Do you have a scripture of this promise?
Jesus suffered for us and gained our redemption. Without the suffering, no redemption. Therefore suffering is redemptive.
This logic is sorta of like the logic that since Mary is Jesus' mother she is a co-redeemer.Yes, Jesus suffered, but the suffering was not what redeemed us. It was his death, His shed blood. Granted to get there He did suffer, but I don't see suffering as "redemptive." Suffering strengtens our faith, because we learn more and more to trust in Jesus. God did not remove Pauls "thorn in the flesh" to keep him weak which in turns kept him trusting in Jesus' rather then his own strengh, but that suffering did not redeem Paul.
Becky
21 Neither shall any priest drink wine, when they enter into the inner court. 22 Neither shall they take for their wives a widow, nor her that is put away: but they shall take maidens of the seed of the house of Israel, or a widow that had a priest before.
Do you have a scripture of this promise?
Huh? I said "Suffering is not meaningless, suffering leads to greater good in the future."
Is this something you don't agree with? You don't see this depicted in Scripture anywhere? What about Job? What about Jesus?
Jesus suffered for us and gained our redemption. Without the suffering, no redemption. Therefore suffering is redemptive.
This logic is sorta of like the logic that since Mary is Jesus' mother she is a co-redeemer.
It comes from meditating on the meaning of Scripture, yes. I realize you hesitate to express any idea that isn't verbatim form Scripture, but I find this puzzling.
Yes, Jesus suffered, but the suffering was not what redeemed us. It was his death, His shed blood. Granted to get there He did suffer, but I don't see suffering as "redemptive."
You really can't seperate the two, no matter how hard you tried. Jesus didn't jsut "die" for us. He was tortured and suffered for us. That's not incidental or accidental. It is not meaningless.
Suffering strengtens our faith, because we learn more and more to trust in Jesus. God did not remove Pauls "thorn in the flesh" to keep him weak which in turns kept him trusting in Jesus' rather then his own strengh, but that suffering did not redeem Paul.
I think you are hung up on the word "redeem," because you believe in this salvation by faith thing. Since that is intractable, can you agree, as I gave an out earlier, that suffering helps to sanctify us?
SD
I agree. Suffering should, where possible, be overcome or ameliorated. If we truly thought suffering was redemptive, we would want more of it, or at least would not make any effort to minimize it.