Every congregation contains people who are doubting. Some of them are new believers who are still working out what they believe. Some are long-tenured members who have hit a season of genuine spiritual darkness. Some are people who have experienced suffering that has shaken their confidence in God. And most of them have never heard their pastor preach on doubt in a way that gave them permission to be honest about it.
Preaching on doubt well is one of the most pastoral things a small church pastor can do.
What Doubt Is Not
- Doubt is not the same as unbelief. Unbelief is the settled rejection of God. Doubt is the honest wrestling with questions about God. These are different things, and treating them as the same does significant harm to the person who is doubting.
- Doubt is not a sin. The Psalms are full of doubt. Job doubted. Thomas doubted. John the Baptist, from prison, sent messengers to ask Jesus if he was really the one (Matthew 11:3). Jesus did not rebuke any of them for their doubt. He engaged it.
- Doubt is not the opposite of faith. Faith and doubt can coexist. The father in Mark 9:24 said “I believe; help my unbelief.” That is not a contradiction. It is an honest description of what faith often looks like in real life.
wrestling with questions is different from settled rejection of God
Thomas, John the Baptist, the Psalmists, Job. Jesus engaged their doubt, not rebuked it.
the congregation that can bring their doubts to God is the congregation that is growing
The Biblical Framework
God welcomes honest questions
The book of Job is 42 chapters of honest wrestling with God. God’s response at the end is not to rebuke Job for his questions. It is to rebuke Job’s friends for their easy answers. The Psalms of lament model honest engagement with God that includes confusion, anger, and doubt. God does not punish honest questions. He invites them.
Doubt can be the beginning of deeper faith
Thomas’s doubt led to one of the most profound confessions of faith in the New Testament: “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). The person who wrestles honestly with their doubts and comes through the other side has a faith that is more strong than the person who never doubted. Preach this. The congregation member who is doubting needs to know that the wrestling is not the end of the story.
Faith does not require certainty
Hebrews 11:1 defines faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith is not certainty. It is trust in the face of uncertainty. The person who demands certainty before they will believe is not asking for faith. They are asking for something else. Preach the difference.
How to Preach It
Be honest about your own doubts
The pastor who has never experienced doubt is either not being honest or has not thought deeply enough about the faith. Share honestly about seasons of doubt in your own life. Not in a way that undermines the congregation’s confidence, but in a way that demonstrates that doubt is a normal part of the life of faith and that it is survivable.
Give the congregation permission to bring their doubts to God
Many congregation members have been told, explicitly or implicitly, that doubt is a sign of weak faith and that they should suppress it. Preach the opposite. Bring your doubts to God. He can handle them. The Psalms model this. Job models this. The father in Mark 9 models this.
Distinguish between doubt and cynicism
Doubt is honest wrestling with questions. Cynicism is the settled conviction that the answers do not matter. Doubt can lead to faith. Cynicism rarely does. Help the congregation understand the difference and encourage them toward honest wrestling rather than cynical dismissal.
A congregation where everyone performs certainty is a congregation where nobody is actually wrestling with the faith. The congregation where people can say “I am struggling to believe this” and be met with grace rather than judgment is the congregation where genuine faith is being formed.
Not as a concession to skepticism but as genuine pastoral care for the people in your congregation who are wrestling honestly with their faith. They need to know that the wrestling is welcome and that God is big enough to handle their questions.
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