Making Sense Of Suffering Series

William Jackson was a slave in the home of Confederate president Jefferson Davis during the Civil War. It turns out he was also a spy for the Union Army, providing key secrets to the North about the Confederacy. Jackson was Davis' house servant and personal coachman. He learned high-level details about Confederate battle plans and movements because Davis saw him as a “piece of furniture.” Jefferson Davis ignored his slave, William Jackson, and would discuss military plans and strategies because he just simply ignored his presence. Jackson, in turn, took this information across enemy lines to the Union forces in the North. The use of slaves and the place of slavery has been an blight on the history of America. Abraham Lincoln and the Union rightly fought for the end of slavery more than a century ago. We like a story like this one of slave William Jackson and Confederate leader Jefferson Davis. We think to ourselves that Davis got exactly what he deserved by his actions. Yet, what about those slaves who never got a measure of revenge against cruel treatment?

Readers of the Bible will find no blanket condemnation of slavery. Instead, what you’ll find are ethical guidelines for slaves and slave-owners to adhere to. What you’ll also find is as surprising as it is revolutionary.

“Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:18-23).

This text is bigger than slavery itself. If you are a follower of Christ, God has called you to endure unjust suffering without bitterness, anger, or the desire for revenge, but instead you are to do good to those who hurt you. How do I know that this applies to everyone and not just slaves? “Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. 9 Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing” (1 Peter 3:8-9). This message is to be applied to all believers in how they respond to injustice. This is not to say that Christians should not seek justice in society by working in the legal systems. Paul demanded an apology from the Roman authorities in Philippi when they wrongly beat Silas and Paul in Acts 16:35-40. We cannot conclude that Christians should simply absorb injustice when legal recourse is available. This is a very different way to respond to pain and injustice than the world. Speaking of suffering and pain, one individual was quoted as saying: “This isn’t a philosophical issue to me. This is personal. I won’t believe in a God who allows suffering, even if he, she, or it exists. Maybe God exists. Maybe not. But if he does, he can’t be trusted.” Those are chilling words.

How you react the inevitable pain and suffering in your life will be a telltale sign of what you really believe. Timothy Keller says, “If you have a God great and transcendent enough to be mad at because He hasn’t stopped evil and suffering in the world, then you have (at the same moment) a God great and transcendent enough to have good reasons for allowing it to continue that you can’t know. Indeed you can’t have it both ways.”

Let’s say it another way. Alvin Plantinga has said: “Could there really be such thing as horrifying wickedness [if there were no God and we just evolved]? I don’t see how. There can be such a thing only if there is a way that rational creatures are supposed to live, obliged to live…. A [secular] way of looking at the world has no place for genuine moral obligation of any sort … and thus no way to say there is such a thing as genuine and appalling wickedness. Accordingly, if you think there really is such a thing as horrifying wickedness …, then you have a powerful … argument [for the reality of God].”

Let’s remember the context. Verse 9: you are an elect, or chosen, nation, and a people for God’s own possession. Your reason for existence is to “proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). Then, verse 11: Therefore you are strangers and aliens in this world and your goal is to live such a life that people would glorify God. So verse 9 and verse 11 give the same goal for Christians: live in a way that shows God.