Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 140 · May 20
If Need Be
“That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:”
In the ancient world, a refiner put gold in a shallow clay dish and set it in a hot furnace. As the metal melted, he stood beside it and skimmed off the impurities that rose to the top. Peter's readers knew that picture well.
Peter is writing to Christians scattered across five provinces, and he never tells them why their trouble came. He tells them what it is doing: "That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire." Gold was the most lasting thing those readers could own, the metal that does not rust or rot. Yet in Peter's sentence gold is the thing that perishes, and faith is the thing worth more.
One verse earlier there is a phrase many readers pass straight over: "though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations." "If need be" means that some heaviness is needed. Peter leaves open which heaviness, and how a person in the middle of it could ever tell. That raises the question everyone asks in trouble: why this, and why me? Job asked it more deeply than anyone, and he still said, "when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold." He said it with no explanation at all, and when God finally spoke to him, in four chapters of questions about creation, He did not explain the first chapter of Job's story. Proverbs puts the refining pot and the heart side by side: "The fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold: but the LORD trieth the hearts."
In place of a reason, Peter gives a destination and a day. The trial of your faith "might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." God has fixed that day. By then the gold in the dish will be gone, yet the faith that went through the fire will still be there. So when the heat comes and no reason comes with it, hold on to the promise: what God is refining in you will last, and it will be found to His praise when Jesus appears.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 140 is Preserved by Love (Psalm 145:20).