Hard Sayings of Jesus Christ

Twenty years' experience in the Ministry is however scarcely needed to make one alive to the fact that among the authoritative and reason-compelling Words of Jesus Christ some undoubtedly cause trouble in various minds. Appearing on a shallow acquaintance either impracticable or reasonless, they not only lose authority but sow the seeds of doubt. The object, therefore, of this book is the lessening of such perplexities - the removal of stumbling-blocks - by setting forth the principles which seem to elucidate the Teaching of the Master. It is an attempt to construe the meaning of some of the more striking of Christ's "hard sayings". Others, here untouched, might no doubt easily be cited. But the aim of the writer has not been to exhaust the verbal difficulties in the recorded utterances of our Lord. He has rather sought to examine the Master's method, and to illustrate its underlying principles by a number of examples perhaps sufficient to enable the reader to apply those principles in solving other problems for himself.