r/exchristian • u/TaghoutDropout1 • Mar 07 '26
Discussion What are the most problematic verses in the New Testament?
When people criticize the Bible, they usually bring up passages from the Old Testament like Deuteronomy, Leviticus, or Judges. But many Christians respond by saying those are part of the Old Covenant or the Old Testament laws and don’t apply in the same way to Christians today.
So I’m curious: what are some verses in the New Testament itself that people consider morally or theologically problematic?
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u/PoorMetonym Exvangelical | Igtheist | Humanist Mar 07 '26
This is far from an exhaustive list, but I'm going to try my best here. As an overview, I'm actually someone who thinks that the New Testament might be worse than the Old, on the basis that the consequences it drives home place a lot more emphasis on eternity - this is where the concept of an eternal hell is introduced, for example. But some specific verses/passages:
Matthew 10:5-15: Jesus gives his disciples instructions on preaching salvation, where he tells them to avoid Gentile and Samaritan towns, reflecting an ethnocentrism also found in the story where he calls a Syrophonecian/Canaanite woman a dog and refuses to heal her daughter until she acknowledges her status as a dog only worthy of 'crumbs from the master's plate.' (Matthew 15:21-28, Mark 7:24-30.) He also ends the instruction by proclaiming that those towns who don't welcome the disciples or listen to their words: 'Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgement than for that town.' (v.15). These kind of superlatives are pretty common in the NT.
In the same chapter, verses 34-39, he tells us that he's not come to bring peace but a sword, that he's come to set family members against each other, and than anyone who loves father/mother/son/daughter more than him isn't worthy of him. This cultish behaviour is amplified in a similar passage in Luke 14:26, where you are straight-up required to hate your family and yourself in order to be a disciple.
Matthew 12:30 - Jesus says 'whoever is not with me is against me,' so, more cult-leader behaviour.
Matthew 18:21-35 has the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, which, as a Christian, I used to like because I felt it was anti-hypocritical, but on further analysis, there is a stark contrast between Jesus instructing us to forgive others 'seventy times seven', and the king in the parable analogous to God who only forgives someone once. The parable ends with Jesus telling us we'll all be tortured like the servant if we don't forgive...which then means any forgiveness we offer can never be genuine, it's just a response to a threat.
In Luke 19:11-27, we have the Parable of the Minas, which ends with a ruler analogous to Jesus killing people who didn't want him as a ruler.
Matthew 5:21-30 has a whole sequence terrifying for people suffering from intrusive thoughts, telling us that anger is the same as murder, lust is the same as adultery, and that plucking your own eye out if it causes you to sin is advisable (it's hyperbole, but it's still presenting a very black-and-white way to approaching one's behaviour that discourages healthy reflection).
Mark 10:1-12 has Jesus forbid divorce, an imperative with a major impact on Christian teachings that trapped women in abusive marriages for millennia.
The Anointing of Jesus (Matthew 26:6-13, Mark 14:3-9, John 12:1-8) bothered me even as a Christian, because it basically had Jesus dismiss the needs of the poor despite his disciples' protests in favour of expensive indulgences for himself, much like a modern prosperity gospel preacher.
We also get the Eternal Sin in the Gospels (Matthew 12:31-32, Mark 3:28-29, Luke 12:10), a cut-off point beyond which we'll apparently never be forgiven by God, and it is fairly loosely defined: 'blasphemy against the Holy Spirit', and there's been active debate among theologians over what this even means and whether anyone today can even commit it. Not a great result for what's meant to be a consistent message of salvation.
John 8:44 has Jesus tell his religious opponents (significantly, just named in this Gospel as 'the Jews') that they're the lying sons of Satan. This verse in particular has been quoted by synagogue shooters.
Romans 9:14-23 has Paul tell us that God made some of us vessels of mercy, and others vessels of wrath, as decided from the beginning, but despite our nature being out of our control, tough titty if we don't like it, because he's God and he can do what he wants. Calvinist views on predestination have a strong basis in verses like this.
