When the Bible Is Hard to Understand
When the Bible Is Hard to Understand
If you sometimes find the Bible to be confusing...
If you struggle to make sense of specific verses or passages or chapters, or even books...
If you have a hard time seeing how certain parts harmoniously fit together with the whole...
You’re in good company, my friend!
But something I’ve learned that keeps me reading anyways is that I don’t have to, or even need to understand all of it right now.
I can simply read a portion of the Bible, consider it, humbly acknowledge before God that I do not yet understand it, and table it for the time being without feeling pressured to form a conviction or any definite conclusion about what it means. I don’t have to walk away with a solid doctrine by which I should live based on whatever passage I just read. I can just walk away with something to think and pray about... and that’s enough for the time being. Actually, that’s enough until God chooses to open my eyes and give me understanding.
Case in point, there’s a passage in Galatians that confused me for several years. Every time I read that passage, there was this one verse in the midst of other verses that seemed to contradict the rest. Consequently, I didn’t know what to think about any of it, or how I should apply it to my life (because it was a teaching that, if understood, would be appropriate for all Christians to apply to their lives). I would read it, puzzle over it for a bit, get frustrated, ask God to help me understand, and move on...
(And that last part—the moving on, instead of just giving up—is so important! Because if we get hung up on what we can’t yet know or understand, we might miss out on everything God has for us to know and understand in the meantime.)
Just the other day, however, I stumbled across that same chapter in Galatians again; and like every previous time I’d read it, I got to that selection of verses, and found myself asking, “What can this possibly mean? Why does Paul say one thing here, and then turn around and say the exact opposite?”
But this time, as I sat and puzzled over it, an answer came to me! All this time, I’d simply been reading it the wrong way. Well—I was reading the right words, in the right order, but I’d been attributing a meaning to those words that wasn’t there, and consequently, missing the intended meaning.
It turned out that that one verse had simply meant something different than I’d thought it meant. I imagined, if the Apostle Paul had been standing right there with me, speaking these things aloud, and I’d asked him to explain his “contradiction,” he might’ve laughed and said something like, “Oh, you misunderstood me. What I was trying to communicate was actually this...,” and then he would’ve reworded things just enough so that there would be no confusion on my part.
Changing the way I read or understood that one verse made the whole of it fit together perfectly, so that it made absolute sense. And now, I can—with some conviction and certainty—apply that teaching to my life!
But if I’d never come back to that passage…
If I’d never bothered to open up my Bible again…
If I’d never asked God to make it make sense to me, and believed that He eventually would—that He wanted to…
I might’ve gone the rest of my life thinking that the Bible is so hard to understand that it’s not even worth bothering to read—that it’s just meant for people who are smarter, better educated, or more spiritually mature than me. And I would’ve missed out on so much of the goodness that God has for me to discover with Him in this lifetime.
Friends, God’s not wanting you and me to be Bible experts. He’s wanting us to be humble, dependent, teachable, and hungry to learn from Him. And if we’ll keep coming back to Him for more—even when we get stumped or frustrated or confused—He’ll keep on satisfying that hunger, in just the right portions, in His perfect timing.
So don’t lose heart! Don’t give up! Keep coming back! Keep asking God to help you understand—to help you know everything He wants you to know. Because someday, that thing that makes no earthly sense to you now will make all the sense in the world.
Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God—who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly—and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith without doubting. For the doubter is like the surging sea, driven and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord, being double-minded and unstable in all his ways. - James 1:5-8 (CSB, emphasis added)
My child, listen to what I say, and treasure my commands. Tune your ears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding. Cry out for insight, and ask for understanding. Search for them as you would for silver; seek them like hidden treasures. Then you will understand what it means to fear the Lord, and you will gain knowledge of God. For the Lord grants wisdom! From his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He grants a treasure of common sense to the honest. He is a shield to those who walk with integrity. - Proverbs 2:3-8 (NLT)
“I still have many things to tell you, but you can’t bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak on his own, but he will speak whatever he hears. He will also declare to you what is to come. He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.” - Jesus (John 16:12-14, CSB)
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