A Visit With Jesus: Difficult Sayings of Jesus

Difficult Sayings of Jesus

Some statements made by Jesus can sound startling, puzzling, or even contradictory when they are separated from their language, setting, and biblical background. This collection examines those difficult sayings directly.

Each entry explains why the saying has caused difficulty, presents interpretations that have received serious consideration, and offers an assessment of what the saying most likely means.

The Children, Bread, and Dogs

Matthew 15:21-28; Mark 7:24-30

Cultural Context Language Ethical

It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.

Why is this difficult? Why does Jesus use language that appears to compare a Gentile woman and her people to dogs, and why does he initially resist her request?

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Become Like Children

Matthew 18:1-5; Mark 9:33-37

Cultural Context Figurative Language

Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Why is this difficult? What characteristic of children does Jesus have in mind: innocence, humility, dependence, low social status, or something else?

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The Kingdom Will Be Taken Away

Matthew 21:43

Language Theological

The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.

Why is this difficult? From whom is the kingdom being taken, and who are the people or nation to whom Jesus says it will be given?

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Why Have You Forsaken Me?

Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34

Theological Scriptural Background

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why is this difficult? Is Jesus describing actual abandonment by the Father, expressing the agony of crucifixion, invoking Psalm 22, or doing more than one of these things?

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No One Knows the Son Except the Father

Matthew 11:27; Luke 10:22

Theological

No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son.

Why is this difficult? What unique relationship and exclusive knowledge between Jesus and the Father is being claimed in this remarkable saying?

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A difficult saying is not necessarily an obscure saying. Sometimes the difficulty comes from an unfamiliar figure of speech, a first-century custom, or a biblical reference that Jesus' first hearers would have recognized more readily than we do.

Other sayings raise genuine interpretive or theological questions on which careful readers have reached different conclusions.

These studies try to distinguish what can be explained with confidence from what remains debated.

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that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."