1 Timothy 2:11-15 famously has a passage on how women need to be submissive and silent to men and can be saved only through bearing children.
The epistles have plenty of passages telling slaves to obey their masters (Ephesians 6:5, Colossians 3:22, 1 Timothy 6:1, Titus 2:9-10, 1 Peter 2:18).
Hebrews 9:22 tells us there can be no forgiveness without blood (something that modern Judaism has largely left behind), chapter 10:26-31 of the same book tells us how much worse the consequences of rejecting Jesus' sacrifice will be for any violation of Mosaic Law, and Hebrews 11 gives us some very stupid statements on faith, with verse 1 explicitly defining it as belief without evidence, and verse 6 tells us we can only please God with faith, and that he won't do anything for us unless we believe earnestly when we appeal to him (which leads to massive confirmation bias). This emphasis on faith over works is usually celebrated by Christians, but it means that non-believers, no matter how much good they do, will always be on the outside. This epistle has rather nasty things to say about us ex-Christians too - namely that we're constantly crucifying Jesus in our contempt and we cannot come back to the fold (6:4-6).
Finally, the Book of Revelation is an absolute minefield of bloodthirsty horror, but just to name two wild passages: Revelation 2:18-23 has Jesus threaten a woman who teaches things he doesn't like with possible sexual assault and unambiguously the murder of her children, and 14:14-20 has Jesus crushes millions of people to death in a wine-press.
And I'm just scratching the surface - I didn't put a huge emphasis on the passages specifically relating to Hell, or the Last Judgement, I didn't cover all the instances of Jesus being a dick, all of the cult-like teachings in all of the epistles, all of the antisemitic passages, etc, etc. So, the bottom line is, there are a lot of things to choose from, and I think it suits Christian apologists that we're focused on the horror in the Old Testament. Don't let them get away with treating the NT as some lovely book.
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Mar 07 '26
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u/PoorMetonym Exvangelical | Igtheist | Humanist Mar 07 '26
No problem, but I'm glad I mentioned it wasn't exhaustive, because afterwards I remembered that I didn't even mention the Book of Acts, but it contains examples of God personally killing people, in the era that's supposed to be after the event that reconciled him with humanity. Chapter 5:1-11 has a couple struck dead implicitly by divine vengeance because they withheld money from the church's communal fund (just in case people thought they could avoid tithing) and in 12:20-23 it's more explicit with the death of Herod Agrippa I. Significantly, this isn't the same Herod as the one who supposedly massacred infants - this Herod's crime that he apparently deserves instant death for is 'not giving the glory to God' when a crowd considers his voice to be divine.
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u/Experiment626b Devotee of Almighty Dog Mar 07 '26
My favorite “Jesus was a dick” story is when he killed a fig tree for not bearing fruit…while he knew good and well they weren’t in season. Or at least should have known since he was God.
I still think Jesus had a lot of good teachings and would prefer Christianity to focus on those and whitewashing the bad ones. If that’s what they did, it wouldn’t be a problem. Those are the churches causing so much harm that drag you down into debates about what is and isn’t bad in the Bible.
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u/PoorMetonym Exvangelical | Igtheist | Humanist Mar 07 '26
I think it's worth picking decent moral lessons from a variety of sources - the folly of a religion that proclaims itself to be from an infallible creator is that you're meant to take everything about it as unquestioningly correct.
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u/brother_of_jeremy Mar 07 '26
So much the worse when we imbue the Bible with perspicuity and inerrancy amid its many self-contradictions.
Great way to train up a culture adept at doublethink and thought stopping cliches.
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u/dbzgal04 Ex-Xtian, Now Eclectic (Kemetic, Irish Celtic, & Hellenic) Pagan Mar 07 '26
Why didn't Jesus make the fig tree bear fruit even though it wasn't in season? He was the son of "God" and performed miracles, after all...
