Reformation Trust has recently released a revised and expanded version of R.C. Sproul’s Surprised by Suffering: The Role of Pain and Death in The Christian Life. Dr. Sproul was kind enough to respond to a few questions about this book. I submitted them via e-mail and Mr. John Duncan presented them verbally to Dr. Sproul.
I posted part 1 of our exchange last week. Part 2 appears below.
QUESTION: How can Christians prepare to die, and in what ways are we most often neglectful in this regard?
SPROUL: We prepare to die by looking to the promises of God for our future rest and our entrance into glory. We have to keep our eyes on heaven and the reward that has been laid up before us. If we don’t, the interruption of our earthly pilgrimage will throw us for a loop, and we’ll be caught unprepared and unawares. We are to keep our minds on heaven, immersing ourselves in the Word of God and focusing our mind on what lays ahead for us. We’re to forget those things that are behind and look ahead, pressing towards the mark, which is the high calling that we have in Christ.
QUESTION: Why do you think Christians are so afraid to think about that? We do sort of ignore the reality.
SPROUL: I think it is human nature to be afraid of death. Shakespeare said it well in Hamlet. We’d rather bear with those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of, and thus conscience does make cowards of us all. It’s a place we’ve never been before, and so it’s somewhat frightening.
QUESTION: What year was your mild stroke that you had?
SPROUL: It was six years ago.
QUESTION: Did that shape or reshape your thinking about death at all?
SPROUL: No. What the stroke did was that it left me some ongoing issues with vertigo, and with an eye weakness, but the biggest problem was the loss of 65% of my brain energy. It didn’t affect my cogitative thinking or my memory, but just the energy. So that if I concentrate for any period of time, I have to take a nap and get my batteries re-charged. But as far as my mortality is concerned, I was already completely aware that I was mortal, and it didn’t frighten me.
QUESTION: In Philippians 1:21 and 22, Paul says that he was hard pressed between a continued fruitful labor in the flesh and desiring to depart and be with Christ. How should Christians, particularly those who are infirm or frail due to age or illness, balance this tension between God-honoring longing and opportunities here in this life.
SPROUL: When my mentor, John Gerstner, was in his seventies, he expressed to me an intensification of his desire to serve Christ in whatever time he had left. Even though he looked forward to entering into his heavenly bliss, he felt pressed at the end of his life to double his efforts in the service of Christ. That puzzled me at the time, and yet I have found the same kind of thoughts coming into my mind. We started our church, Saint Andrew’s, 12 years ago, and I wish it would have been 40 years ago, because I know that I don’t have that many more years ahead. I want to make sure that I can do as much as I possibly can for the kingdom in the days ahead. At the same time, I’ve had those feelings Paul expresses of being torn between two things – the desire to depart and be with Christ. I mean that’s a tremendous, tremendous thing to look forward to. Then there are times when I really get tired and have had enough of the conflict that goes with the ministry, so there’s my ambivalence there.
QUESTION: What are your thoughts on Christians and retirement?
SPROUL: I don’t think about retirement a lot in terms of the ethical implications of it. I know that we have been created to work, and that work in and of itself is not a curse. It’s a blessing. The curse, that is added to labor as a result of the fall, is the curse that makes our toil difficult with the sweat and the thorns and the thistles that struggle against us. But in an ultimate sense, in creation, work is a blessing whereby we are able to mirror and reflect the character of God because God is a working God. God rests, but He never retires. I’ve always thought, particularly in the ministry, that as long as I have strength and health to continue to be productive, that it’s not a question of “ought to” for me, it’s a question of “want to.” I mean, I want to keep involved. I’ve often said that I’ll retire when they pry my cold, dead fingers off of my Bible. But of course, health may change that. But in any case, I don’t look askance at people who do retire.
My sincere thanks to Dr. Sproul for making himself available for this interview. To read part 1 of our exchange, go here.

Reformation Trust has recently released a revised and expanded version of R.C. Sproul’s Surprised by Suffering: The Role of Pain and Death in The Christian Life. R.C. Sproul was kind enough to respond to a few questions about this book. I submitted them via e-mail and Mr. John Duncan presented them verbally to Dr. Sproul.
