Boris Kornfield

In contemplating the paradox of the prosperity of the wicked and the calamities of the righteous during a study Sunday evening on Ecclesiastes 7, I was reminded of a story Chuck Colson tells in Loving God that has never left my memory.

Boris Kornfield was a surgeon and a Jew. One of those “enlightened” Jews – naturalistic and socialist to the core, nevertheless, he was imprisoned at Ekebustuz. His crime was unknown. In the context of a Russian concentration camp while assessing his beliefs, Kornfield became a Christian, a follower of Jesus. Wanting to share his newfound faith and freedom, Korfield confessed to a patient he was tending to in that prison,

“On the whole, you know, I have become convinced that there is no punishment that comes to us in this life on earth which is undeserved . . . if you go over your life with a fine tooth comb and ponder it deeply you will always be able to hunt down a transgression of yours for which you have now received this blow.”

Consider that a persecuted Jew believing in his innocence now confessing that every man deserved his suffering! It is most certainly true.

We know about this story because the patient was Alexander Solzhenitsyn. After making that confession, Kornfield was brutally murdered while sleeping. In a sinful world, pain and suffering is axiomatic. No one should really be surprised about its presence. The question that really baffles me in light of Korfield’s confession is, why so little pain and suffering? Why the abundance of happiness and pleasure in our world?

Posted by RE Mark R. Seeley