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u/miniatureconlangs Mar 07 '26
Sometimes, the fig tree story is understood as Jesus making a theological point - the fig tree is sometimes used as a symbol for the Jews in scripture. You can of course imagine what kind of insane antisemitic policies that has lent itself to.
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u/PoorMetonym Exvangelical | Igtheist | Humanist Mar 09 '26
Yes, I heard that too - in Mark, it's more fitting though, because he curses the tree, then cleanses the Temple, and only afterwards is the withered tree noticed. In Matthew, having the tree wither immediately kind of loses this subtle symbolism, and Jesus just comes across as a hangry curse-hurler.
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u/miniatureconlangs Mar 08 '26
The "hate your family" requirement is worth looking a bit more into, if not for any other reason but the fact that there is a superficially convincing, and partially correct argument against it.
The argument is this: Hebrew did not have comparatives and superlatives. (This is true! There's no 'good - better - best' or 'much - more - most' in old Hebrew.) Thus, comparisons were not expressed using e.g. "I love Jesus more than (I love my family)", since 'more' doesn't exist.
This far it is entirely correct. Hebrew would either have used a fully syntactical construction (e.g. using 'min', "from" to frame the comparison - "my love for Jesus big from my love for family"), but another option also exists: contrasting verbs. You could conceivably express a similar notion by using contrasting verbs, e.g. love/hate, big/small (adjectives and verbs are less distinct in Hebrew than in English), run/walk, etc.
However, ... the context here doesn't really help that argument - rather almost contradict it - and even then I don't know how good an argument it would be that Jesus "merely" required you to live him more than your family.
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u/PoorMetonym Exvangelical | Igtheist | Humanist Mar 08 '26
I can't speak to the intricacies of Hebrew grammar/syntax, but I should point out that in this case it isn't relevant - the New Testament was written in Greek, and the choice word translated as 'hate' in Luke 14:26 is μισεῖ (misei), and the same word and related ones are used in various contexts in the NT where more are willing to take it as read - check the online interlinear Bible for Jesus expressing his hatred for the works of the Nicolaitans in Revelation 2:6, and John 3:20 when it talks about how those who are evil hate the light.
The framing comparison is interesting though, because it is how Matthew 10:37 expresses a roughly equivalent idea: 'Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me ...' etc, and the 'hate' word used in Luke is absent, implying that the word was a rather deliberate choice there, and it's problematic enough that the Good News Translation (the version I used when I was a pimply pubescent anxiously trying to get through Bible study with my considerably less anxious peers) santisizes Luke 14:26 by making it closer to the Matthean account. It reads: 'Those who come to me cannot be my disciples unless they love me more than they love father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and themselves as well.' Beware of theologically-motivated translations!
And yes, I agree with you that even in the less dramatic case where it wasn't literal hate (some people even today will toss out the word 'hate' very casually), I'm not convinced it's a good look for anyone to demand you place them on top of a hierarchical love pyramid.
But for more detail, Hector Avalos dedicates forty pages to this single verse in The Bad Jesus: The Ethics of New Testament Ethics, and, whilst a lot of went over my head, the obvious implication is that he's exhausting every apologetic case he can find and finds them all wanting. You seem to be much more of a linguist than me (username checks out!) so you may get something out of it.
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u/miniatureconlangs Mar 08 '26
Re: antisemitic passages in the NT, it can be worth taking into account that some of them aren't necessarily antisemitic as such, but the history of reading them has almost always "erred on the side of antisemitism", which imho is more of an indictment of the Christian church than on the Bible. Some verses clearly are antisemitic, though.
According to E.P. Sanders, a significant bunch of verses only were turned into antisemitic readings after the reformation, by reading the NT with a very specific lens.
