Pastor Chris’ Corona Quarantine Epistles to the Flock of AIC Ngong Road, in Dispersion and Isolation. 67th. Edition.
Dear People whose Names Are Written in the Lamb’s Book of Life,
In today’s passage (James 5:10-11) we discuss suffering. For the early church, suffering was part of their daily lives. If it wasn’t the Jewish people, who considered the Christian faith a corruption of their religion, then it was the Romans who considered Christians traitors, because they would not worship Caesar but had their own “Lord” who took glory from Caesar. Nobody loves to suffer, and believers must have wished that God would rescue them from persecution. Instead, they are encouraged to imitate the Example of the Prophets (v. 10). If anyone in the Old Testament deserved the protection of God, it was the prophets. They were God’s mouthpiece, proclaiming his word as he would have it spoken. Yet many of them were persecuted by the very people to whom they proclaimed God’s saving word, and God let them suffer! But instead of complaining and faulting God, the prophets were a model of patience.
We are to imitate them and the Endurance of Job (v. 11). If ever there was an upright man, it was Job. God himself testifies of Job that he was “a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil.” Yet God allowed Satan to visit an avalanche of calamities upon Job. Instead of complaining and faulting God, Job persevered. Unbeknown to Job, there was an “intended end” to his suffering, and this shows that even in the most paradoxical situations, God is “compassionate and merciful.”
Remember Chapter One? There is a purpose to everything that happens to us, suffering included (1:2-4). To Imitate the example of the prophets and Endure like Job.
Your Loving Pastor Chris.