Hard Sayings in Scripture

In a recent Bible reading, I came across the following verses involving King Saul:

But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him. (1 Samuel 16:14)
And Saul's servants said unto him, Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee. (1 Samuel 16:15)

An “evil spirit from the Lord.” Doesn’t that sound wrong? What does it mean? Does God really use evil?

It made me think about how we approach difficult passages in Scripture, whether in preaching or in our daily Bible reading. Do we simply say, “God can’t be responsible for evil”, think no more and move on? Or is it helpful to dig a little deeper?

The Apostle Peter reminds us that there are writings in Scripture that are hard to be understood:

As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction. (2 Peter 3:16)

One key in this verse is the word wrest, which has the idea of distorting or to twist. Clearly, without understanding, we are apt to take “hard verses” and misapply them, much to our detriment. If we then take this misapplication and share it with others, our lack of understanding (really foolishness) may spread.

While a blog post doesn’t have the room necessary to do an entire Bible study on these verses, I want to suggest a few ways to consider verses like the ones above:

Review similar sayings in Scripture.
What does the Bible have to say about the connection between God and evil? Consider 1 Samuel 18:10 and 19:9-10. Leaving the immediate context of Saul, we find additional important verses in Judges 9:22-23 and Isaiah 45:7.
Review what you know from Scripture.
In this case, what do I know about God? He is holy (1 Peter 1:16). He is separate from evil and darkness (Psalm 5:4, 1 John 1:5). He is unable to tempt man with evil (James 1:13). And He is the Author of good (Genesis 1:31). Before you draw any conclusions about God from this one verse, examine what Scripture tells us about Him.
Examine the Words.
While understanding the underlying Hebrew and Greek can be a tremendous help here, I would suggest that simply examining the words in English will also prove fruitful. It is interesting to note that the Holy Spirit is said to be “of” the Lord (and always is) while the evil spirit is said to be “from” the Lord. How is this difference meaningful?
Consult other Resources including Commentaries.
Commentaries are different from the Word of God. They are fallible. However, when you find authors you trust, you can benefit from their Holy Spirit-led search of the Scriptures. I would recommend, however, that you go here last or else you are opening yourself up to be biased. In this example, one resource I came across suggested a potential parallel to what we see in Job 1:7-12 when God puts all that Job has under the power of Satan.

So what does it mean that “an evil spirit from the Lord” troubled Saul? I’m going to leave that to you to determine for yourself.

God asks us to “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)

This exhortation shouldn’t only be applied to the Pastor. We all want to rightly divide the Word, so that we can put it to maximum use in our churches, in our families, and in our witness. Don’t skip the sayings that trouble you. Tackle them head on and you’ll gain a deeper appreciation the Word of God and its Author!