Craig S. Keener, Suffering: Its Meaning for the Spirit-Filled Life (Baker Academic, November 11, 2025).

Craig Keener: Seeing what dominates our culture’s interests reinforced my feeling that the church in the U.S. is largely unprepared for suffering. Although the Bible talks a lot about suffering, sometimes when it strikes people who have heard only messages about blessing, they can feel that God has not treated them as he promised. While we have foretastes of the kingdom today, such as healings, the kingdom isn’t consummated yet. There’s still sickness and suffering and death in this world. Jesus, prophets and apostles also modeled for us how to face suffering.

PneumaReview.com: Suffering can take many forms. What kinds of suffering do you address in your book?

Craig Keener: As you say, suffering comes in many forms; I could therefore illustrate the principles with only some of them. Because persecution features dominantly in the New Testament, and it remains a living reality (even to the point of martyrdom) among Christians in many parts of the world today, that naturally features heavily in the book. But we also suffer from other sources. Some accounts from refugees fleeing other sorts of violence or suffering are heartrending. Most of us have encountered, or know others who have encountered, health or financial challenges for which our theology of healing and blessing do not, sometimes, satisfactorily address. Broken families are among the many other struggles that Christians may face.

PneumaReview.com: All people are susceptible to some forms of suffering. Should Christians expect the possibility of more suffering in their lives because of their faith?

PneumaReview.com: How would you respond to a person who says that suffering is a sign that one has failed God or is out of His will?

Craig Keener: That makes nonsense out of Paul’s lists of sufferings and defies the message of the cross. Granted, some kinds of sufferings are biblically normal for Christians (opposition to our faith) and some are biblically abnormal (punishment for non-Christian behaviors, 1 Pet 4:15). But we have plenty of biblical examples of God-followers who suffered from things from which God often delivers; for example, Elisha died from sickness and Paul left Trophimus sick at Miletus.

PneumaReview.com: What teachings or trends in the church today downplay the biblical teaching about suffering?

Craig Keener: I’ve not run into many people who actually teach that Christians will never suffer; but in circles that teach almost exclusively about blessings, some Christians seem to get that idea. I’ve heard some versions of “prosperity teaching” that simply mean that we should trust God to supply our needs for our lives and callings, and I certainly agree with that. But there are also the many versions (what Michael Brown calls “carnal prosperity teaching”) that claim material prosperity as a selfish promise. There are some who insist that everyone with faith will always get healed—although it’s evident that, given enough time, everybody in history, no matter how much faith, without exception, eventually dies.

PneumaReview.com: Do you think ministerial training in the West should place more of an emphasis on the possibility of one suffering for their Christian ministry?

Craig Keener: So many seminary and Bible college graduates go out ready to change the world and are out of ministry after a few years. It would help them to graduate with open eyes. Church people can be mean. We walk with many other church people through their heart-wrenching hardships. We may face opposition from various sources. A church with financial challenges (or even without them) may not pay as much as ministers can get elsewhere (I worked in a restaurant and pastored for free). We also can face discouragement when exaltation does not come as fast as social media sensations might lead us to expect. But faith means not just following God’s call or a heart for ministry when things are going well; it means trusting the God who is trustworthy no matter what.

PneumaReview.com: Please share some things that believers in the persecuted church can teach the church in America.

PneumaReview.com: How can we practically help others when they are suffering?

Craig Keener: It helps us to remember that the sufferings of the present are not worthy to be compared with the glory that awaits us; the struggles of this world are birth pangs (Rom 8:22) from which God will bring forth the perfect world to come. It helps to know that in God’s plan, all things work for good, for us ultimately sharing Christ’s glory and image (8:28-29). But these are things we need to learn before we suffer, because not everybody is in a good place to hear them during their suffering. In all cases, though, we can weep with those who weep (Rom 12:15). Loving people means sharing with them as fellow members of the same body, walking with them, as best as possible, in their pain. In that setting, we can also join them in seeking healing and restoration, and reminding them of the hope that we too find in the face of our brokenness.

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Publisher’s page: https://bakerpublishinggroup.com/products/9781540969439_suffering

Further Reading

Craig Keener, “How to Succeed at Suffering: Lessons from the Gospel of Mark” Influence (February 14, 2024)

“Why Do Christians Suffer?” WTC Theology (TheoDisc/YouTube, October 1, 2025)

As a matter of fact, I believe we need to pray for one another’s physical needs in a much more effective way than we have in the past. Our prayers sometimes sound like this: “Lord, bless brother so-and-so in his illness. Give direction to his physicians. And if it be thy will, bring him to health. Amen.” Though I don’t fault the heart behind that prayer, I want to suggest some ways that we might sharpen our prayers for those who are ill.

