Revelation of God
in Human Suffering

Preface to the Online Edition

The Wayne E. Oates Institute is delighted to publish the Online Edition of this classic work by Wayne E. Oates as part of our ongoing republication project.

The Revelation of God in Human Suffering is a book based on sermons delivered by Dr. Wayne Oates, each reflecting on the revelation of God in and through the context of a different aspect or type of human suffering. Christian values are latent in and accrue from suffering -- values, indeed, not to be experienced apart from suffering which alone brings us into a knowledge of the God "of all comfort." This revelation of God in and through our suffering binds us with all Christians in the fellowship of Christ's sufferings, issues in a disciplined community, developes our spiritual maturity, and relates us to one another on basically essential terms.

This book was originally published by the Westminster Press in Philadelphia in 1959, and the complete text of the Westminster Press edition is republished by the Wayne E. Oates Institute as it originally read. Please note that while the ideas expressed remain relevant to today the language, particularly with regard to inclusive language, reflects the publishing practices common to the era of its original publication.

This specific edition has been designed for ease of reading online with the text formatted to a comfortable column width and the web pages containing only a portion of each chapter. Each web page in this edition contains links to the next and previous pages as well as to the book's Table of Contents.

For those interested in printing a copy of the book to paper, we highly recommend the E-book edition. This is published in the Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (pdf), which enables printing a copy of the entire book with indexed pages. The E-book edition is available through email or on CD-ROM. For more information click on the Info/Order button on the left or call 502.459.2370.

Wayne E. Oates Institute
Louisville, Kentucky
December 2002

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