Ajith Fernando, The Call to Joy and Pain: Embracing Suffering in Your Ministry (Wheaton: Crossway, 2007), 192 pages, ISBN 9781581348880.

The Call to Joy and Pain by Ajith Fernando is a provocative analysis of the issue of pain and suffering. While he does not treat the cosmic problem of the reason for suffering in the world, he does consider at some length the concurrently difficult problem of suffering for the believer. He rejects the pervasive notion that Christians should not suffer; that indeed something is wrong when they do. In contrast, he strongly advocates that “something is seriously wrong not when Christians suffer but when they do not have the joy of the Lord” (p. 10). His main theme is just that—both suffering and joy are essential to the Christian life (p. 15).

Fernando interweaves exegesis of the New Testament texts with personal experiences and anecdotal situations, thus creating a strong position. This little book is laid out in four main sections, entitled: (1) “Suffering and Joy are Basic to Christianity”; (2) “Suffering Brings Us Nearer to Christ;” (3) “Our Suffering Helps the Church;” and (4) “Servants of the Church.” Each of these is further broken down into subsections, which provide ideal elements for devotional or meditational study. This is not to imply that Fernando’s work lacks scholarly analysis or contribution to this field. Indeed, his exegesis is noteworthy for scholars and pastors alike. This fine little book goes beyond platitudes or ‘bon mots’ and tackles with a solid hermeneutic the problem of joy in the face of pain and suffering. Ajith Fernando’s viewpoint is largely based on a theology, anthropology, and even soteriology, derived from the Pauline tradition, without yielding to the temptation to proof text. Fernando’s thesis is aptly condensed into a thought he expressed early in the book, “So, according to the Bible, joy and pain can coexist. Christians don’t talk about suffering unless they also talk about the joy of suffering. It is the joy that makes the cross worthwhile, for it gives us the strength to bear it” (p. 19; cf., Neh. 8:10).

Fernando calls God’s people to put into practice a well-rounded and comforting evangelism.

The author explores the three things he sees as being needed to experience joy in the midst of pain: lament, consideration of our trials to be joyful, and surrender. Of these, the one we find most poignant is the last. Fernando writes, “If we cling to anything in life, even a good thing, that thing will surely take away our joys” (p. 43). This harkens back to the message of many, if not almost all, spiritual masters, not the least of which is St. Ignatius in his Spiritual Exercises (cf., SE, 23)¹. We all know these things on something of a cloudy level, but Fernando brings home the point cogently and convincingly. Incidentally, although Fernando’s scope is primarily the Pauline tradition, his thesis is also supported by the Petrine tradition (cf., 1 Peter).

Reviewed by Thomas Doyle and Rebecca Skaggs

¹ “Therefore, we must make ourselves indifferent to all created things, as far as we are allowed free choice and are not under any prohibition.”

About the Authors

Thomas Doyle, M.Div., did his studies in theology at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific. He is a long-standing participant in the Charismatic Renewal of the Catholic and Episcopal Churches. He is presently Director of The Metanoia Ministry, an evangelically-based counseling ministry in the San Francisco Bay area.

The Pneuma Review had an opportunity to speak with Ajith Fernando, the national director of Youth For Christ in Sri Lanka, about his recent book The Call to Joy and Pain. This book has received the 2008 Book Award from Christianity Today in the church and pastoral leadership category. We believe that you will likewise recognize the biblically-centered wisdom of Brother Fernando as he talks with us about the paradox of God’s provision and the call to endure hardship for the sake of Jesus and his story.

Ajith Fernando, The Call to Joy and Pain: Embracing Suffering in Your Ministry (Wheaton: Crossway, 2007).
Read the review by Thomas Doyle and Rebecca Skaggs

Pneuma Review: Please tell us a little about yourself and why you wrote The Call to Joy and Pain.

Ajith Fernando: I live in a country that has faced great tragedy for the past 25 years or so. We have an ongoing war that has claimed at least 70,000 lives, a revolution that claimed thousands more young people, and then the tsunami which took about 40,000 lives. Many, many people have left Sri Lanka, especially because of the welfare of their children. But my wife and I have been convinced that we are called to live and die here. We had to develop reasons for why we are staying on, especially reasons that made it good for our children to stay. This made me think a lot about how Christians respond to suffering.

But even more significantly, I came to the conclusion some years ago that joy is one of the most important features of Christianity. Coming as the second fruit of the Spirit it meant that the Bible teaches that holy people are happy people. My wife and I were convinced that, amidst all the suffering in Sri Lanka, the most valuable heritage we can give our two children was a home filled with the joy of the Lord to which they can come after facing the rigors of life in a hostile world.

Yet I know so many unhappy Christians. These are good people who have sought to obey God while others compromised and disobeyed. But they seem to suffer from a deep disappointment with the way life has treated them. I have grappled with this a lot and still grapple with it—pleading with God to help me to introduce these people to the joy of the Lord which is our strength amidst suffering.

These experiences and struggles convinced me that I must write this book. Because the truths in the Bible do not apply only to countries like Sri Lanka but all over the world, even in relatively peaceful and affluent countries. Yet soon in my study, I made the amazing discovery that the Bible almost never talks about suffering without talking about the rewards of it. And I also found that often the reward the Bible speaks of is joy. Therefore I decided I will not write on suffering without also writing about the joy which accompanies it and makes it bearable.

Ajith Fernando, Sharing the Truth in Love: How to relate to people of other faiths (Grand Rapids: Discovery House Publishers, 2001), 287 pages.

Ajith Fernando lives and works in Sri Lanka as the head of Youth for Christ, an organization that will meet with the approval of just about everyone who reads this book review. We like the organization and its outreach for the Lord Jesus Christ, but where Fernando lives and works, YFC’s reception is a little different and sometimes the tension that conversion to Christ brings to a household is overwhelming and even scary.

Fernando wrote a book fifteen years ago, and this is a rewrite of much of what he then presented. He discusses the weighty topics of pluralism, fundamentalism and inclusivism—exploring how Christians should understand these terms. How can we dialogue with and persuade people of the truth of Jesus? What can you do when you are charged with arrogance and intolerance?

We learn about general and special revelation. How does the God of the Bible compare with other gods? Fernando presents a short but insightful explanation of Far Eastern faiths. I found this quite interesting since I live in a community where my WASP (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant) background is in the minority and most of my neighbors and fellow churchgoers are Asian. How does the Asian think and why?

The well-written book is comprehensive in its presentation of evangelical theology. We learn of the pitfalls that Fernando has faced, and that the Christian needs certain disciplines if she is to survive outside the Christian ghetto. These disciplines are the Scriptures, the Christian community and the Great Commission.

The Scriptures are terribly important when we interact with the heights of non-Christian reasoning. Prolonged contact with unredeemed systems of thought can cause us to drink in features that contradict God’s word. There is a great gulf between the highest human thought and God’s thoughts. Mere human thought, which has not been exposed and sanctified by divine revelation, can seem comfortable and has an inherent appeal to us. For example, the uniqueness of Christ tends to fade when we are faced with the ideas of religious pluralism—the idea that there is more than one way to God and that we are all pilgrims on their way to finding the One to whom we owe all. That sure sounds logical and so sensible and sensitive, and not agreeing is embarrassing and awkward. After all, we really are looking for light in our relationships to nature and to each other. However, the experience of the power of the Gospel takes away our shame over the scandal—the particularity of the Gospel. When we share the truth in love and in the power of the Spirit, God breaks into our lives and people are changed when they encounter Him.