What to Do When a Bible Verse Bothers You

Martin Luther was a monk who wanted, more than

anything, to be right with God. He confessed his sins for hours

and punished his body. He did everything the church of his day

told him to do, and none of it made him feel clean. Then he

came to a line in the book of Romans, and it undid him. Paul

wrote about the righteousness of God. Luther read that phrase,

and what he heard was a verdict. To him, it meant the perfect

standard God uses to judge sinners, a standard he knew he

could never reach. He more than disliked that verse. He later

said he hated it, and he hated the God he thought it revealed.

Most people would have turned the page. But Luther couldn't.

He kept circling back to those words that tormented him day and

night, trying to understand what Paul meant. We'll come back to

what he found, but first,

welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm Bart Leger. Over

the years, I've had people ask me about a verse that bothers

them. Sometimes it was a passage about God's judgment that they

couldn't square with his love. A story in the Old Testament that

troubled them, or a verse that seemed to or actually did

contradict what they had been taught. What I've learned is

that some of the deepest growth I've seen in people has come

from the verses they wanted to avoid. And maybe you know that

feeling. You're reading along, and you hit a verse that arrests

your attention, and not in a good way. A command that sounds

a bit harsh. A line that seems to contradict something you were

taught to believe about God. And the pull is to slide right past

it to keep your reading in the parts that comfort you, and just

leave the troubling ones alone. Most of us have a list of verses

we've been avoiding for years. And here's something that might

surprise you. The Bible itself admits that part of it are

difficult. said so plainly about the letters of his friend Paul.

Listen to 2 Peter 3, 15 and 16. And remember, our Lord's

patience gives people time to be saved. This is what our beloved

brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom God gave him.

Speaking of these things in all of his letters. Some of his

comments are hard to understand, and those who are ignorant and

unstable have twisted his letters to mean something quite

different, just as they do with other parts of Scripture. And

this will result in their destruction. Peter, an apostle

writing Scripture, says that some of what Paul wrote is

difficult to understand. And he doesn't apologize for it. He

doesn't hide it. So if you felt stupid or faithless for

struggling with a verse, just let it go. The struggle is

normal enough that the Bible mentions it right there in its

own pages. But notice what Peter does with the difficulty. He

gives one warning and one instruction. the difficult parts

to mean whatever they want and wreck themselves doing it. The

instruction, running along the whole letter, is to stay

grounded and keep reading. a troubling verse is to stay with

it on solid ground until it opens up. And that's the choice

right in front of you. When a verse bothers you, you can turn

the page or you can dig in and study it. Read what comes before.

That's what we call considering the context. And find out what

the words meant to the people who first heard them. And bring

your questions straight to God. He's not nervous about them. He

wrote the book you're wrestling with. And he can handle your

struggle with it. Some of the growth he has for you is buried

in the you'd probably rather skip. And you can only reach it

by staying and digging in. That's exactly what happened to

Martin Luther. The breakthrough came slowly and then all at once.

Luther realized he had been reading the phrase backwards.

The verse that had felt like a death sentence turned out to be

the doorway to grace. Luther said it was as if he had been

born again and walked through open gates into paradise. The

passage he almost couldn't bear to read became the spark that

lit the Reformation. He found his way to grace by staying with

the very verse he had wanted to avoid. Think about what he

almost missed. If Luther had turned the page on the phrase he

hated, he'd have died a tormented monk. And the church

might have waited generations for what he found. The verse

that read like a death sentence was hiding the doorway to grace.

And he only found it because he refused to look away. The verse

that bothers you may be guarding something you need. Don't turn

the page yet. Here's today's challenge. Pick the verse you've

been avoiding, the one that troubles you, and go toward it

this week instead of around it. Read the whole chapter it lives

in and look up what it meant when it was written. And tell

God, This one bothers me and I want to understand it. Then give

him room to answer over days, not just minutes. You don't have

to resolve it today. You just have to stop skipping it. Father,

thank you that you gave us a book that admits that some of it

is difficult. Forgive us for skipping the verses that

unsettle us and reading only was comfortable. Give us the courage

to go toward the passages that bother us, to study them, and to

bring our questions to you. Thank you that you're not afraid

of our questions. Meet us in the wrestling and grow us through

the verses we wanted to avoid. In Jesus' name, amen. If this

episode encouraged you today, would you share it with someone

who might need to hear it? Just go to

DailyDevotionsForBusyLives.com slash 305 and copy the link. It

only takes a second, and it might make a real difference in

someone's day. Thanks for joining me on Daily Devotions

for Busy Lives. Remember, the verse that bothers you is the

one to stay with because God isn't afraid of your questions

and often grows you most through the passages you'd rather skip.

Come back next time for more encouragement to help you live

grounded in God's truth. Until then, God bless and have a great

day.