Although much of the Christian Bible is easy to read and understand, it is inevitable that at some point you will come across hard sayings or passages that seem difficult to understand and apply to contemporary life. For example, why did God praise Phinehas for killing two people (Numbers 25:7–13), and did God’s acceptance of Phinehas’ zealous action give us the right to use violence against those who sin against God? Psalm 5:5 says that the Lord “hate(s) all who do wrong.” Does God really “hate” wrongdoers in the sense that we “hate” people or things? And in John 14:6, Jesus said that He is the only way to the Father. Does that mean that no one is saved without Jesus, and if so how do we apply this saying in our contemporary, pluralistic society?

In this teaching, Dr. Peter H. Davids provides analysis and answers to several hard sayings from both the Old and New Testaments. In his introduction, Dr. Davids points out several reasons why some sayings are difficult to understand and talk about. For example, some sayings are hard because we know what they mean but we don’t want to respond in obedience; others are hard because we read language that was meant to be taken figuratively in a literal sense. Some are hard because they were written to a specific group of people in a specific culture at a specific time in history with which we are unfamiliar, and some are hard because we read and interpret a text outside of its original context. Dr. Davids emphasizes the need to understand these hard sayings within their contexts by breaking down each passage and thoroughly examining and explaining them. He also includes practical applications for the contemporary church in his analysis of several passages.