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Question 3
In Schiemer’s “little flask” reply, he says the drink is “a contrite, crushed, and sad heart pounded by the mortar of the cross…pressed under the press of tribulation,” and that the way of salvation is “narrow at the top but wide at the bottom”; how does this image confront the assumption that God’s primary aim is immediate comfort, and what might it change about how you interpret your own suffering?
Another way to ask: Schiemer compares true faith to a crushed heart shaped by the cross and says the way to salvation is “wide at the bottom.” How does this challenge the idea that God mainly wants you comfortable, and how might it change how you see your suffering?

Direct Answer Schiemer’s image confronts comfort-first Christianity by portraying God’s work as beginning with contrition, the cross, and tribulation before widening into comfort and joy. It encourages interpreting suffering as a place where God presses and forms the heart rather than proof that God has abandoned you.

Support from Transcript:

  • Dean recounts a rumor that Anabaptists used a “little flask” to suddenly change, and Schiemer replies the “drink” is “nothing but a contrite, crushed, and sad heart pounded by the mortar of the cross.”
  • He says the “grapes…grew in God’s vineyard and were pressed under the press of tribulation,” tying spiritual transformation to hardship.
  • Schiemer connects this directly to Christ: “From such a flask Christ drank on the cross.”
  • The “narrow…top but wide…bottom” image: “thus is also the way of salvation,” with widening after “agony and tribulation,” receiving “God’s comfort and consolation.”
  • Dean interprets it pastorally: God gives “strong conviction of our sin,” then brings “a joy of the Lord.”
Discussion Follow-ups What current hardship might you re-label, not as God’s rejection, but as part of the ‘press of tribulation’ that prepares you for deeper comfort and consolation?

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