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How To Succeed In The Christian Life
Lesson Ten

by R. A. Torrey

Difficulties In The Bible

Sooner or later every young Christian comes across passages in the Bible which are hard to understand and difficult to believe.  To many a young Christian, these difficulties become a serious hindrance in the development of their Christian life.  For days and weeks and months oftentimes faith suffers partial or total eclipse.  At just this point wise counsel is needed.  We have no desire to conceal the fact that these difficulties exist.  We rather desire to frankly face and consider them.  What shall we do concerning these difficulties that every thoughtful student of the Bible will sooner or later encounter?

1.  The first thing we have to say about these difficulties is that from the very nature of the case difficulties are to be expected.  

Some people are surprised and staggered because there are difficulties in the Bible.  I would be more surprised and more staggered if there were not.  What is the Bible?  It is the revelation of the mind and will and character and being of the infinitely great, perfectly wise, and absolutely holy God.   But to whom is this revelation made?  To men and women like you and me, to finite beings.  To men who are imperfect in intellectual development and consequently in spiritual discernment.  

There must, from the very necessities of case, be difficulties in such a revelation made to such persons  When the finite tries to understand the infinite there is bound to be difficulty.  When the ignorant contemplate the utterances of One perfect in knowledge there must be many things hard to be understood and some things which to their immature and inaccurate minds appear absurd.  When sinful beings listen to the demands of an absolutely holy Being they are bound to be staggered at some of His demands, and when they consider His dealings they are bound to be staggered at some of His dealings.  These dealings will necessarily appear too severe, stern, harsh, terrific.  

It is plain that there must be difficulties for us in such a revelation as the Bible is proven to be.  If some one should hand me a book that was as simple as the multiplication table and say, "This is the Word of God, in which He has revealed His whole will and wisdom," I would shake my head and say, "I cannot believe it.  That is too easy to be a perfect revelation of infinite wisdom."  There must be in any complete revelation of God's mind and will and character and being, things hard for a beginner to understand, and the wisest and best of us are but beginners.

2.  The second thing to be said about these difficulties is that a difficulty in a doctrine, or a grave objection to a doctrine, does not in any wise prove the doctrine to be untrue.

Many thoughtless people fancy that it does.  If they come across some difficulty in the way of believing in the divine origin and absolute inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible, they at once conclude that the doctrine is exploded.  That is very illogical.  Stop a moment and think and learn to be reasonable and fair.  There is scarcely a doctrine in science commonly believed today that has not had some great difficulty in the way of its acceptance.  When the Copernican theory, now shoo universally accepted, was first proclaimed, it enchanted a very grave difficulty.  If this theory were true the planet of Venus should have phases as the moon has.  But no phases could be discovered by the best glass then in existence.  But the positive argument for the theory was so strong that it was accepted in spite of this apparently unanswerable objection.  When a more powerful glass was made, it was discovered that Venus had phases after all.  The whole difficulty arose, as all those in the Bible arise, from man's ignorance of some of the facts in the case.  According to the common sense logic recognized in every department of science, if the positive proof of a theory is conclusive, it is believed by rational men, in spite of any number of difficulties in the minor details.  

Now the positive proof that the Bible is the Word of God, that it is an absolutely trustworthy revelation from God Himself of Himself, His purposed and His will, of man's duty and destiny, of spiritual and eternal realities, is absolutely conclusive.  Therefore every rational man and woman must believe it in spite of any number of difficulties in minor details.  He is shallow thinker who gives up a well-attested truth because some of the facts which he cannot reconcile with that truth.  And he is a very shallow Bible scholar who gives up the divine origin and inerrancy of the Bible because there are some supposed facts that he cannot reconcile with that doctrine.

 3.  The third thing to be said about the difficulties in the Bible is that there are many more and much greater difficulties in the way of a doctrine that holds the Bible to be of human origin, and hence fallible, than are in the way of the doctrine that holds the Bible to be of divine origin and hence altogether trustworthy.

A man may bring you come difficulty and say, "How do you explain that if the Bible is the Word of God?" and perhaps you may not be able to answer him satisfactorily.  Then he thinks he has you, but not at all.  Turn on him and ask him how do you accounted for the fulfilled prophecies of the Bible if it is of human origin?  How do you account for the marvellous unity of the Book?  How do you account for its inexhaustible depth?  How do you account for its unique power in lifting men up to God?  How do you account for the history of the Book, its victory over all men's attacks, etc., etc., etc.  For every insignificant objection he can bring to your view, you can bring many deeply significant objections to his view, and no candid man will have any difficulty in deciding between the two views.  The difficulties that confront one who denies that the Bible is of divine origin and authority are far more numerous and weighty than those that confront the one who believes it is of divine origin and authority.

4.  The fourth thing to be said about the difficulties in the Bible is the fact that you cannot solve a difficulty does not prove that it cannot be solved, and the fact that you cannot answer an objection does not prove that it cannot be answered.

