Wherein you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been put to grief in various trials,
If need be - This phrase seems to have been thrown in here to intimate that there was a necessity for their afflictions, or that there was “need” that they should pass through these trials. There was some good to be accomplished by them, which made it desirable and proper that they should be thus afflicted. The sense is, “since there is need;” though the apostle expresses it more delicately by suggesting the possibility that there might be need of it, instead of saying absolutely that there was need. It is the kind of language which we would use in respect to one who was greatly afflicted, by suggesting to him, in the most tender manner, that there might be things in his character which God designed to correct by trials, instead of saying roughly and bluntly that such was undoubtedly the fact. We would not say to such a person, “you certainly needed this affliction to lead you to amend your life;” but, “it may be that there is something in your character which makes it desirable, or that God intends that some good results shall come from it which will show that it is wisely ordered.”