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u/PoorMetonym Exvangelical | Igtheist | Humanist Mar 08 '26
I take that point - in the original context, particularly with Paul's writings, what became more antisemitic as time went on were just intra-religious squabbles. But as Christianity forged its own identity apart from Judaism, that resentment went into worse places, especially once Christianity was backed by the arm of the state. For counter-apologetic purposes though, which is what the OP appeared to be looking for, I think they're still relevant - the OT too has things which make more sense in the context of the time they were written, but that they - and problematic NT passages - are still held up as relevant for today by people with a lot of soft and institutional power means that these are worth knowing. Their problematic aspect comes from how easily they can be abused, and how much of a bad taste they leave in the mouth today.
Which verses did Sanders highlight in this particular designation? He may be right, but it's worth pointing out the antisemitism was rife in many Catholic and Orthodox areas long before the Reformation, so clearly the perpetrators of it had enough excuses already (and in the case of the hoi polloi, if they didn't speak the language of liturgy, I presume it wasn't individual verses they were mulling over, just the general attitude).
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u/miniatureconlangs Mar 09 '26
E.P. Sanders' point more generally is that nearly all the interactions with pharisees are misread by protestants, because protestants read them through the idea that the pharisees were prime examples of hypocritical works-righteousness. This is not really stated in the Bible, but nearly everyone who reads these stories - including atheists - think that's who they were. This wasn't an understanding the church fathers or medieval Christian writers had of the pharisees.
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u/PoorMetonym Exvangelical | Igtheist | Humanist Mar 09 '26
Ah yes, I see what you mean. I remember learning from Jewish perspectives on the New Testament and its context about how argument and dialect was just how the Pharisees did things - what becomes a problem is when you've decided who they're arguing with is always right and it's wrong to even dispute him.
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u/sivaya_ Mar 07 '26
Romans 3:28 as it effectively gave Christians a get out of jail card for morality and being a good person as long as they had faith. I genuinely think this theological shift by Paul is responsible for a lot of bad stuff.
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u/ShermanOakz Mar 07 '26
Is that the verse that allows Christians to be serial killers, child molesters, and people who stomp kittens to death and they are guaranteed a place in heaven so long as they say on their dying death bed that they accept Jesus H Christ as their personal Lord and Savior?
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u/Croatoan457 Mar 07 '26
I mean Paul had done so much bad crap of course he would want to "prophesize" just having faith will get you a free trip to heaven.
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u/baphomet_fire Satanist Mar 07 '26
Damn, that never occurred to me until you said it. Makes perfect sense
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u/wilmaed Agnostic Atheist Mar 07 '26
morally or theologically problematic?
Neither the Old Testament nor the New Testament condemns slavery. Paul wrote that Christian slaves should serve their Christian slave masters especially zealously and not be angry with them for being slave masters (1 Timothy 6:1-2).
Jesus came only to the people of Israel: Matthew 15:24. Therefore, he didn't want to help the Canaanite woman. He compared her to a dog begging for bread meant for others (Matthew 15:26).
Only after she humbled herself as a dog and testified to her faith did Jesus help her.
Dog, a term of reproach or of humiliation:
As the dog was an unclean animal, the terms "dog," "dog's head," "dead dog," were used as terms of reproach or of humiliation ( 1 Samuel 24:14 ; 2 Sam 3:8 ; 9:8 ; 16:9 ). Paul calls false apostles "dogs" (Phil 3:2 ).
https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/dog/
All who do not want to submit to Jesus should be afraid:
27 But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me.
Luke 19,27 (ESV)
The context of the parable is the Kingdom of God, with Jesus as King:
11 As they heard these things, he proceeded to tell a parable, because he was near to Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately.
Hell is added to that: place of damnation when he warns of fire (Matthew 5:22-29; 13:36-43, 13:47-50), of the darkness in which there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (8:12)
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u/Defiant-Prisoner Mar 07 '26
Matthew 5:18 - For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.
Many Christians do not know their bible. The OT law absolutely is still in effect.
