithful churches. If we have perfect orthodoxy (doctrine), yet unfaithful orthopraxy (practice), what have we gained? As Paul writes, “And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:1–3).
As the Church, we are accountable for our responses to the sufferers among us. We must put off poor theology about suffering and put on the ways of Christ—the one who wept with the weeping (John. 11:35). The one who had perfect faith and obedience, yet still endured the cross. The one who suffered most, yet still cares about your suffering.
