Intro to Tough Texts
What do you do when you read the Bible and you come across a verse that makes you stop and think, ‘Wait a minute, did God really say that?’ Do you skip it? Do you wrestle with it? Do you doubt? Do you close your Bible in frustration? Or do you pray and ask God for help? All of us have faced these moments, and those moments are what this series is all about.
It is good to be with you all this evening as we embark on a new evening sermon series. As many of you know the series this is called Tough Texts, and in this series we will be looking at just that, passages in the Scripture that are difficult to handle.
A few weeks ago we announced that we would be beginning this series in our various small groups, and we asked many of you to think about passages that they find difficult. Many of you went home, thought about this, and you came prepared to our most recent members meeting where I asked you to share them with me. Many passages were shared, but only 13 were selected for this sermon series, at least for this fall.
I am eager to get to these texts and start working through them with you, but tonight is all about introductions. So in our time together tonight I want to tell you where we'll be going, and tell you the texts that were chosen, but I also want to tell you about the hard reality of difficult passages in Scripture, and I want to tell you why I did not choose certain passages.
Let's begin there. There were many passages given to us that I did not choose, here's a few reasons why.
First, I did not choose topics that were given. Meaning, I tried to stick with texts, actual messages in the old or New Testament that people find difficult. For example, someone shared that they would love to hear about the difficult topic of divine sovereignty versus human responsibility. I think that's a great topic. I think that's a needed topic. But it is a topic rather than a text. There were other examples like this, that were more a general topic then a specific passage of scripture, and while those would be good studies in and of themselves that's not really the aim of this series. Perhaps at a time in the future we can do a series called tough topics where we are not zeroed in on a specific passage of Scripture but are rather thinking more broadly and systematically through a topic presented to us in the Scriptures. All this to say, my aim was to choose specific texts rather than specific topics.
Second, I did not choose texts that are near our current Sunday morning series. We are currently going through the book of Exodus in our Sunday morning gatherings and so if anything was near the book of Exodus or found in the book of Exodus I did not choose it for this series. Why? Because while those are specific texts, they are texts that we will come to and deal with in the near future in our time together on Sunday mornings. For example, someone shared that they would love to hear the passage explained in Exodus chapter 4 where many puzzling things occur. There the Lord seeks to kill Moses, there is a swift circumcision, followed by Moses's wife throwing the foreskin of that circumcision at Moses's feet, and her calling him a bridegroom of blood. This is certainly a tough text, but it is a text that we will come to very shortly on Sunday morning. Another example, someone shared that they would love to hear an explanation of the entire passage of the 4th commandment, concerning the Sabbath rest that God commands His people to make a regular part of their week. That also is a classic example of a tough text, but it's one that we will be hitting together Lord willing in 2026 on Sunday mornings. So rather than dealing with it here in the evening as well as dealing with it in the morning we will just leave things like that to the morning series.
Third and lastly, I did not choose texts that were given from the book of Judges. This is not because I dislike the book of Judges and this is not because I think the book of Judges is inappropriate for us to study. On the contrary I love the book of Judges and think it's very appropriate for us to study in our time together. The reason I did not select any texts from the book of Judges is because there were so many texts given that come from the book of Judges, so many in fact we could’ve spend half our evening series in that book. Apparently SonRise has loads of questions about the book. So it would not be a bad idea to consider actually going through the book of Judges sometime soon as a church, perhaps we can do that this coming Spring. That way we not only will be given the opportunity to learn from the entire book of Judges, but we will get to work through every single one of those texts that were shared and given for this series.
So to summarize what I did not choose for this evening series: I did not choose anything that resembled a topic, I did not choose anything from, near, or related to our Sunday morning sermon series, and I did not choose anything from the book of Judges.
Now, what did I choose? Here is the list:
8/24 – Anger in Paul? (Eph. 4:26-31)
8/31 – Losing Salvation? (Hebrews 6)
9/7 – Holy War or Genocide? (Deut. 20)
9/14 – God Hates Sinners? (Psalm 5 / 11)
9/21 – Did Jesus Descend into Hell? (1 Pet. 3:18-22)
9/28 – Head Coverings? (1 Cor. 11)
10/5 – God Regrets? (Gen. 6 / 1 Sam. 15)
10/12 – Free Will? (2 Cor. 8:16-17)
10/19 – Imprecatory Psalms? (Psalm 137)
10/26 – Reformation Movie night…
11/2 – Role of Women in the Church? (1 Cor. 14)
11/9 – Sin Leading to Death? (1 John 5:16-17)
11/16 – Hating Family? (Luke 14:26)
11/23 – Will All Israel be Saved? (Romans 11:25-26)
Lastly, I ‘d like end by discussing the hard reality of tough texts. And to do that I'd actually like to take you to a text. So if you have your Bibles open to 2 Peter 3:15-16, “And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.”
