Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.
Paul and Barnabas were early Christian missionaries — sent-out messengers of the Jesus movement — traveling through cities in what is now Turkey, planting communities of new believers. After facing significant violence in some of those cities (Paul was nearly stoned to death in Lystra), they circled back to strengthen and encourage these young, fragile churches. The message they delivered was blunt and honest: the path into the fullness of God's kingdom — his restored, just world — runs through hardship, not around it. This wasn't a threat; it was preparation. They wanted believers to be anchored by truth, not blindsided by suffering.
God, I won't pretend I like hard things — I'd be lying if I said I did. But teach me to trust that you are present inside the difficulty, not just waiting for me on the other side of it. Give me the kind of faith that gets stronger under pressure, not just shinier when life is good. Amen.
Nobody puts this on a bumper sticker. "We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God" doesn't exactly inspire a motivational poster. But Paul and Barnabas delivered this message to people who had just watched Paul get dragged out of town and left for dead in a pile of rocks — so they weren't speaking in comfortable abstractions. They were talking to shell-shocked new believers who needed someone to sit down with them and say: this is hard, and it's going to stay hard, and that is not a sign that something has gone wrong. There is a quiet mercy in that kind of honesty. When suffering catches you off guard — when the doctor calls with results you weren't expecting, when the marriage you thought was solid starts crumbling, when God seems to be silent exactly when you need him most — the shock can be almost worse than the pain itself. But what if you went in knowing the path runs through hard ground? Not that God causes every wound, but that he doesn't route you around all of them either. The question isn't whether hardship will find you. It's whether, when it does, you'll let it forge your faith into something real rather than shatter the version of faith that was only ever wishful thinking.
What do you think Paul means by "hardships to enter the kingdom of God" — is he saying suffering earns salvation, or is he making a different point entirely?
When you've walked through a genuinely hard season, did your faith grow, shrink, or do something more complicated? What made the difference?
This verse suggests hardship is a normal and expected part of following Jesus, not an exception. How does that challenge the idea that a good life with God should feel mostly comfortable and blessed?
Paul speaks from his own fresh experience of near-death violence. How does it change the way you receive hard spiritual truths when you know the person saying them has actually lived them?
What is one specific hardship you're carrying right now that you could choose to see differently — not as evidence of God's absence, but as part of the path he's walking with you?
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
Matthew 7:14
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
Matthew 16:24
Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.
1 Peter 5:9
Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
2 Timothy 3:12
These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
John 16:33
But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.
1 Peter 5:10
And if children, then heirs; heirs of God , and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.
Romans 8:17
Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.
Psalms 34:19
strengthening and establishing the hearts of the disciples; encouraging them to remain firm in the faith, saying, "It is through many tribulations and hardships that we must enter the kingdom of God."
AMP
strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.
ESV
strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and [saying], 'Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.'
NASB
strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said.
NIV
strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, “We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.”
NKJV
where they strengthened the believers. They encouraged them to continue in the faith, reminding them that we must suffer many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.
NLT
putting muscle and sinew in the lives of the disciples, urging them to stick with what they had begun to believe and not quit, making it clear to them that it wouldn't be easy: "Anyone signing up for the kingdom of God has to go through plenty of hard times."
MSG