![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Not-Listening-300x300.jpg\")
Christian Bucad on Flickr.com<\/p><\/div>\n
More seriously, there are plenty of people out there with serious, serious problems with portions of the word of God. Their problems are so serious that they go hunting for reasons to become atheists, just so that they won\u2019t feel obliged to keep that abhorrent commandment. Sometimes, it\u2019s not even something that they have to do. They just don\u2019t like that God said it, so they leave.<\/p>\n
This is not a new problem. Indeed, it is clearly on display in John 6. Contextually, Jesus\u2019 ministry has reached a high point after His feeding of the five thousand. Throngs of new disciples think so highly of Him that they want to make Him king by force.<\/p>\n
In response, Jesus preaches one of the most alienating sermons of His ministry. Among other things, He tells His disciples that they have to eat His flesh and drink His blood if they want to inherit eternal life. 2000 years later, this is still a difficult concept, and its effect on its immediate hearers is predictable. His new followers desert Him in droves, grumbling that His teaching is too hard to understand.<\/p>\n
I doubt this result was accidental. I\u2019m sure Jesus would have been pleased if the crowds were sufficiently devoted enough to stick around even though they didn\u2019t understand what He was saying, but He knew they weren\u2019t. He made such challenging statements in order to separate those who were truly committed from those who weren\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Today, God\u2019s word continues to serve the same function. I\u2019ve never met anyone who was upset by the content of John 6, but I have studied with those who stumble over baptism, sexual morality, and marriage. Others don\u2019t like what the Bible says about authority. Still others would rather zero in on grace and ignore Scriptural teaching on obedience.<\/p>\n
Sooner or later, all of us are going to run into a hard saying in Scripture, something that we don\u2019t want to do or don\u2019t want to believe. That\u2019s not in question. The question is what we will do when it happens. Either we turn tail like most of the disciples in John 6, or we struggle on regardless.<\/p>\n
If we want to be pleasing to God, though, this choice is no choice at all. Either we submit to Jesus in everything, whether we understand it, whether we like it, or we submit to Him in nothing. If we pick and choose from His precepts, we have removed Him as Lord and set ourselves in His place.<\/p>\n
The temptation to do so can be severe. If we decide to reject the words of Christ, the devil will hand us half a dozen justifications for doing so in a heartbeat. We must remember, though, that the troublesome issue really isn\u2019t what\u2019s at issue. It\u2019s just a tool that the devil is using to get what he really wants \u2014 our souls. As long as he can separate us from Jesus, any method will serve.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the decision that we have to make, then \u2014 whether we want Jesus to save us or not. If we do, we will accept Him, hard sayings and all, because there is no other option. Peter says lots of dumb things in the course of the gospels, but in John 6:68, he gets it exactly right. He asks, \u201cLord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Next to those words, the hard words pale into insignificance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Matthew W. Bassford The law of Christ is not as I would have written it. There are actions that don\u2019t bother me very much that God labels as sins, and there are things that chap my hide but are not condemned by Him. I think pineapple on pizza ought to be classed as an…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[78,36],"class_list":["post-23092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-authority","tag-reasoning"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12307,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/would-god-forgive-incest\/","url_meta":{"origin":23092,"position":0},"title":"Would God forgive incest?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 8, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Greetings! I would like to ask for some advice about my unrighteousness. I hope you could reply. To get straight to it, I had sex with my brother. It was not really the kind of serious kind of sex because we were just playing around. At that time we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":95347,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-kind-of-drugstore-is-this\/","url_meta":{"origin":23092,"position":1},"title":"What Kind of Drugstore Is This?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 1, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"by Edward O. Bragwell, Jr. I saw a cartoon posted in a brother's drug store with the caption saying in effect: \"What do you mean you don't have nuts and bolts? What kind of drug store is this?\" Our society expects more from a drug store than just drugs. The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":89872,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/internal-issues\/","url_meta":{"origin":23092,"position":2},"title":"Internal Issues","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 29, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Doy Moyer We cannot see what is going on inside someone. That's obvious, but sometimes our judgments about people assume that everything should be normal for them because we can't see anything outwardly wrong. If we see them acting in ways we would otherwise expect, we might judge them\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":89703,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/be-merciful\/","url_meta":{"origin":23092,"position":3},"title":"Be Merciful","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 26, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Doy Moyer We cannot see what is going on inside someone. That's obvious, but sometimes our judgments about people assume that everything should be normal for them because we can't see anything outwardly wrong. If we see them acting in ways we would otherwise expect, we might judge them\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":67755,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/a-sense-of-humor\/","url_meta":{"origin":23092,"position":4},"title":"A Sense of Humor","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 22, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Doy Moyer A sense of humor is a gift from God. Some take themselves and others far too seriously, so much that they cannot laugh at themselves or enjoy a good chuckle at life's awkward moments. There is a \"time to laugh\" (Ecclesiastes 3:4), and \"A joyful heart is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":84918,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/should-those-with-mental-illness-be-treated-as-shut-ins\/","url_meta":{"origin":23092,"position":5},"title":"Should those with mental illness be treated as shut-ins?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 22, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Dear Sir, Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ! Sometimes, people with clinically diagnosed mental illnesses, like MDD, anxiety disorders, bipolar, etc., have episodes. They don't want to go to church because they feel judged and misunderstood. Sadly, some of them don't feel safe while in the church because\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23092\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}