Table of Contents:
This teacher’s copy of the Why is there suffering in the world? Lesson Plan is printer-friendly.
RESOURCES:
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STARTER:
We all live in a world that experiences pain and suffering.
We can’t wake up and say, “From now on, I am never going to feel any pain, nor am I going to suffer anymore!”
That’s impossible. It is part of our lives, whether we like it or not.
We will be looking at this subject of suffering now.
Q. Can you think of any things that cause suffering?
MAIN TEACHING:
There are many reasons why people suffer in this world, but here are eight for us to look at.
There is a danger in looking at these examples of things that cause suffering, that we become judgmental about why it has happened.
What is being said here is that it could be for this reason and not that it is because of this reason.
1) Suffering caused by natural disasters:
Q. Can you think of an example of this?
Natural disasters can happen, and people can get injured and killed by earthquakes, hurricanes, or tsunamis.
- The reason behind it: Perhaps their village was in an area where there was a fault line in the Earth’s crust.
The forces of nature are powerful, and they can damage or destroy things, especially where people are poor and have weak houses.
We live in a world that is not perfect, and sometimes these sorts of things happen.
Q. Do you know of anyone who has suffered because of a flood?
2) Sickness and disease cause much suffering
Even a common cold can be miserable for us.
Cancer and other medical problems can dramatically shorten lives and cause pain.
- The reason behind it: Bad viruses, bacteria and other diseases are in this world, and scientists keep trying to find a cure for them.
Christians believe that these bad things came into the world because humankind rebelled against God, right back at the beginning. We will look at this in detail shortly.
3) The actions of one or more people, cause others to suffer:
Q. Can you think of an example of this?
a) A young person beats up an elderly person to get their money.
- The reason behind it: The young man is greedy and doesn’t care how much he hurts someone to get what he wants.
The elderly person has to suffer pain from the injuries because of the young person’s greed, anger and sin.
b) One country attacks another.
- The reason behind it is that a leader of a nation is greedy and aggressive.
- They don’t care how much suffering they cause, just to get their own way.
Q. Do you know of any situations where a nation has attacked another country?
c) Thousands of people are starving and dying in at least one country in Africa.
- The reason behind it: The greed and pride of various African leaders who store up riches for themselves, rather than helping the country’s inhabitants.
The leaders can’t be bothered to rule the land correctly, so the police operate on bribes, and injustice thrives.
People are not trained to look after the land, and food crops are poor.
The residents of that country have to suffer from starvation because of the greed of their leaders.
4) Suffering caused by one’s own irresponsibility:
Q. Can you think of an example of suffering because we have been
irresponsible?
a) Situation: Ignoring safety rules:
A boy is larking around on a push-bike, but he crashes straight into the parked car and breaks his arm.
- The reason behind it: He was not behaving responsibly; therefore, he had to suffer the painful consequences.
b) Situation: Ignoring nature’s rules:
A child is wasting away, losing weight and getting very ill.
- The reason behind it: The child refuses to eat sensible meals, only cake.
c) Situation: Ignoring God:
Various things keep going wrong.
- The reason behind it: Christians believe that the Bible tells us that God disciplines those who believe in Him.
In other words, God, the Heavenly Father, can discipline His children, not out of cruelty, but because of His love.
A parent may ground you for several days because you have done something wrong.
Your parent disciplines you to help correct your bad attitude or actions.
Similarly, the Bible tells us that God can use situations to discipline and correct people.
All those things that kept going wrong for that person were because they weren’t behaving correctly, so God, as their Heavenly Father, disciplined them.
The Apostle Paul said:
For God sometimes uses sorrow in our lives to help us turn away from sin and seek eternal life. We should never regret His sending it.”
2 Corinthians 7:10 (The Living Bible)
We may have parents who discipline us in the wrong way, but God is perfect and knows what is best for us.
5) Suffering caused by accidents:
Sometimes accidents happen even when no one has done anything wrong and no one has acted irresponsibly.
A mechanical part breaks on the car whilst driving along.
The car skids into a wall, and one of the passengers gets hurt.
- The reason behind it: The mechanical part was getting old and was wearing out. It just suddenly broke.
We live in a world that is not perfect, and occasionally these sorts of things happen.
6) Suffering due to helping other people:
Q. Can you think of an example of this?
A little girl falls into the river, and a man nearby, who is a good, strong swimmer, jumps in to save her.
He has to suffer being cold and wet for several hours until he gets home.
- The reason behind it: He helped the little girl.
At times, the Police, Fire and Ambulance crews can suffer injuries whilst helping people.
7) Someone suffers because they are a Christian:
Jesus told His followers that they would suffer, and for no other reason than that they wanted to follow Him.
But instead of causing them misery, this would give them inner joy in serving Him. Jesus said to them:
Happy * are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
Matthew 5:11-12 NIV
* ‘Happy’ = The word used here in the NIV is ‘Blessed’, which actually means happy.
Q. What does ‘persecute’ mean?
To persecute someone is to be hostile towards them, especially in relation to their faith.
Q. Why should suffering as a Christian give joy and make you happy?
Answer: They could look to their reward from God.
The prophets who were good men and who did what God wanted them to do could not avoid suffering; they still got persecuted.
