苦难的核心原因是因为亚当犯罪（罗马书 5:12），是因为人类堕落犯了罪，得罪上帝（创世记 3:17–19；哥林多前书 15:21–22）。在传福音时，遇见人因苦难而对上帝产生疑惑时，我们可以考虑从这个角度解答苦难，并引导他们到基督（神经历苦难、明白苦难，并为我们承受苦难）。他们愿意信主后，再引导到核心的真理。
中文翻译：
约翰·伦诺克斯：美景与炸弹 (John Lennox: Beauty and Bombs)
或许我们问错了问题。 (Perhaps we’re asking the wrong question.)
每个人面对的都是一幅交织的图景。我称之为“美景与炸弹”。 (What faces everybody is a mixed picture. I call it beauty and bombs.)
换句话说，当我们审视这个世界，既能看到美好的事物，也能看到极其丑恶的事物。 (In other words, we look at the world, we see some beautiful things, and we see some horrible things.)
任何一种世界观都必须正视这一事实，这是无可争辩的。 (And any worldview has got to take that into account. That is a fact.)
因此，我提出了另一个同样艰难的问题，但我认为它能带我们走得更深一步： (So I propose another question, equally difficult, but I think it gets us a bit further.)
既然现实确实如此，那么有没有任何证据表明，存在一位能够感同身受、理解这一切的上帝？ (Granted that it’s like that, is there any evidence anywhere that there is a God who understands it?)
我想是有的。证据就在于基督教福音书中所展现的那位上帝——祂本身就是一位经受过苦难的上帝。 (Yes, I think there is, and it’s the fact that the God presented in the Christian Gospels is a God who in that sense has suffered.)
因为基督教的核心主张是：上帝成为了人，而基督就是上帝。 (Because the central claim of Christianity is that God became human and that Christ is God.)
所以，说得直白一点，上帝在十字架上做什么？ (So, crudely put, what is God doing on a cross?)
对我而言，这件事至少清晰地证明了：上帝并没有对人类的苦难袖手旁观，而是选择亲自进入其中，成为了苦难的一部分。 (Well, one thing it certainly shows me is that God has not remained distant from human suffering, but has become part of it.)