<p>12:11 <em>All chastening seems for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields peaceable fruit to those that have been exercised thereby- the fruit of righteousness-&nbsp; </em>There is a parallel between the action of the Gospel word upon a man and the effect of trials:&nbsp;&quot;Chastening... yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are <em>exercised</em> thereby&quot; (Heb. 12:11 AV).Yet &quot;the word of righteousness... strong meat&quot; leads to those who respond to the word of God &quot;by reason of use (having) their senses <em>exercised </em>to discern both good and evil&quot; (5:13,14); and the word abiding in us also yields the fruits of righteousness (Jn. 15:4,7). The word of the Gospel enables us to make sense of &quot;all chastening&quot;, and there is a synthesis between our life experience and that word, whereby we can be assured that there is no such thing as random event in our lives, but all chastening has a potential role to play in exercising us unto the fruit of righteousness. The &quot;fruit of righteousness&quot; is a term elsewhere used about the fruits of the Spirit filling our lives insofar as the gift of the Spirit works within believing hearts (Eph. 5:9; Phil. 1:11). Paul speaks of the work of the Spirit here in terms of the Lord's chastening, designed to bring forth spirituality in our spirit or character. To receive the Spirit, therefore, is no joyful thing in practice in that it will be associated with Divinely directed chastening.</p>