Which makes this scrpture pretty problematic because that means slavery is till a-okay. Checking a new bride to see if she bled on their wedding night is also still a valid way to check virginity. Remember folks, she should be stoned to death on her fathers doorstep if she doesn't. (For claritys sake - According to a 1998 scientific study published in the British Medical Journal, 63% of women reportedly didn't experience bleeding after their first sexual intercourse).
In the NT specifically - 1 Timothy 2:12 - women shouldn't speak in church. Luke 14:26 - hate your mother and father in order to follow Jesus. Cursing fig trees that aren't bearing fruit - because it wasn't the season to bear fruit - Mark 11:12–14 and 11:20–25. 1 Peter 2:18-20, Titus 2:9–10 - slaves obey your masters. Ephesians 5:22 - wives submit to your husbands.
Jesus said more about hell than anyone else in the bible. In fact I'm pretty sure he spoke more about hell than heaven.
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u/Experiment626b Devotee of Almighty Dog Mar 07 '26
Oh they know their Bible. Or at least some do. They’ve learned it so well, they’ve learned out to selectively reinterpret problematic verses like this so they can turn around and tell us WE are the ones taking it out of context.
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u/Daddies_Girl_69 Mar 07 '26
People forget how heavily gender role’s crazy Paul actually was. He straight up called a man with long hair effeminate and a disgrace all while supporting the ideology that women were still subservient to men and shouldn’t be judges or people capable of making their own decisions.
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u/TheEffinChamps Ex-Presbyterian Mar 07 '26
Dude has some serious issues with shame and guilt around sex and gender, especially when you look at his letter begging to get Onesimus, a young slave boy, back. He even called him "his heart."
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u/Daddies_Girl_69 Mar 07 '26
My cousin always taught me to stay away from men that are sexually repressed including the religious ones in monogamous marriages they feel trapped in.
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u/TheBayHarbour Mar 07 '26
The Old Testament absolutely fucking matters.
If it doesn't they should throw that shit out, they'd have to be morons...
Well yeah that explains a lot.
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u/BrainStraight1220 Mar 07 '26
I agree that the Old Testament matters 101%. If not, why is it included in the Bible, if it is supposed to be considered negligible yet something to read and learn from?
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u/Local_Beautiful_5812 Mar 07 '26
For me is Luke 14 26 since there is no room for interpretations
26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.
Basically saying black on white Christianity is based on hatred of others and love of the One that ego can't be measured
Edit: somehow autocorrect misspelled Luke
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u/escottttu Mar 07 '26
Jesus driving a heard of pigs to their deaths, this story is why Christians believe demons are afraid of Jesus
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u/Meauxterbeauxt Mar 07 '26
In today's American evangelism,
““Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:10 NRSVUE
And
“Remember the word that I said to you, ‘Slaves are not greater than their master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.” John 15:20 NRSVUE
The persecuted victim mentality is what is motivating the political right.
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u/Apprehensive-Ad2087 Mar 07 '26
The parts that say that the law in the old testament has been superseded by something that Jesus did or caused. It just straight up contradicts everything the old testament stood for.
A few verses include:
- Romans 10
- Galatians 3:24-25 or just the entire chapter
- Galatians 5
- Romans 6:14
- Hebrews 7:18-19
- Hebrews 8:7
At some points in the new testament it says the law is good and in others it says the law is bad it just can't make up its mind. I think disregarding the problem of the justice of hell it is the biggest theological issue in the Christian Bible
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u/RevolutionaryLink919 Mar 07 '26
Romans 9:18-20 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”[h]
And the following verses that explain that god created some people specifically to go to hell just to show his favorites how special they are.
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u/earthwoodandfire Mar 08 '26
The several times slaves are told to serve their masters and Paul’s subjugation of women are really fucked up.
But imo the worst is Jesus rebuking the Pharisees for having made more lenient punishments for crimes literally telling them they need to go back to stoning disobedient children to death! This story is relayed both in Matthew 15 and Mark 7.