It is passing strange how often we overlook this very evident fact.  There are many who, when they meet a difficulty in the Bible and give it a little thought and can see no possible solution, at once jump at the conclusion that a solution is impossible by anyone, and throw up their faith in the reliability of the Bible and in its divine origin.  A little more of that modesty that is becoming in beings so limited in knowledge as we all are would have led them to say, "Though I see no possible solution to this difficulty, someone a little wiser than I might easily find one."  

Oh! if we would only bear in mind that we do not know everything, and that there are a great many things that we cannot solve now that we could easily solve in we only knew a little more.  Above all, we ought never to forget that there may be a very easy solution to infinite wisdom of that which to our finite wisdom - or ignorance - appears absolutely insoluble.  

What would we think of a beginner in algebra who, having tried in vain for half and hour to solve a difficult problem, declared that there was no possible solution to the problem because he could find none?  A man of much experience and ability once left his work and came a long distance to see me in great perturbation of spirit because he had discovered what seemed to him a flat contradiction in the Bible.  It had defied all his attempts at reconciliation, but in a few moments he was shown a very simple and satisfactory solution of the difficulty.

5.  The fifth thing to be said about the difficulties in the Bible is that the seeming defects in the book are exceedingly insignificant when put in comparison with its many and marvellous excellencies.

It certainly reveals great perversity of both mind and heart that men spend so much time expatiating on the insignificant points that they consider defects in the Bible, and pass by absolutely unnoticed the incomparable beauties and wonders that adorn and glorify almost every page.  What would we think of any man, who in studying some great masterpiece of art, concentrated his entire attention upon what looked to him like a fly-speck in the corner.  A large proportion of what is vaunted as "critical study of the Bible" is a laborious and scholarly investigation of supposed fly-specks and an entire neglect of the countless glories of the book.

6.  The sixth thing to be said about the difficulties in the Bible is that the difficulties in the Bible have far more weight that superficial readers of it than with profound students.

Take a man who is totally ignorant of the real contents and meaning of the Bible and devotes his whole strength to discovering apparent inconsistencies in it, to such superficial students of the Bible these difficulties seem of immense importance; but to the one who has learned to meditate on the Word of God day and night they have scarce any weight at all.  The mighty man of God, George Muller, who had carefully studied the Bible from beginning to end more than a hundred times, was not disturbed by any difficulties he encountered.  But to the one who is reading it through carefully for the first or second time there are many things that perplex and stagger.

7.  The seventh thing to be said about difficulties in the Bible is that they rapidly disappear upon careful and prayerful study.

How many things there are in the Bible that once puzzled us and staggered us that have been perfectly cleared up, and no longer present any difficulty at all!  Is it not reasonable to suppose that the difficulties that still remain will also disappear upon further study?

How shall we deal with the difficulties which we do find in the Bible?

1.  First of all, honestly.  Whenever you find a difficulty in the Bible, frankly acknowledge it.  If you cannot give a good honest explanation, do not attempt to give any at ll.

2.  Humbly.  Recognize the limitations of your own mind and knowledge, and do not imagine there is no solution just because you have found none.  There is in all probability a very simple solution.  You will find it some day, though at present you can find no solution at all.

3.  Determinedly.  Make up your mind that you will find the solution if you can by any amount of study and hard thinking.  The difficulties in the Bible are your heavenly Father's challenge to you to set your brains to work.

4.  Fearlessly.  Do not be frightened when you find a difficulty, no matter how unanswerable it appears upon first glance.  Thousands have found such before you.  They were seen hundreds of years ago and still the Old Book stands.  You are not likely to discover any difficulty that was not discovered and probably settled long before you were born, though you do not know just where to lay your hands on the solution.  The Bible which has stood nineteen centuries of rigid examination and incessant and awful assault, is not going under before any discoveries that you make or any attacks of modern infidels.  All modern infidel attacks upon the Bible are simply a revamping of old objections that have been disposed of a hundred times in the past.  These old objections will prove no more effective in their new clothes than they did in the cast-off garments of the past.

5.  Patiently.  Do not be discouraged because you do not solve every problem in a day.  If some difficulty defies your best effort, lay it aside for awhile.  Very likely when you come back to it, it will ace disappeared and you will wonder how you were ever perplexed by it.  The writer often has to smile today when he thinks how sorely he was perplexed in the past over questions which are now as clear as day.

6.  Scripturally.  If you find a difficulty in one part of the Bible, look for other Scriptures to throw light upon it and dissolve it.  Nothing explains Scripture like Scripture.  Never let apparently obscure passages of Scripture darken the light that comes from clear passages, rather let the light that comes from the clear passage illuminate the darkness that seems to surround the obscure passage.

7.  Prayerfully.  It is wonderful how difficulties dissolve when one looks at them on his knees.  One great reason who some modern scholars have learned to be destructive critics is because they have forgotten how to pray.

Feed Yourself Assignments


These assignments assume the student has completed the Feed Yourself course.

1. Memorize Ezra 7:10.
2.  Start a notebook of difficulties  or questions you have when you read the Bible.  Leave space to write down the answers and solutions when you discover them.

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