Difficult Teachings

Jesus spoke to the people in beautiful parables and beatitudes to encourage and comfort but every teaching challenged every listener. What’s the hardest part about following Jesus? What teaching do you find particularly hard to live? Explore 40 of Jesus' most difficult teachings with Matthew Kelly. In a world that is confused about just about everything, the clarity of the Gospel is needed more than ever before. We are all being called to live the Gospel more fully than ever before.

Jesus provided his disciples teachings for how to follow Torah, God's word; he told them parables to help them discern questions of ethics and of human nature; he offered them beatitudes for comfort and encouragement. But sometimes Jesus spoke words that followers then and now have found difficult. In The Difficult Words of Jesus, Amy-Jill Levine shows how these difficult teachings would have sounded to the people who first heard them, how have they been understood over time, and how we might interpret them in the context of the Gospel of love and reconciliation.

God gave us His Word so that we may know Him and live by His truth. So, what should we do when we’re reading the Bible and a difficult passage stops us in our tracks? Sometimes the solution is right there on the page—if we know where to look—while other passages gain clarity in light of...

The Bible's most difficult teachings, such as laws about slavery, patriarchy, and the death penalty, often leave Christians feeling embarrassed or confused. The Verses We Hate Audio Study invites readers to confront these passages head-on, offering a fresh perspective that reveals God's fairness...

Iyanla Vanzant knows hard times, and how to work through them using the power of faith. Before writing five New York Times bestsellers, she had a troubled childhood followed by teen pregnancy, two abusive marriages, and welfare. How did she manage to turn her life around? Finding Faith in...

Anger. Fear. Sadness. Dr. Judith Orloff sees people every day who are struggling with these overwhelming emotions. To help us find relief, she has created Emotional Freedom Practices. This two-CD toolkit expands on the insights from her recently released New York Times bestseller Emotional...