关于苦难与试炼的14节经文，以及“炼金”比喻的局限性

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 —…