The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing.
Paul's perspective on current pain — and the glory that's coming.
The episode in a glance.
- 01Paul isn't minimizing suffering; he's maximizing glory.
- 02'Not worth comparing' — the scale is so lopsided it breaks the scale.
- 03The glory to be revealed includes the renewal of all creation.
- 04Hope is the lens that makes present pain bearable.
Read along.
Romans 8:18 is Paul lifting his readers' eyes above their pain: 'For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.'
Paul isn't insensitive to suffering. He knows it intimately — beatings, shipwrecks, imprisonments, betrayals. And yet he says it's not worth comparing to what's coming.
The Greek is vivid. 'Not worth comparing' means the two things are so lopsided that you can't even put them on the same scale. The glory outweighs the suffering so completely that the scale breaks.
And the glory isn't just personal. It's cosmic. Paul goes on to say that all creation is groaning, waiting for the sons of God to be revealed. The glory coming is the renewal of everything.
This doesn't remove the pain. But it reframes it. The sufferings are real, but they're temporary. The glory is also real, and it's eternal. That's the math that makes endurance possible.