God Won’t Give You More Than You Can Handle

Pain. Illness. Politics. Personal conflict. Family troubles. Bills. Debt. Climate change (it’s 120°F where I am today).

And in your church, among your religion friends, in your facebook groups, people will tell you “God won’t give you more than you can handle”.

And when you’re dealing with all frustrating stuff (at least, speaking for myself) the response you want to give is “what a bunch of hippie, dippy, bologna.”

While the saying is meant to be comforting, is it really Biblical?

My best guess is that the expression comes from 1 Corinthians 10:13, which states:

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. (ESV)

Other translations are closer to the expression, but being modern translations, did the expression come first or did the translating?

No trial has overtaken you that is not faced by others. And God is faithful: He will not let you be tried beyond what you are able to bear, but with the trial will also provide a way out so that you may be able to endure it. (NET)

Let’s get to the root of it.

The word translated as “temptation” and “trial”, respectively, is in the Greek manuscripts as “πειρασμός” (peirasmos). It’s a common word that is found in many other places in the New Testament, such as 1 Peter 4:12 (“…do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you…”),  Hebrews 3:8 (“…on the day of testing in the wilderness…”), and Luke 4:13 (“…when the devil had ended every temptation…”). But just as in English, every use of a word is dependent upon its context. Context is, as always, key.

And the context here is the first letter to the Corinthians from Paul.

Now, a personal note here, I am not fond of Paul. Without going into an entire discussion about whether the Bible, in its entirety IS the word of God, or if it CONTAINS the word of God (and not everything is meant for all people at all time) – personally, I believe the latter – I find Paul’s writings to be frustrating, aggravating, and sometimes just… ugh.

In this particular letter, Paul discusses divisions in the church, sexual immorality, marriage, and lots of other things. It was written during his missionary journeys and at the particular time of the writing, he was in Ephesus (according to tradition). The church in Corinth had been founded previously and being, literally, a new church, they had lots of questions. Paul basically does a “memory dump” in the letter and tries to answer as many questions as possible. Chapter 10 falls within a long discussion starting in chapter 8 and food offered to idols. And it meanders all over the place, ending at the end of chapter 10 with “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

So it’s in that context that we need to look at verse 13.  Verse 7 says “…do not be idolaters..” and verse 14 says “…flee from idolatry…” So what is verse 13 talking about?

Temptation. Specifically, temptation to idolatry. And while it may be true for all temptation (“No temptation has overtaken you…”) Paul is using this thought in the context of dealing with idolatry.

So, to quote one of my favorite reality TV shows, “myth, busted”.

But does that theme hold up throughout the Bible, that God will not give us more than we can bear?

In a word, no. Just from the average first grade Sunday school lessons, we have Jonah, eat by a big fish, we have Abel, killed by Caine, we have multiple stories of the 40 years in the wilderness of snakes, fire, plague, all killing many Israelites. Job afflicted with all that stuff, basically on a whim of Satan. And we have Paul, imprisoned, and according to tradition, beheaded.

LIFE will give us more than we can bear. That doesn’t mean God is punishing us or trying us, it just means LIFE HAPPENS.

Does it mean God allows suffering? That’s a whole different discussion, and too big a topic for the scope of this one blog post, but we can be sure of one thing:

However our trials come to us, and sometimes they will be overwhelming, sometimes to the point of near death, Jesus gives us hope: “In the world you will have tribulation (θλῖψις: thlipsis – pressure, stress, affliction). But take heart; I have overcome the world.”