For most assuredly, when we were with you, we told you beforehand that we are to suffer affliction, even as it happened, and you know.
that we should suffer tribulation: Not only has Paul discussed the inevitability of tribulation, Jesus has done so, too. "In this world ye shall have tribulation" (John 16:33). "Tribulation" (thlipsis) is a word with a broad range of meaning. Barclay notes in his comments on Romans 5:1-5 that it "literally means pressure. All kinds of things may press in upon the Christian--want and straitened circumstances, sorrow, persecution, unpopularity and loneliness" (73).