1 Thessalonians 3:4 For truly, when we were with you, we told you before that we should suffer tribulation; even as it came to pass, and you know. We all know in a general way that this word means affliction, sorrow, anguish; but it is quite worth our while to know how it means this. It is derived from the Latin tribulum which was the threshing instrument or harrow, whereby the Roman husbandman separated the corn from the husks; and tribulatio was the act of this separation. But some Latin writer of the Christian Church appropriated the word and image for setting forth of a higher truth; and sorrow, distress, and adversity being the appointed means for the separating in men of whatever in them was light, trivial, and poor, for the solid and the true — their chaff from their wheat — he therefore called these sorrows and trials "tribulations," threshings, that is, of the inner spiritual man, without which there could be no fitting him for the heavenly garner. (Abp. Trench.) Parallel Verses KJV: For verily, when we were with you, we told you before that we should suffer tribulation; even as it came to pass, and ye know. |
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