The Problem with Problem Passages

On submitting to ALL of Scripture

A while back, someone made a remark in my presence about “problem passages” in the Bible. By “problem passages,” they meant passages that are deemed “problematic.” But the hi-jinx with this phrase, this concept, this je ne sais quoi of biblical discourse, is that it smuggles in this rather insidious idea that there even are problem passages in the Bible.

Now, as is my wont, I here offer a brief qualifier. If you define the “problematic” aspect of “problem passages” as something akin to “difficult-to-understand passages,” then absolutely no harm and no foul. And no kidding, either, for that matter: even good old St. Peter once said that there were things in Paul’s letters that made one scratch their head quizzically and go, “huh?” (2 Peter 3:16).

Snip, Snip

But most of the time, at least in my experience, when people use the term “problem passage,” they are using it to refer to a passage of Scripture that, to put the matter bluntly, they would just as soon snip out with a pair of canonical scissors if they could. To wit, Martin Luther once quipped that the book of James was an epistle of straw, and just so we’re clear, he did not mean that as a compliment. He thought James ought to be kicked out of the canon because he thought James’s teaching on justification was problematic when compared with Paul’s.

Alas, the problem was not with James, but with Luther — and thankfully, Luther did eventually come around on his views of James. We can all breathe a collective sigh of relief. But just as the “problem” resided not in James but in Luther, so it is with us if we happen to have “problem passages” in our Bibles. The problem is not the passage; the problem is, I am afraid to say, us — you and I, as it were.

Now, let’s be clear for a moment: we all, as the Westminster Divines would say, sin in sundry and diverse ways. And so, there is a kind of person who reads those tricky parts of Paul, where he says things like, oh, shucks, I don’t know, that the sexually immoral, the effeminate, and the homosexual will not inherit the kingdom of God — and as this person reads, he wrinkles his brow and scoffs, and begins thinking to himself how problematic Paul can be on these points. He was a man of his time, such a person thinks, and his misogony and bigotry really couldn’t be helped, and so let’s just pretend those parts of the epistles aren’t actually in Scripture. They’re very problematic, after all. People have complained to HR, I’m told.

But if we are going to shake our heads at this biblical gerrymandering, then we must also make sure that we’re not functionally doing the same thing — for although we may affirm scriptural inerrancy and infallibility with our lips, our hearts may be in an entirely different solar system. I speak in a mystery, and the mystery is this: that those of the more orthodox stripe can just as plainly ignore Christ’s commands to, for instance, love their enemies, bless those who curse them, and pray for those who say nasty things about them on Twitter (or X or whatever it’s called these days).

No Problem Passages

The point is the same all the way down: if we’re going to follow Christ, we must determine a priori to have no problem passages in Scripture, because if we have a problem with Scripture, we have a problem with God — and this, my friends, will just not do. So, when a certain set of verses starts pricking at us, and we start thinking to ourselves, “Gosh, it’d be really convenient if this particular bit of the Bible didn’t exist,” then that is probably the exact point at which we most need sanctified by the Spirit.

Because the real problem, you see, is not that we don’t understand certain parts of Scripture; the problem is that we do understand, and behold, it ticketh us off. There is nothing wrong with coming up against a difficult-to-grasp part of the Bible; but there is something dreadfully wrong with outright rejecting parts of the Bible we do grasp. So let us be done and away with “problem passages,” shall we?

Originally published in 2023.