Suffering In The Old Testament By Mia Turner

Suffering in the Old Versus New Testament - Mia Turner Few experiences in life are more universal than suffering. Everyone has experienced suffering in some form, whether it be sickness, heartbreak, loss, or another form. Suffering is not a part of life that humans can avoid, but this does not mean it is completely without meaning. A question that often plagues Christian minds is “Why do good things happen to bad people?” The Bible provides evidence that attempts to answer this age-old question through a few different perspectives. Suffering, a theme seen all throughout the Bible, shifts from being seen as the product of sin and disobedience in the Old Testament to being seen as a way for believers to share in the suffering of Christ as they

The book of Genesis says that God created the world and then created man in the form of Adam. Adam needed a companion, so God created woman in the form of Eve. God placed Adam and Eve into a perfect world, where they remained until they were tempted to sin by Satan and expelled from the garden. Their decision to disobey is called the fall, which comes with a consequence: a curse that God put on the earth as a response to their sin. God speaks to Adam in Genesis, saying, “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life” (Genesis 3:17 NIV). The original sin brought forth pain and suffering into the world, which was not God’s original plan for his people. This idea is called inherited sin. Man inherited sin, and therefore inherited suffering, from Adam and Eve. Genesis reveals the first example of suffering caused by the sin and disobedience of one

Although humans’ nature is to sin, which let suffering into the world, Jesus died so that the sinners may be saved. A passage that is crucial for the understanding of Biblical suffering in the New Testament is this “Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification” (Romans 5:16 NIV). Though suffering was brought into the world by one man’s sin, everyone can be saved from sin because of another man’s suffering and