Notice right away what Peter says. He is honest about the contents of Scripture. He isn’t shy about it, he doesn’t try to hide it, or cover it up, no, he tells us plainly that there are passages in Scripture that are hard to understand. Not only notice how Peter refers to the writings of Paul as Scripture, but notice how Peter is honest about Paul’s writings, that there are portions of them that are hard to understand. If even the apostle Peter found this to be true of Paul, we will as well.
Now, since this is true for Paul. Can we not apply this to the whole of Scripture as well? I think we can. How do we respond to this? Should we ignore those passages? Or throw in the towel and give up when we come across them? Not at all. Even though they’re hard to understand, we should work at understanding them better. The easy thing to do would be to do what Peter says some do in this passage. “…the ignorant and unstable twist…” the Scripture “…to their own destruction…” This shows us what not to do with tough texts. We should not interpret them in such a way that is ignorant or unstable. What do the ignorant and unstable do with the Word? They interpret the hard passages, the tough texts, not by reading them for what they are, no. Instead they twist them to suit their own desires, and thus make plain their own destruction. Do not do this with tough texts. Read them for what they are, rather than interpreting them in an underhanded manner. In this we see why this is not just an academic exercise, handling the Scriptures rightly really is a matter of life and death.
Lord willing, part of my aim each week as we work through these texts is to demonstrate how to handle the text in an appropriately God honoring manner, rather than an unstable and ignorant manner.
So we have see that tough texts exist, and what not to do with them. But let’s go further. R.C. Sproul, in his book Hard Sayings says tough texts can be classified into three categories. First, a passage can be a tough text if it appears to be harsh to us in its meaning. So if a text jolts us, shocks us, or we have a kind of shrinking back from them, they are a tough text to us. We’ll deal with a few of these kind of tough texts in our evenings together.
Second, a passage can be a tough text if it is hard to understand. While the first category of tough text is clear just difficult to swallow, this next category of tough text is different in that they are texts that are very difficult to unravel. We’ll also deal with a few of these kind of tough texts in our evenings together.
Third, a passage can be a tough text if it is controversial in the history of interpretation. What’s an example of a text being controversial in its interpretation? Well, that kind of brings us back to the first two categories doesn’t it? If it a text seems harsh to us, or if a text seems like an unsolvable puzzle, we will see a mass of interpretive options throughout the history of the Church.
One last encouragement and then I’ll take some questions. One way to grow in Christ and in the knowledge of the Scriptures that’s not talked about very much…is focusing on the tough texts. Think about it. When you come to a text that seems greatly puzzling to you, you have a choice. The easy road is to ignore it and move on, staying close to those portions of Scripture you do find easy to understand and digest. But will you grow like that? I mean, it’s always great to read the Bible, but if we only ever read those parts of it that we find easy to understand, we’ll likely only ever stay in the shallow end of the biblical pool. But if we make the harder choice, and face those texts, really leaning into them and trying to understand them, the odds are that we’ll end up understanding them and growing in our knowledge of God and the Scriptures.
So too when you come to a text that seems offensive to you, you have a choice. If you’re so offended by it that you avoid it altogether or even close your Bible for a long time, you won’t ever come to understand that portion of Scripture. But if you make a different choice, and face those texts that seem offensive to you, you might just find out the reason why it seems so offensive to you. Which means you’ll have gained new insight not only about God, and about the text, but about yourself too. With this new knowledge you can repent and ask God for help in this particular area, and you’ll grow.
So here’s my plea to you in this series. Don’t run from the tough texts. Don’t shrink back when you’re offended, or confused, or even angry at what you read. Instead, press in. Lean forward. Trust that even in the hardest passages, God has good for you to see and embrace. By doing this together, I believe we’ll come out not just wiser, but more in awe of God, more humble before His Word, and more in love with Christ.
