If the Bible is Difficult to Understand – REJOICE!
Whenever we come to a passage in the Bible that we find hard to understand, we should rejoice!
For, such a quandary gives us an opportunity to grow in our faith by trusting in the Lord to explain it to us. Much of our delight in the Lord is then watching how the Holy Spirit makes clear what had previously confounded us. For, we must bring our questions to the Holy Spirit, trusting in His promise to teach us all things. As Jesus made clear in John 14:26,
“the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.”
We may remember Peter as one of the disciples who stayed with Jesus though he did not understand everything the Lord had said. This was clearly evident many times when Jesus would rebuke Peter for his careless words. The most infamous of these episodes we find in Matthew 16:21-23,
“From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day. 22Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!” 23But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”
Not understanding the Scriptures that foretold of the Lord’s execution, Peter demonstrated perilous ignorance by his words. Thankfully, by Peter’s example, we can realize that we are not alone in our times of uncertainty of God’s word.
