Hard Sayings: Understanding Difficult Passages of Scripture by R.C. Sproul. Ligonier Ministries. 152 pages. 2023
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Ligonier Ministries, with the assistance of Vesta Sproul, edited and adapted R.C. Sproul’s original teaching material to create this book. I remember listening to the various “Hard Sayings” teaching series when they were available on cassette tape.
Sproul begins by asking what makes a saying hard? He tells us that in the first place, a saying of Scripture may be a hard saying if it appears to us to be somewhat harsh in its orientation. The second category of hard sayings is one that’s hard to understand. The third category, similar to the second, is a hard saying that has become controversial in the history of biblical interpretation, usually because of one of the first two reasons.
In this book, Sproul explores twenty-seven of the more prominent hard sayings of Scripture. Among the hard sayings addressed in the book are whether the earth was created in six twenty-four-hour days, the hardening of Pharoah’s heart, Rahab’s lie, the unpardonable sin, the rapture of the church, head coverings for women, whether Jesus descended into hell, and many more.
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Sproul addresses these hard sayings, some of which you may have had questions about yourself, in a manner in which the layperson can easily understand them.
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:
- To interpret the Bible literally is to interpret it according to the manner in which it is written.
- It’s a very important principle of interpretation to interpret Scripture by Scripture.
- When God hardens Pharaoh’s heart, the act of divine hardening is a judgment of God on someone who is already sinful. It is a judgment that is completely consistent with what is said throughout Scripture about how God will judge the wicked.
- For God to make Pharaoh’s heart harder, He didn’t have to create fresh evil in that heart. All He had to do was to take His mercy away, remove the restraints, take the leash off, step aside, and let Pharaoh do whatever he wanted to do.
- We need to be careful in this age that we do not tacitly assume that God will always be on our side. He is on the side of those who obey Him.
- We are always obliged to tell the truth to whom the truth is due. We are always to tell the truth when righteousness and justice require us to tell the truth. But we are not required to tell the truth to someone who has no right to it.
- The sovereignty of God, indeed, stands above and behind every single thing that ever happens.
- It is important for us, as we look at these difficult passages throughout Scripture, to look for the sweetness, to look for the beauty and the glory of God that stands behind them, for God’s truth is always sweet. When we recoil against God’s truth in a spirit of bitterness, it’s because we haven’t yet tasted to see that the Lord is good.
- God is not interested in our giving outward signs of producing fruit, but He wants to see real fruit in our lives.
- What Jesus said is true. He meant what He said, that according to His human nature He did not know the day or the hour of His own return.
- In a real sense, our lives don’t become complicated until we’re converted. That’s when the war is declared. That’s when we have to enlist, and we enlist for the duration of the battle that goes on until we are ultimately victorious in heaven.
- If we reject the authority of the Apostles, we reject the authority of Christ—and if we reject the authority of Christ, we reject the authority of God Himself.
- Study, Savor and Share Scripture: Becoming What We Behold. My wife Tammy has published a book about HOW to study the Bible. The book is available on Amazon in both a Kindle and paperback edition. She writes “Maybe you have read the Bible but want to dig deeper and know God and know yourself better. Throughout the book I use the analogy of making a quilt to show how the Bible is telling one big story about what God is doing in the world through Christ. Quilting takes much patience and precision, just like studying the Bible, but the end result is well worth it.
- David Brooks Explores the Amazing Power of Truly Seeing Others. David Brooks, author of the new book How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen, joins Collin Hansen on the Gospelboundpodcast to discuss what the Bible means by knowing, why he writes more about culture than politics, how suffering helps us empathize, and more.
Won’t you read along with us?
We are reading through Truths We Confess: A Systematic Exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith by R.C. Sproul. From the Ligonier description:
“The Westminster Confession of Faith is one of the most precise and comprehensive statements of biblical Christianity, and it is treasured by believers around the world. R.C. Sproul has called it one of the most important confessions of faith ever penned, and it has helped generations of Christians understand and defend what they believe.
In Truths We Confess, Dr. Sproul introduces readers to this remarkable confession, explaining its insights and applying them to modern life. In his signature easy-to-understand style and with his conviction that everyone’s a theologian, he provides valuable commentary that will serve churches and individual Christians as they strive to better understand the eternal truths of Scripture. As he walks through the confession line by line, Dr. Sproul shows how the doctrines of the Bible—from creation to covenant, sin to salvation—fit together to the glory of God. This accessible volume is designed to help you deepen your knowledge of God’s Word and answer the question, What do you believe?”
This week we look at WCF 14 Of Saving Faith. Here are a few helpful quotes from this chapter:
- Grace is the instrumental power or the means by which we are saved through faith.
- God in His grace supplies the necessary condition that He requires for salvation. That condition is faith. He requires us to exercise faith in order to be saved, but we are unable to do so unless He first gives faith to us.
- The gift of faith is given to all of God’s elect and to no one else, because from all eternity God has had a plan of salvation that includes a certain number of people whose names He knows. He has moved heaven and earth to secure the salvation of the elect.
- God enables us to believe because, by ourselves, we are morally unable to do so.
- The Holy Spirit changes the disposition of the heart, to be sure, but the ordinary way by which the Spirit does that is the ministry of the Word. He gives the gift of faith through the power of the Word.
- Our growth in sanctification is directly related to our growth in faith, because our growth in faith is closely related to our faithfulness. The more faithful we are, the more sanctified we become. We must work hard to strengthen our faith.
- A Christian can fall radically and seriously but not fully and finally.
- Faith is a gift of God. It is worked in the soul by the Holy Spirit. It is the gift of Jesus, who is its author. We are not the authors of our own faith. Christ is, and He who has begun a good work in us will perform it to the end. That is the promise: that the same One who authored faith in our soul will finish what He began.
- Reformed theology relies on the grace of God from beginning to end.
