Is the Bible Difficult?

This post is for Dan, who must think I'm stealing his theological thunder by focusing on his well-featured favorites. The truth is I've just been having fun finding writings of some old wise guys.

That's wise as in spiritually and Biblically insightful. We're not talking about cotton-ball cheeks and horse heads here.

Today I offer up Chapter 6 from A.W. Tozer's Man: The Dwelling Place of God, entitled "Why People Find the Bible Difficult." Tozer writes:

The notion that the Bible is addressed to everybody has wrought confusion within and without the church. The effort to apply the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount to the unregenerate nations of the world is one example of this. Courts of law and the military powers of the earth are urged to follow the teachings of Christ, an obviously impossible thing for them to do. To quote the words of Christ as guides for policemen, judges and generals is to misunderstand those words completely and to reveal a total lack of understanding of the purposes of divine revelation. The gracious words of Christ are for the sons and daughters of grace, not for the Gentile nations whose chosen symbols are the lion, the eagle, the dragon and the bear.