When Scripture Feels Troubling: Wrestling with Women, Justice, and Biblical Texts in Modern Disciple

You're sitting in Gospel Doctrine class when someone reads Ephesians 5:22 aloud—"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands"—and you feel your jaw tighten. Or you're having dinner with a non-member friend who asks pointedly why you follow a Bible that condones slavery, and you realize you don't have a good answer beyond "that's just how things were back then," which feels hollow even as the words leave your mouth. Maybe you're a returned missionary who spent two years testifying that God loves all His children equally, only to come home and wonder why the New Testament includes passages where Paul tells women to be silent in church or instructs slaves to obey their masters. Perhaps you're a mother reading bedtime scriptures with your daughter when she asks why Jesus called the Canaanite woman a dog, and you stumble through an explanation that doesn't quite satisfy either of you. These moments create a peculiar kind of spiritual vertigo—not the dramatic faith crisis that gets discussed in podcasts and articles, but a quieter unraveling where the foundation you thought was solid suddenly feels unstable beneath your feet.

The discomfort multiplies when you realize you're not supposed to talk about it. In the hallways after church, conversations stay safely surface-level, and raising questions about problematic passages feels like an admission of weak faith rather than genuine seeking. You watch other members quote these same verses without apparent concern, and you wonder if you're overthinking things or if they simply haven't engaged deeply enough to notice the tensions. The online world offers no refuge either—one side insists you must accept every word of scripture uncritically or you're on the road to apostasy, while the other uses these same passages as evidence that Christianity itself is irredeemably patriarchal and oppressive. You're caught in the middle, knowing that your discomfort with certain biblical texts doesn't mean you've stopped believing in the Restoration, yet feeling increasingly alone in your struggle to reconcile the scriptures you've been taught to revere with the principles of equality and justice you know the gospel actually teaches. Young women in your ward are quietly leaving, not because they stopped believing in Christ but because they couldn't find room within the tradition to honestly grapple with texts that seem to diminish their worth. Investigators who are drawn to the Book of Mormon's teachings on the worth of souls hesitate when they encounter the Bible's more troubling passages about women and slavery. And you yourself oscillate between defensiveness and despair, wondering if faithful discipleship requires you to defend the indefensible or if there's a more honest path forward.

When we turn to scripture seeking understanding rather than simple answers, we discover that the Bible itself provides us with principles for interpretation that honor both the text and our conscience. Consider the encounter in John 8 where religious leaders bring to Jesus a woman caught in adultery, ready to stone her according to Mosaic law. The text explicitly tells us this was a trap—they wanted to see if Jesus would uphold the law or show mercy, creating grounds to accuse him either way. Jesus responds by writing in the dirt and saying "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." The accusers leave one by one, and Jesus tells the woman he doesn't condemn her but instructs her to "go, and sin no more." This account reveals something essential about how Christ engaged with scripture and law. He didn't dismiss the Torah or claim it was meaningless, yet he also refused to apply it in ways that crushed human dignity or ignored the weightier matters of justice and mercy. Jesus demonstrated that faithfulness to God sometimes means recognizing when our interpretation of scripture has become divorced from its divine intent. The religious leaders were technically correct according to the letter of the law, but they had lost sight of God's character and purposes. Christ's response wasn't to simply overturn the law but to reveal its true spirit—that law exists to bring us to God, not to become a weapon against the vulnerable.

This same principle appears in Christ's revolutionary interactions with women throughout his ministry. He taught Mary of Bethany as a disciple when rabbis of his era believed women incapable of serious religious learning. He revealed his messianic identity first to the Samaritan woman at the well, someone triply marginalized by gender, ethnicity, and reputation. He allowed the woman with the issue of blood to touch him, violating purity laws but honoring her faith. He accepted financial support and traveling companionship from women disciples, scandalous for his cultural context. When we read passages that seem to subordinate women or accept slavery, we must read them through the lens of Christ's actual ministry, which consistently elevated the marginalized and challenged power structures that crushed human dignity. The apostle Paul, often cited as the source of problematic passages, also wrote that in Christ "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). This isn't contradiction—it's the tension of living in a transitional moment, trying to apply revolutionary gospel principles within cultural systems not yet transformed by them.

President Dallin H. Oaks has taught that "we need to be cautious about using the words of the Lord recorded in scripture to support proposals that clearly originate from other sources." He further explained that our understanding of doctrine develops over time and that we must "be careful not to assume that a specific teaching or practice in an ancient text is binding today." This prophetic wisdom gives us permission to recognize that some biblical passages reflect cultural accommodations rather than eternal principles. Just as the early Church practiced plural marriage for a season and then discontinued it, or just as we no longer practice the United Order in its original form, we can acknowledge that certain biblical instructions about women or slavery were addressing specific historical situations without being timeless commandments. This doesn't diminish scriptural authority—it actually honors it by recognizing that God works with people where they are, gradually leading them toward higher understanding. The Restoration itself demonstrates this pattern. We believe in ongoing revelation precisely because our understanding of God's will develops progressively, "line upon line, precept upon precept."

The emotional weight of grappling with these issues deserves acknowledgment and compassion. If you've felt guilty for being troubled by certain passages, that guilt itself may be evidence of a conscience refined by the Spirit rather than weakness of faith. The discomfort you feel when reading passages that diminish women or accept slavery might actually be the Holy Ghost witnessing to you that these don't reflect God's full will. Wrestling with scripture isn't apostasy—it's the work of discipleship. Abraham questioned God's justice before Sodom. Job challenged God directly about undeserved suffering. Mary pondered deeply the angel's announcement. The brother of Jared saw the Lord because he pressed forward with questions rather than passive acceptance. If you're exhausted from trying to defend passages you don't actually believe reflect God's character, you can release that burden. You don't have to become a scriptural apologist for texts that contradict the core message of the gospel. The fear that honest questioning will lead you away from Christ often has it backwards—many people leave the Church not because they questioned too much but because they felt they couldn't question enough within the bounds of fellowship.

