EXAMPLES OF HARD TO UNDERSTAND SCRIPTURES
Even though the entire Bible challenges us intellectually, everyone would agree that Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Romans and Galatians include verses that are especially hard to understand. Some might even say they are impossible to understand — and we would agree with this assessment.

Finding examples of Old Testament scriptures that are difficult to understand is easy; they are everywhere, and they all pose questions that challenge understanding. Leviticus, for example, includes thirteen scriptures that refer to ten different kinds of laws that include: Burnt offering; grain offering; sin offering; guilt offering; peace offering; and laws for dealing with animals, leprosy and plagues, and cleansing from discharge of bodily fluids. Upon reading these laws we are compelled to wonder how anyone can possibly understand these laws or fulfill them. They are so enigmatic that Christians are inclined to dismiss them entirely with thinking that says they applied to ancient Israel but not to us in these modern times. Jews, on the other hand, do their best to obey them because they take all of God’s laws — all six hundred and thirteen of both positive and negative commandments — very seriously.

The Book of Romans, on the other hand, does not have instructions in how to obey laws like those found in Leviticus. Instead, Romans employs the term “law” fifty times to inform New Covenant disciples about a plan for salvation that does not include obedience to the literal laws of Moses. Curiously, Romans in many places presents a double-minded view of the law which portrays it as both the law of the Spirit of life and the law of sin and death. Romans also includes many other seemingly contradictory statements about the value of the law that impede understanding of what God is trying to say.

Below are a a few of the difficult scriptures and apparent contradictions where a rigid, literal interpretation makes intellectual understanding of the law all but impossible.

1 Timothy 1:8: Now we know that the law is good, if any one uses it lawfully,

QUESTIONS POSED BY THIS SCRIPTURE: How do we know when we are using the law lawfully or unlawfully?

Romans 2:12-15: For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law;

QUESTIONS POSED BY THIS SCRIPTURE: What does it mean to sin and perish without the law? What does it mean to be judged by the law?

13 for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified.

QUESTIONS POSED BY THIS SCRIPTURE: How is it possible to be a doer of the law without being a hearer of the law? Why are hearers of the law not just before God?

14 For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves,

QUESTIONS POSED BY THIS SCRIPTURE: How is it possible to obey the law without knowing the law? How can someone who does not have the law be a law to themselves?

15 in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them,

QUESTIONS POSED BY THIS SCRIPTURE: If the law is written on someone’s heart, why are they bothered in their conscience?

Romans 2:17-29: But if you bear the name “Jew” and rely upon the Law and boast in God,18 and know His will and approve the things that are essential, being instructed out of the Law, 19 and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness,20 a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth, 21 you, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that one shall not steal, do you steal? 22 You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?

QUESTIONS POSED BY THIS SCRIPTURE: Is it really possible that someone who has been instructed in God’s law can be a teacher who steals, commits adultery and rob temples?

23 You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God?

QUESTIONS POSED BY THIS SCRIPTURE: What does it mean to “boast in the law”? How do teachers of the law break the law? How does that dishonor God? 24 For “THE NAME OF GOD IS BLASPHEMED AMONG THE GENTILES BECAUSE OF YOU,” just as it is written

25 For indeed circumcision is of value if you practice the Law; but if you are a transgressor of the Law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.

QUESTIONS POSED BY THIS SCRIPTURE: How is it possible to practice the law and be a transgressor of the law? What does circumcision have to do with practicing the law? How can someone who practices the law become uncircumcised?

26 So if the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?

QUESTIONS POSED BY THIS SCRIPTURE: How can someone, whether man or woman, Jew or Gentile, who has not been circumcised but keeps the requirements of the law be considered circumcised?

27 And he who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you who though having the letter of the Law and circumcision are a transgressor of the Law?

QUESTIONS POSED BY THIS SCRIPTURE: How can someone who is circumcised and keeps the letter of the law be a transgressor of the law?

28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly , nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. 29 But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.

QUESTIONS POSED BY THIS SCRIPTURE: What does it mean to be circumcised in the heart? What does it mean to be circumcised by the Spirit or by the letter of the law?

Romans 10:4 NAS For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

QUESTIONS POSED BY THIS SCRIPTURE: If Jesus came to fulfill the law, how can he also be the end of the law?

Galatians 2:21: “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”

QUESTIONS POSED BY THIS SCRIPTURE: If Jesus came to fulfill the law, how can it be that he died needlessly if righteousness comes through the aw?

Galatians 3:21: Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be! For if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law.

QUESTIONS POSED BY THIS SCRIPTURE: Galatians 2:21 says that righteousness does not come through the law, but Galatians 3:21 says that the law is not contrary to the promises of God. Since God’s promises are fulfilled in Christ who fulfilled the law, why does the law not yield righteousness?

