Some passages of Scripture are easy to read. Others stop you in your tracks.
You’ve probably encountered them. The Bridegroom of Blood, where God meets Moses on the road and seeks to put him to death. The bears that came out of the woods at Bethel and tore forty-two youths after they mocked Elisha. The Canaanite conquest. The imprecatory psalms. Romans 9 on predestination. The hard sayings of Jesus.
These passages can sit uneasily. Sometimes a skeptic raises one in conversation and you don’t know how to respond. Sometimes you read one yourself and feel your faith shaken. Sometimes a child or a friend asks “but isn’t that horrible?” and you can’t quite explain what it is or isn’t.
The articles in this collection engage these texts directly. The aim isn’t to win arguments or to defend God’s reputation in front of skeptics. The aim is to show what God is actually revealing about Himself through these passages. Hard texts aren’t problems to solve. They’re encounters to receive.
We don’t soften what Scripture says. The difficulty is real. But honest engagement almost always reveals something about God that we couldn’t have learned from the easier passages. That’s why these texts are in the Bible. They show us facets of God’s character we’d miss otherwise.
If a passage has shaken you, this is for you. If a conversation has left you wishing you’d had an answer, this is for you. If you teach, lead a small group, or walk with a younger believer, these articles are tools you can use when these passages come up in the lives of those you’re shepherding.
Read each one with patience. Sit with what it shows you. And let what God reveals become part of how you know Him.
The Collection
Articles below engage difficult or contested passages of Scripture, drawn from across the site’s six categories.
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Predestination, Free Will, and the Peace of God’s Sovereignty
The question comes up in almost every Bible study eventually: if God already knows what we’re going to choose, are our choices really free? It’s a fair question — but it tends to generate more heat than light because most people are working from isolated passages rather than the whole story. When you read Scripture…
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Is Hell Separation from God? What the Bible Actually Says
Scripture describes hell as eternal separation from the presence of God — and it describes that separation in terms that are meant to be taken seriously. Jesus spoke about hell more than any other figure in the New Testament. He didn’t soften it. He didn’t treat it as metaphor. He used concrete, specific images that…
Explore Further
Hard passages don’t stand alone. They’re best engaged within the larger work of teaching, discernment, and faithful living.