So how do we move forward with integrity intact? First, we must develop what might be called scriptural literacy—learning to read the Bible not as a flat text where every verse carries equal weight and application, but as a rich, complex library of texts written across centuries, cultures, and circumstances. This means studying the historical context of passages that trouble us. When Paul instructs slaves to obey their masters, we can recognize he was writing to tiny Christian communities without political power, offering survival strategies while planting seeds of a more radical vision. When we read household codes subordinating women, we can recognize these as accommodations to Greco-Roman culture while noting the more revolutionary passages where Paul names women as apostles, prophets, and co-laborers. We're not dismissing these texts but reading them more carefully than surface literalism allows.

Second, we must apply the principle of charity toward ancient authors while maintaining moral clarity. We can honor Paul's courage and theological brilliance while acknowledging he didn't have the benefit of modern revelation about the equal standing of men and women before God. We can respect the Bible's preservation and transmission across millennia while recognizing that translation choices and cultural biases have shaped what we read in English. The Book of Mormon gives us a restoration lens for reading the Bible, clarifying that "plain and precious things" were lost or obscured. This isn't license to discard whatever we dislike, but it does free us from the burden of defending every passage as though our entire testimony depends on it.

Third, we must reclaim the prophetic tradition within Christianity that has always used scripture to critique scripture. The same Bible used to defend slavery was also used by abolitionists to condemn it—they pointed to the Exodus narrative, the Hebrew prophets' cries for justice, and Christ's gospel of liberation. Early Latter-day Saints used Biblical prophecy about restoration to challenge the religious establishment of their day. We stand in this tradition when we let the clearest revelations about God's character—especially as revealed in Christ—interpret passages that seem inconsistent with that character. When we're unsure how to read a difficult text, we can ask: Does this interpretation align with what Jesus taught and modeled? Does it reflect the God described in the Restoration? Does it promote justice, mercy, and the worth of souls?

Fourth, we must create spaces within our faith communities where these conversations can happen openly. If you're teaching a Sunday School class and encounter a troubling passage, you don't have to pretend it's simple or unproblematic. You can acknowledge the difficulty while exploring it together, modeling for others that wrestling with scripture is part of mature discipleship. If you're a parent, you can let your children see you grapple with hard questions rather than offering forced certainty. If you're struggling privately, you might find others who share your concerns if you're willing to voice them with vulnerability and faith. The goal isn't to tear down scripture but to engage it more deeply and honestly than superficial reading allows.

Finally, we must remember that our ultimate allegiance isn't to any text but to the living Christ whom the texts attempt to point us toward. Jesus himself challenged scriptural interpretations when they became barriers to knowing God. He healed on the Sabbath despite clear commandments against work. He touched lepers and corpses despite purity laws. He ate with sinners despite social codes. He did these things not because he dismissed scripture but because he understood that scripture's purpose is to bring us to relationship with God, and when interpretations of scripture prevent that relationship, the interpretation must change. We follow his example when we refuse to use biblical texts to justify diminishing anyone's dignity or worth.

The fruit of this more thoughtful engagement with scripture isn't uncertainty or faith crisis—it's a deeper, more resilient discipleship. When you stop expending energy defending problematic passages and instead focus on the core message of Christ's redemption, your testimony actually strengthens because it's built on the right foundation. When young women see that the Church has room for honest questions about gender in scripture, they're more likely to stay and contribute their full gifts rather than leaving in frustration. When investigators see that we can acknowledge difficult passages while maintaining faith, they recognize we're people of integrity rather than intellectual cowards. Your peace increases because you're no longer carrying the burden of pretending every verse of the Bible reflects perfect eternal truth. Your confidence in bearing testimony grows because you know it rests on revelation and personal witness rather than on defending every culturally conditioned passage in an ancient text.

This approach actually prepares us better for temple worship, where we're taught to ask, seek, and knock rather than passively receive. The temple experience invites us into covenant relationship with God characterized by dialogue and progression, not blind obedience to incomprehensible demands. When we develop the spiritual maturity to engage scripture critically while maintaining faith, we're better prepared for the nuanced meanings and symbolism the temple contains. We become members who stay not because we're afraid to question but because we've questioned our way into deeper understanding. We raise up a generation that doesn't have to choose between intellectual honesty and spiritual commitment because we've modeled how to hold both together.

The vision before us is a Church where people feel safe bringing their whole selves, including their doubts and questions, into the community of Saints. It's a community where women don't have to read past demeaning passages in silence but can engage them honestly while testifying of the Christ who elevated women in revolutionary ways. It's a place where we acknowledge historical wrongs enabled by biblical misinterpretation—including slavery, colonialism, and the subjugation of women—while claiming the more excellent way revealed through restoration. It's a faith that doesn't require us to defend the indefensible but invites us to seek truth wherever it leads, trusting that all truth ultimately points toward Christ. In this vision, scripture remains sacred but not because every passage is perfect—rather because it preserves the testimony of flawed people encountering a perfect God and recording that encounter as best they could within their limited understanding. Our task is to continue that encounter ourselves, letting the Spirit teach us what is true, what is cultural, and what is essential for our salvation.

© 𝘍𝘦𝘭𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘍𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘴 2025. 𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘥. 
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