AFFLICTION — and the underlying picture is PRESSURE: thlibō means to press, squeeze or crush, and is used of a narrow road and of a crowd pressing in on someone. It is the standard New Testament word for the trouble that comes with belonging to Christ, and it is rarely abstract; at 1 Thessalonians 1:6 it refers to what Acts 17 describes — a mob raised in the marketplace, a house stormed, a bond posted, missionaries smuggled out by night. ⚠ Paul's striking move there is to set it directly beside JOY, with no attempt to explain how the two fit. The word supplies the 'great tribulation' of Revelation 7:14 and, through the Vulgate's tribulatio (from tribulum, a threshing-sledge), the English word tribulation. → first discussed at 1 Thessalonians 1:6