Preaching and Teaching Difficult Texts of the New Testament

Understand how to preach or teach all the New Testament, including passages or genres that prove challenging.
What do preachers do when they come across a difficult passage not covered in seminary? What about teachers who haven’t even been to seminary? This book equips all of them to understand and handle challenging passages and genres in the New Testament such as:

• Introductions, lists of names, and conclusions in the epistles,
• Well-known, well-worn stories,
• Short passages,
• Texts that may not be considered inspired or that have textual issues,
• Old Testament quotations or allusions,
• References to noncanonical texts such as Enoch or Maccabees,
• Enigmatic passages such as “baptized on behalf of the dead” (1 Cor. 15:29),
• Potentially explosive topics such as homosexuality and gender,
• Eschatological texts such as Jesus’ Olivet Discourse or the book of Revelation.

Preaching and teaching the Bible is difficult work, but it’s worth the effort. As Paul wrote to Timothy, all Scripture is inspired and useful for teaching—even the difficult ones. If we know where to look and how to dig, significant treasure awaits the adventurous preacher and teacher.