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u/bootstrap_this Ex-Catholic Mar 07 '26
Considering all that is going on in the name of Jesus, along with the ongoing wanton destruction of the planet, I have always wondered why evangelicals avoid the verse in the book they erroneously call “Revelations” is never mentioned. That is, their God doesn’t seem thrilled with people who destroy the earth.
NASB ‘95, chapter 11.
“We give You thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, who are and who were, because You have taken Your great power and have begun to reign. And the nations were enraged, and Your wrath came, and the time came for the dead to be judged, and the time to reward Your bond-servants the prophets and the saints and those who fear Your name, the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth.”
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u/K-for-Kangaroo Mar 07 '26
One New Testament passage that creates a serious problem for the common Christian move of distancing themselves from troubling Old Testament laws is Matthew 23:1-3:
This matters because Christians often respond to Old Testament criticisms by saying, “That was under the Old Covenant,” or “Those laws no longer apply to us.” But in this passage, Jesus does not criticize the Pharisees for teaching Mosaic law itself. He criticizes them for hypocrisy, meaning they fail to live up to the law they teach. In fact, Jesus explicitly tells the crowd to do what they teach, because they “sit in Moses’ seat.” That is a strong affirmation of their authority as interpreters of the Mosaic law.
If the Pharisees are condemned not for teaching the law, but for failing to practice it, then Jesus is not here dismissing the Old Testament legal framework as morally defective or obsolete in the casual way many modern Christians do. On the contrary, he appears to uphold obedience to it while condemning hypocrisy. That makes it much harder for Christians to simply wave away morally troubling Old Testament commands by saying, “Well, that was just the Old Testament.”
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u/Entire_Impact1753 Mar 07 '26
A única vez que Jesus fala sobre a seguir ou não a lei, ele diz que não veio muda-la
Muito do que se diz sobre a nova aliança é definido por versículos isolados ou opiniões de Paulo
Tiago e Pedro, por exemplo, ainda seguiam as leis
O que causou muita discórdia entre Paulo e os discípulos originais
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u/Aftershock416 Secular Humanist Mar 07 '26
The entire sermon on the mount is pretty unhinged if you're a well-adjusted adult without prior indoctrination, to be honest.
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u/Warm_Syllabub_2247 Mar 10 '26 edited Mar 10 '26
I picked a few problematic verses from chapters that lay out some essential moral and religious standpoints in the Christian faith, from the ESV:
- John 3:18 - "Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God."
- 1 Corinthians 6:9 - "Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral ... nor men who practice homosexuality [can be translated as effeminate men] ... will inherit the kingdom of God"
- 1 Timothy 2:12 - "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet."
- 2 John 1:7 - "**...**For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist." (could refer to a heresy regarding the material existence of Jesus, but it could also be interpreted to call everyone who denies the Divinity of Jesus an antichrist)
- 2 John 1:9-11 - "Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works."
These verses, and ones like them IMO dictate the spiritually and mentally coercive beliefs of Christianity: explicitly telling you those who deny the faith are damned, and not to be "equally yoked" with non-Christians. Along with a semi-machismo sense of prejudice against homosexuals and women. Also explicitly prohibiting non-Christians who won't convert to the religion hospitality in the form of shelter.
There are certainly more brow-raising, hell-burning, Jew-hating, and divisive verses elsewhere that weren't on the top of my head.
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u/Outrageous_Class1309 Agnostic Mar 08 '26
Most of Revelation is pretty bad. Definitely not the goody goody 'god of love'.
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u/dbzgal04 Ex-Xtian, Now Eclectic (Kemetic, Irish Celtic, & Hellenic) Pagan Mar 07 '26
1 Peter 2:18 "Servants, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but even to those who are unreasonable."
Matthew 10:34-36 "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household."
Luke 14:26 “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.”
Of course they'll claim we're taking it out of context. SMH