At the risk of overloading readers to the point of wanting to cry out in exasperation and confusion, we also offer the following scriptures for consideration without commentary as additional examples of scriptures which are especially difficult to understand:

Romans 2:12-26: All who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. 14 When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them 16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. 17 But if you call yourself a Jew and rely upon the law and boast of your relation to God 18 and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed in the law, 19 and if you are sure that you are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, 20 a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth– 21 you then who teach others, will you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? 22 You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23 You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? 24 For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” 25 Circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law; but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. 26 So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?

Romans 3:19-31: Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For no human being will be justified in his sight by works of the law, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. 21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction; 23 since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins; 26 it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus. 27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On the principle of works? No, but on the principle of faith. 28 For we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of their faith and the uncircumcised through their faith. 31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

Romans 4:13-16: The promise to Abraham and his descendants, that they should inherit the world, did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14 If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15 For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression. 16 That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants–not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham, for he is the father of us all,

Romans 5:12-21: Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned– 13 sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. 15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 16 And the free gift is not like the effect of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. 17 If, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. 18 Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men. 19 For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous. 20 Law came in, to increase the trespass; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Romans 7: Do you not know, brethren–for I am speaking to those who know the law–that the law is binding on a person only during his life? 2 Thus a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies she is discharged from the law concerning the husband. 3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. 4 Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit. 7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I should not have known sin. I should not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, wrought in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died; 10 the very commandment which promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and by it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good. 13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. 14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. 15 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. 17 So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, 23 but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

STUDY TIP: See this link for interpretation of Romans 7.

Romans 8:1-7: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, indeed it cannot;

Romans 10:4-5: For Christ is the end of the law, that every one who has faith may be justified. 5 Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness which is based on the law shall live by it.

1 Corinthians 9:20-21: To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews; to those under the law I became as one under the law–though not being myself under the law–that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law–not being without law toward God but under the law of Christ–that I might win those outside the law.

1 Corinthians 15:56: The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law;

Galatians 2:15-21: We ourselves, who are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, 16 yet who know that a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, because by works of the law shall no one be justified. 17 But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we ourselves were found to be sinners, is Christ then an agent of sin? Certainly not! 18 But if I build up again those things which I tore down, then I prove myself a transgressor. 19 For I through the law died to the law, that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification were through the law, then Christ died to no purpose.

Galatians 3:1-24: O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? 4 Did you experience so many things in vain? –if it really is in vain. 5 Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? 6 Thus Abraham “believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” 7 So you see that it is men of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9 So then, those who are men of faith are blessed with Abraham who had faith. 10 For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be every one who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them.” 11 Now it is evident that no man is justified before God by the law; for “He who through faith is righteous shall live”; 12 but the law does not rest on faith, for “He who does them shall live by them.” 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us–for it is written, “Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree” — 14 that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. 15 To give a human example, brethren: no one annuls even a man’s will, or adds to it, once it has been ratified. 16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many; but, referring to one, “And to your offspring,” which is Christ. 17 This is what I mean: the law, which came four hundred and thirty years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. 18 For if the inheritance is by the law, it is no longer by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. 19 Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made; and it was ordained by angels through an intermediary. 20 Now an intermediary implies more than one; but God is one. 21 Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not; for if a law had been given which could make alive, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. 22 But the scripture consigned all things to sin, that what was promised to faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. 23 Now before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed. 24 So that the law was our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith.

All of the example scriptures cited above make understanding of the law hard by saying or implying that the law can be both good and bad. Worse yet, there are no clues within each scripture or series of verses to tell us how to distinguish between good laws and bad laws. That is the bad news.

The good news is that God has not left us in the dark without giving us clues to discover the Mystery he has planted in every page of the Bible. Following those clues is what disciples do to find the pearl of great price. Old/First Covenant religious scribes try to understand these scriptures by using intellect and reason. New Covenant disciples understand these mysteries by listening to the voice of God.

But coming to understanding is still not easy. What we find is that clues lead to answers that are usually found in remote, unexpected scriptures. Furthermore, answers are often not straightforward, often seem to be out of context, and always require making connections between many seemingly unrelated scriptures to get to the answer. That is why we have described Bible study as a Puzzle. It is possible to assemble the puzzle, but effort and patience is required. We are so well trained to read the Bible literally that we have a hard time breaking free from that habit so that we learn how to hear God’s spoken voice. Fortunately, we are not dependent on our human resources (i.e. time and intellect) to gain understanding. We have the spirit of God to guide us and interpret the mysteries for us. Learning how to do all of this is the essence of becoming a disciple.