Book Recommendations from Biblical Counselors on Grief & Suffering
March 6, 2025
March 6, 2025
This is an impossible task: to identify a select group of must-reads on suffering. Who is able to cull from the hundreds of fine and wise books on human suffering and suggest a mere handful? So please know this. The suggestions themselves will be less important than the reasons behind the task.
The first reason is that we all suffer and there will be more of it ahead—suffering typically picks up momentum with each decade. In the face of that suffering, we can be surprised that particular forms of suffering should afflict us. For example, we expect aches and pains, that our children might break our hearts, that relationships can become fractured, and that we will find injustices in our workplace. But we do not expect betrayal, a chronic and incapacitating illness, death of our children, or other afflictions that seem more severe than those of our neighbors or friends at church. In those times, Scripture is filled with encouragement to hope with patient endurance, and Satan is at the ready with lies about both you and the Lord. A good book that offers light on key biblical texts can help prepare you.
The second reason is that we want to be wise and compassionate friends to those who live under a weight of pain. We know that we can say unwise words, and we have received unhelpful words from others. We need help to care well.
Your most important learning will come from your own experience with suffering and the experience of people you love. What have you learned? What has encouraged you? What was unhelpful? What Scripture was especially meaningful? These are the same questions you want to ask other people. They would be worth a small group discussion.
Then, track down a good book on suffering every year or so. Here are some ideas. Be sure to ask your friends and pastors for others. – Ed Welch
Dr. Welch is a faculty member and counselor at CCEF.
Short, accessible, and has everything you need. Filled with Scripture and is also shaped by the lyrics of How Firm a Foundation. Yes, he was a dear friend, and I am horribly biased, but I know it will be good for your soul.
Nancy’s books are always biblically faithful and compassionate. In this book, she passes on scores of comments from people who were helped and people who were hurt.
I would rather not recommend my own book, but I certainly have a strong desire to help the church help those who suffer, so here it goes. It is shorter and frames the lists of do’s and don’ts under the headings of humility and compassion as a way to anchor wisdom in deeper principles, which are anchored in Christ.
Anything from Joni is worth reading. This seems to be one of her more thorough books. It is filled with Scripture that you can use with others.
This next suggestion will border on narcissistic, but shame is a feature of some suffering that deserves its own treatment. A larger book would be mine. A shorter, devotional version is by my colleague Esther Lui.
I would also suggest deep dives into Job and 1 Peter. If I had to choose one weightier book on Job, it would be by Christopher Ash. The title is enough reason to read it. The material is pastoral, accessible and insightful.
A commentary on 1 Peter? Take your pick. I appreciate Karen Jobes’s commentary. Know that it is highly technical yet also pastoral.
Dr. Reju is senior pastor of Ogletown Baptist Church in Newark, Delaware.
Joni helps you think theologically and compassionately about suffering.
Best pastoral treatment on the subject.
Academic treatment of suffering, including good material on the book of Job.
Dr. Johnson is the director of counseling programs and associate professor of biblical counseling at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and the executive director of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors.
The Lord never wastes our suffering. Powlison gently and firmly helps the sufferer anchor their hope upon Christ to find genuine stability in their affliction. This book is a practical theological outworking of the grace of God displayed through the believer’s suffering.
In this biography of Adoniram Judson, Anderson depicts Judson’s firm conviction of God’s sovereignty through the deep affliction he endured throughout his missionary endeavor. Judson’s life demonstrates the raw realities of deep grief and sorrow experienced by a believer in a world cursed by sin. Reflecting on Judson’s life helps us see genuine hope in suffering and encourages us to entrust ourselves and the outcome of our lives to God for the glory of Christ.
Watson reminds us that all things work differently in the life of a believer, especially affliction. By grounding his comfort in the realities of God’s affections toward his people and his unfailing character, promises, and power to do good, Watson delivers a message that points the reader toward God’s goodness in and through suffering.
In this book, the authors remind us that our deepest hopes are found in our deepest despairs, and our deepest comforts are found in our deepest afflictions when our souls are anchored in the stabilizing truth of the sovereign hand of God. To face suffering apart from God’s sovereignty is a recipe for despair, and this book reminds the reader where to look for hope and help.
Carson establishes the necessary doctrinal structures to support the weight of evil and suffering in a world cursed by sin. This book reminds us that we must anchor ourselves in the unchanging and unfailing character of God to maintain a proper perspective on suffering as we long for the hope of heaven and the end of suffering. How Long Oh Lord? points us to the theological muscle that provides the strength for biblical counsel to sufferers.
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For more book recommendations from pastors, professors, and counselors on a variety of topics, click here.
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This month marks five years since my family and I survived a plane crash.
Of the numerous nicknames aptly attributed to Charles Hadden Spurgeon, perhaps the most incisive and comprehensive description would be the title of his well-known work "The Soul Winner."
