Catholic Verses - 95 Bibles Passages That Confound Protestants?
SHARING IN CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS
Page 127: Philippians 3:10. Romans 8:17. These passages illustrate the central place of suffering in the Christian life. In Romans 8:17 this motif comes right in the midst of a Pauline teaching widely considered by Protestants to be a joyful, "triumphal" exhortation. The biblical worldview incorporates suffering and joy side by side. They are not seen as incompatible or contradictory.
Note: One Christian focus will be on the love of God not the sufferings caused by a sin-sick world.
Romans 8:35-39 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Note: In context, Christians in Rome during the first century A.D. were regularly rounded up and murdered.
Page 128: There is no need to consult commentaries at this point, for our purposes. They will not deny that a Christian needs to, and can expect to, suffer. It is only certain strains of Evangelical Protestantism (particularly one brand of Pentecostal, "name it, claim it" Protestantism, which assets that believers can have whatever they like merely by having enough faith to "claim" it) that try to pretend that suffering is foreign to the Christian life (in extreme cases), who ignore this crucial aspect of the passage. They pass right over it as if it were not even there.
Note: Another Christian focus will be on Jesus Christ not the sufferings caused by a sin-sick world.
Philippians 3:7-11 But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. from the law, but that which
Pages 128-129: Most Evangelicals do not take it that far, yet still minimize the place of suffering, and hence, of the related notion, penance. This represents a scandalous lack of understanding of the deeper, more difficult aspects of Christianity. My emphasis here is simply that such suffering is directly tied to the spiritual benefits of a Christian, derived from Christ, and that this aspect or factor cannot be underestimated. In Romans 8:17 it is very clear: unless we suffer, we cannot be glorified with Christ (no reward without the sweat and the toil).
Note: Another Christian focus will be our destination namely heaven not the sufferings caused by a sin-sick world.
Hebrews 11:13-16 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.
Note: A Christian's endurance of current sufferings and obtaining future rewards are through faith in Jesus Christ.