Who can pray for the sick?

All Christians are given that privilege, though there may be those who are more gifted in this area than others. Certainly elders are to be involved in praying for the sick. James writes, “Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.” James 5:14-15

When and where do we pray for the sick?

We should pray in our families for the sick We should pray in the routine of everyday life. We should pray in our small groups or Sunday School class. We should pray in the whole church, whether it is coming forward for prayer by a prayer team, or by the elders, or in a prayer room after a service.

How do we pray for the sick?

There is no divine methodology. The most fascinating aspect to the healing ministry of Jesus is His astonishing variety of methods employed to bring about healing. Anything from a touch to a mud-pack was used by Jesus to demonstrate His Father’s desire to heal. Jesus shows us that methodology is not doctrine. He gives us the freedom to pray in various ways that work.

A number of years ago, I had the privilege of being in a seminar on healing prayer taught using John Wimber’s methods. I believe that Wimber’s basic five steps are a good, well-balanced approach to praying for healing. The five steps with my commentary are as follows:

The Power of the Cross: The Biblical Place of Healing and Gift-Based Ministry in Proclaiming the Gospel

Understanding the Hebrew Scriptures and Hebrew culture is crucial to understanding how Jesus and the early church viewed sin, the demonic, and the fallen world they lived in.

Introduction

Christ’s death on the Cross atones for and cleanses us from all sin, and the atonement of the Cross provides the basis for God’s work to sanctify us and restore us from the brokenness which sin brought into our lives (Isa 53:4-6; Mk 10:45; Rom 3:22-25; 5:8-9; II Cor 5:21; Gal 3:13; Col 1:21-22; I Tim 2:6; Heb 2:14; 9:14, 26-28; 10:10; I Pet 1:18-21; 2:24; 3:18; I Jn 2:2; 3:5, 8). How is sin related to healing and wholeness in the Bible, and how is personal sin related to praying for someone’s healing as prescribed in James 5?

The problem with the human race is, according to Scripture, sin, and the problem with sin is that it has effects. What is more, the effects are not simply the immediate results of the sinful act, but also the long-term consequences of the act, sometimes affecting only the individual and at times engulfing the whole of the human race.¹ In this chapter we want to look at what parts of the human experience are traceable to sin, as well as examine the biblical solution to these consequences.

Sin and the Fruit of Sin in the Old Testament

The history of sin in the Old Testament begins with the introduction of sin in Genesis 3. The human beings (both the woman and the man, “who was with her,” Gen 3:6) desired to “be like God,” disobeyed and so sinned. The results are portrayed immediately: shame at their nakedness (3:7; perhaps shame is a symbol for their vulnerability); fear of the presence of God (3:8); disorder in the natural world (3:14,17); disruption of human relationships (3:16); disturbance of the generative process (3:16);² loss of sovereignty (3:15;18); and death (3:19).

The flood narrative itself indicates the pervasiveness of sin. At both ends of the narrative the writer declares that “every thought (or, thing formed in the thought) of a human being was only evil from youth.” (Gen 6:6; cf. 8:21) While on the one end of the narrative this inner evil is the reason for the destruction of the created order, a return to watery chaos, from which only Noah and his family are saved, on the other, it results in a type of resigned understanding on the part of God. Yet the next chapter places some limitations on violence in that, unlike the penalty exacted on Cain, now murderers will be executed. Law, then, becomes a result of sin.⁴

The rest of the Old Testament amplifies these positions about the results of sin. That sin can lead to judgment and death is almost cliché in terms of the Old Testament. The cycle of sin and oppression (which included death in battle and death through the oppression) is the theme of Judges. The prophets are concerned about impending judgment which they speak about in terms of various forms of death (sword, plague, etc.).

Sin Can Lead to Broken Relationships and Poverty

Another mark of sin seen in all of these narratives is the destruction of the social fabric of the people. One sees this graphically in the case of Lot in Gen. 19. On the one hand, the sin of Sodom (lack of hospitality to the extent of the abuse of foreigners) leads to the destruction of the city, for it confirms the “outcry against Sodom” (Gen 18:20 NIV) and thus seals its doom, especially since every man in Sodom is involved and Lot has only four people with him (thus less than the ten righteous needed to save the city). On the other hand, the narrative ends with incest by Lot’s daughters because society as they knew it was gone. Here is a destroyed social fabric to the extent that the incest taboo is broken. The author of Genesis appears to contrast this fate with that of Abraham. Lot may have been righteous, but he is not as righteous as Abraham.