A selection of verses showing why bad things happen to good people.
There are many examples in the Bible of bad things happening to good people. The supreme example is the Lord Jesus Christ who was crucified, despite never having done any wrong. The apostle Peter tells us that this was for a reason:
18 Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit,
The letter to the Hebrews gives us the reason why some bad things happen to us:
6 for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”
7 It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with children, for what son is there whom his father doesn’t discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have been made partakers, then you are illegitimate, and not children. 9 Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? 10 For they indeed, for a few days, punished us as seemed good to them; but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness. 11 All chastening seems for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
The apostles remind the first-century believers that life as a believer can be difficult:
22 strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that through many afflictions we must enter into God’s Kingdom.
12 Beloved, don’t be astonished at the fiery trial which has come upon you to test you, as though a strange thing happened to you. 13 But because you are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, rejoice, that at the revelation of his glory you also may rejoice with exceeding joy.
Jesus Christ says that bad things happening to people should serve as a warning to make us stop and think about our lives:
4 Or those eighteen, on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them; do you think that they were worse offenders than all the men who dwell in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no, but, unless you repent, you will all perish in the same way.”
These chapters have links to this theme:
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