First, we need to have the right goal in dealing with these “hard” passages. We do not want to merely show that a doctrine is not that bad. We can’t have an attitude like, “eat your vegetables because they’re healthy for you even though they’re disgusting.” We don’t want to say, “Well, this doctrine is good for you even though I think it’s terrible.”

We all get embarrassed sometimes. Whether it be by a messy house, a family member, or a quirky habit. To try and diffuse our embarrassment, we do things like stuffing our messes in a closet when company is on the way, or cropping the offending family member out of our profile pictures. We want to hide these embarrassing things because we believe they would make us seem to be less than we are.

We can have the same mentality about handling the hard passages or doctrines in Scripture. People like to argue about six-day creation, election, or certain laws in the Old Testament. They say they are contradictory or morally objectionable. How could God do that?

Unfortunately, we treat these hard passages just like the things that embarrass us. We often want to diffuse the situation and do some so-called “damage control.” Just like with a quirky habit or a messy house, the reason we do this is because we believe those questions are beneath us.

However, that should not be. All of God’s Word is profitable and it is authoritative truth. It stands above us and convicts us, not the other way around (Heb 4:13). We need a better way to think through these “difficult” issues.

Before thinking through various examples, we need to think through some fundamental issues about these texts. That will give us some important perspective in handling these texts well.

Hard Passages Are Good

First, we need to have the right goal in dealing with these “hard” passages. We do not want to merely show that a doctrine is not that bad. We can’t have an attitude like, “eat your vegetables because they’re healthy for you even though they’re disgusting.” We don’t want to say, “Well, this doctrine is good for you even though I think it’s terrible.” We want to say with all confidence, “this is a good doctrine.” We want to demonstrate that, like all of Scripture, these “hard” passages are beautiful and necessary. We have nothing to be ashamed about in the Scripture.

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