The Apostle Peter said:
Be happy if you are cursed and insulted for being a Christian,
1 Peter 4:14-16 (The Living Bible)
for when that happens the Spirit of God will come upon you with great glory.
Don’t let me hear of your suffering for murdering or stealing
or making trouble or being a busybody and prying into other people’s affairs.
But it is no shame to suffer for being a Christian.
Praise God for the privilege of being in Christ’s family
and being called by his wonderful name!”
8) Suffering caused by training and effort:
Q. Can you think of how training and effort cause pain?
Answer: Someone goes to an army training camp.
They endure assault courses, and their body suffers because of the long marches and physical training.
The army trains the soldiers to become excellent, fit soldiers, but it does cause them to suffer for it at the time.
But once the soldiers have passed through their time of training, they can look back with appreciation at the experience.
Having looked at eight areas why people suffer, the question to ask is:
Q. Has it always been like this?
Answer: No, the Bible tells us that right back at the beginning of the world, God made everything perfect.
There was no suffering, no pain, no tears and no death.
The Bible also says that heaven is a place with no tears and no pain.
But while we are on this Earth now, there is suffering.
The Bible tells us that it was because the human race disobeyed God that the door to all kinds of sin and bad things was opened, which included pain, suffering and death.
Q. Can you imagine a place without any suffering?
In Genesis 2, it tells us about a time when there was no suffering:
The Lord God took the man (Adam) and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.’”
Genesis 2:15-17 NIV
Adam and Eve were living in the garden when a crafty snake came and said to Eve:
Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” Genesis 3:1 NIV
Can you see that the snake has twisted what God had said?
Q. What answer would you have given the snake?
The woman answered the snake:
We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” Genesis 3:2-3 NIV
But unfortunately, she added “and you must not touch it” to what God had said.
The snake was probably sliding through the tree, obviously touching it, and then he said:
You will not certainly die, for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Genesis 3:4-5 NIV
Q. How would you have responded to the snake?
Unfortunately, Eve was too willing to listen to the snake’s lies and his temptation:
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realised they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.”
Genesis 3:6-7 NIV
Before this, God would come down and chat and spend time with them in the early evening.
But because they had rebelled against God, their friendship was now broken, and they tried to hide from God.
Q. Why did they try to hide?
Obviously, they could not hide from God, so He then asked them a question.
He knew what had happened. He just wanted them to admit to their disobedience:
Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” Genesis 3:11-13 NIV
Q. Can you see what is happening here?
Answer: Adam blamed Eve, and she blamed the snake; they did not own up to their disobedience.
The Lord God started with the snake and cursed it, and said that there would be constant hostility between mankind and it.
Then God gave a prophecy that a child would be born who would crush the snake, but in so doing, the snake would hurt the one born.
(Genesis 3:15)
Q. Can you guess who that person would be who would crush the snake?
Then God spoke to Eve and said that giving birth to children would now be painful and that she would look to her husband.
Then God turned to Adam and said:
Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” Genesis 3:17-19 NIV
Q. Is it humbling to think we are only made from elements that are in the air and the soil?
When God said to Adam that the ground would be cursed, it meant that working to survive would now be tough.
But notice God did not ‘curse’ Adam or Eve, because He had a plan for them which would involve one of the descendants crushing the power of the snake. (Colossians 2:15)
Christians believe that person is Jesus, the Son of God, who is God and was born into a human body.
That was the Bible’s explanation of how suffering entered the world.
Q. What can we do to help those who are suffering?
Answer: Obviously, we don’t need to help soldiers in their training!
An important note to remember is that we shouldn’t pass judgment on those who are suffering.
If it is in their best interests, we should help them.
Q. Is it someone else’s responsibility to help them?
Probably those who are responsible are not going to help them. But that doesn’t mean we should ignore those who are suffering.
Many people are suffering around the world, but distance should not stop us from helping.
Q. How can we help if they are far away?
Answer: We can still help, even if they are thousands of miles away.
There are many hundreds of charities which help other people who are suffering: For example:
Concern Worldwide (UK) opens in a new tab.
This charity is an international humanitarian organisation specialising in tackling hunger in the world’s poorest countries.
Anyone who has been through suffering is more likely to be generous when helping others who are suffering.
Q. Why is that?
You can learn about people’s suffering by being told about it, but it is much more serious and real if you have gone through hardships and suffering yourself.
But just because you have not suffered, it should not be an excuse not to help those in need.
There have been reports about some charities wasting money on paying massive salaries to their bosses and managers.
It would not be wise to give your money to these charities.
Q. How do you find out if a charity is good or not?
It is too big a task to get a complete picture, but for a rough guide, search the government charity register and see how much they pay their executives.
See: www.gov.uk/find-charity-information
An example of how they vary:
The Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind’s top-paid employees:
78 people £60,000 to £99,000 per year.
11 people £100,000 to £200,000 per year.
Médecins Sans Frontières UK top-paid employees:
30 people £60,000 to £99,000 per year.
2 people £100,000 per year.
Teacher’s note: There are 2 worksheets to accompany this lesson plan:
Why is there suffering in the World Worksheet 1
Why is there suffering in the World Worksheet 2
See also: Why is there suffering in the World? RE resources