In Contradictions and Missing Pieces, I explained how certain passages in Scripture can seem to conflict in ways that require logical resolution. Sometimes, however, there are seeming contradictions that cannot be logically resolved, because the apparent conflict is in fact reflective of a complexity that exists in the nature of God and the reality He created for us.

Instead of finding a framework that makes two conflicting statements accord with one another, these unresolvable conflicts, which I call “tensions,” are meant to be held in the mind, like trying to push two magnets of the same polarity together. You are to ponder and seek to understand how two seemingly irreconcilable facts can both be true. By meditating in this way, your understanding of God, the world, and yourself will expand.

Now, the tension you are contemplating will not remain an impenetrable mystery forever. You will find ways to make sense of it. But like logical contradictions, there is no limit to how deep your pondering can take you. As you “unwind” the conflict that exists in a tension, you will explore deeper and deeper levels of truth. Much of what I’ve written on this website has come from my attempts to make sense of Bible tensions, thereby attaining to some measure of understanding about what God has revealed about Himself in Scripture.

The most classic tension in the Bible is, of course, the Trinity. God is three, but He is also one. For example insights that come from dwelling on that particular tension, see my article on Trinitarianism.

My article Tackling the Hard Questions Head-On is a series of meditative reflections on the hard questions in life that are really just Bible tensions, such as “God is good, but the world is full of evil and suffering.” Again, this is different from a Bible contradiction because these two facts are not logically in conflict with one another. Somehow, both are true, and there is no logical way to fully remove the seeming conflict.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of tensions you will find in the Bible. Scripture encourages you to dwell on all of them, as well as any additional ones you can find.

• God is 3 vs God is 1
• God pre-ordains history vs God experiences history in real-time and responds emotionally to what happens
• God is good vs God pre-ordained a world full of evil and suffering and death
• Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled in the near-term vs those prophecies were fulfilled by Jesus
• Messianic prophecies were fulfilled immediately after the Exile vs those prophecies were fulfilled four hundred years later by Jesus (this tension is especially prevalent in the Book of Jeremiah)
• God blesses His children with prosperity and security vs God allows His children to suffer and die young
• God is good vs God consigns some humans to eternal suffering
• Our salvation is secure vs we can “fall away” from the faith
• We are predestined from before the beginning of the world vs we possess free will and make choices accordingly
• God loves everyone and wants all to be saved vs God only loves and saves the elect
• Our faith is apart from works and therefore our obedience is non-essential to salvation vs our works and our obedience are critically important to our walk with Christ
• The gospel is the tender whisper of a loving Father seeking to save you from yourself vs the gospel is a terrifying demand of a holy God who will judge you if you do not abandon your evil ways
• Sin is bad because it violates God’s laws vs sin is something bad for you
• We become perfectly righteous and holy upon being justified by our belief in Jesus vs we are progressively sanctified and become increasingly holy for the remainder of our lives
• We are a new creation and have no connection to our old selves once we convert vs we have to diligently disentangle ourselves from the sin we bring from our old lives into our new lives
• A Christian is a child of God vs a Christian is a bondservant of God
• God does not condemn you for your sin once you’re in the faith vs God disciplines you for your sin all the more because you’re in the faith