14 Bible Verses on Hardships and Trials, and Where the Refining Image Stops

Christian Pure Team

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Zusammenfassung

  • Refining does not improve the metal or add to it: the heat separates out what was never metal, which is a precise and narrow promise.
  • Peter picks gold, the most durable substance his readers knew, and points out that it does not last either.
  • Paul calls his thorn a messenger of Satan, so he did not think every affliction came from God’s hand.
  • Romans 8:28 says God works in all things, which is not the sentence “all things are good”.
  • Job’s friends spend thirty chapters explaining his suffering and are told at the end that they had not spoken rightly.

Scripture’s main image for a hard season is metallurgy, and the metaphor has a limit worth knowing. A crucible for silver, a furnace for gold, faith refined by fire. In refining, the metal is not improved and nothing is added to it; the heat separates out what was never metal in the first place. That is a precise picture, and it does not fit every hard thing that happens to us. Scripture also records suffering that is simply evil —…

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Literaturverzeichnis (Zum Anzeigen klicken)

Die Bibelzitate stammen aus der „New International Version“.

Paul calls the thorn a messenger of Satan at 2 Corinthians 12:7, and describes his despair at 2 Corinthians 1:8.

Jesus rejects both explanations for the man’s blindness at John 9:3.

God’s verdict on Job’s friends is at Job 42:7.

Das griechische katartizo at 1 Peter 5:10 is used of mending nets at Matthew 4:21.

Joseph’s account of what his brothers intended is at Genesis 50:20.

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