QUESTION: In Surprised by Suffering, you write that your father’s death was what brought you to Christ. Can you tell us how that transpired?
SPROUL: My father died in 1956, and he had been seriously ill for three years before, so it was a slow process, and the whole time that he was dying, it was clear that his illness was incurable and that his death was certain. The only question was when. I remember as a teenager, when I heard that nothing could be done to save my father’s life, it turned my world upside down because I grew up in an era and in a family where there was always a way to solve whatever problem came along. When this problem came, and I was told that there was no solution to it, I was stunned. I was hurt and that hurt gave way to anger. I was angry with God. I became very bitter. I was in high school, and those three years were perhaps the three most unhappy years of my life. Most people look back at high school as a time of fun and enjoyment but mine was a time with a very dark cloud over it. Then my father died in the fall of 1956 and the void in my life was profound. It was the fall of 1957, a year later, that I became a Christian. When I say that my father’s life led to my conversion, I think that it put my life in such shambles that it made me, in a sense, ready and prepared to hear the Gospel.
QUESTION: I think many of us have heard at least two phrases regarding suffering. One is, suffering develops character — a notion that gets some warrant in Romans 5:3-5. But we’ve also heard that suffering reveals character. So which is it? Does suffering reveal character or develop character?
SPROUL: I think it does both. Certainly the New Testament tells us in Paul’s letter to the Romans that suffering develops character. Also, when afflictions hit us, we find out what we’re made out of. People who have a strong Christian character have a little extra in their tank to deal with afflictions and suffering. Scripture also tells us that without Christ we’re without hope in this world.
QUESTION: Now, in light of that, was it in vain that Satan sort of falsely proclaimed that if Job’s earthly blessings were removed, he would curse God to His face? In other words, was there suffering to be revealed or to be developed in Job, do you think?
SPROUL: I think the test for Job was a test of his character and a test of whether he would be able to withstand this onslaught from Satan.
QUESTION: In Colossians 1:24, Paul says, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.” What is going on there? Should we ever choose or desire suffering for the sake of spiritual growth?
SPROUL: The passage in Colossians 1:24 is a controversial one. The Roman Catholic Church cites it as one of their texts to argue that the church is the continuing incarnation of Christ in both a real sense and in a redemptive sense. Whereas Protestantism understands Paul to be saying that there is a complex of suffering attached to Jesus, and that all of those who are indwelt by Christ are called to participate in His humiliation and in His afflictions if we are ever to participate in His exaltation. Yet at the same time, when we suffer and are afflicted, we are not filling up a lack of value in the sufferings of Christ. The suffering of Christ is of infinite worth, and we cannot add to it anything of a redemptive value. But we are fulfilling, as it were, our destiny as those who are in Him. Paul is not saying that he’s delighted and happy for each of his afflictions, but that he’s glad he is able to be afflicted for Christ’s sake and for the sake of the church. So what the apostle indicates in this passage is that he sees redemptive value, not in the sense of saving value, but in a positive contribution, a helpful value for his suffering for other people.
QUESTION: You observe in the book that death is a vocation. Can you explain what you mean by that?
SPROUL: What I mean by vocation is that it’s a “calling.” During my life I can be productive as a teacher of the Word of God. But there may come a time where I’m incapacitated. I may contract a terminal illness, and at that point I have a new calling, and that is to die, and to die in faith. The Bible speaks about two ways of dying. A person can die in sin, or die in faith. It’s important for Christians that we die in the faith. If we look at our deaths and our illnesses as simple accidents of nature, or the fickle finger of fate, then it’s difficult to summon the courage and the joy to persevere in the midst of that affliction. But if we realize that it is of God that we are in this situation and that He has called us to bear this at this time, it makes all the difference in the world in terms of how we’re able to handle the difficulties attached to the suffering.
I’ll post part 2 of this interview next week. You can go here to read for a short overview of the book, the endorsements, and a variety of excerpts.
Update: Part 2 of the interview is now posted.