Bible Verse that Says God Will Never Give Us More Than We Can Handle

One of my favorite parts about hav­ing installed var­i­ous Word­Press sta­tis­tics plu­g­ins is being able to see how peo­ple end up on Timothy’s Bur­den. From the refer­ral logs, I can not only keep up with other sites which may be link­ing to me but also with what peo­ple are search­ing for that leads them here. Some of the searches seem pretty com­mon, and I’m impressed that Timothy’s Bur­den reg­is­ters on the radar for them; other searches make me ques­tion just how in the world a search engine (most often Google or one of its inter­na­tional sites) would asso­ciate my site with that term, so I run the same search myself and sure enough there’s my site.

But I won­der if those peo­ple who are click­ing over to Timothy’s Bur­den from their search results are actu­ally find­ing what they wanted to find. So I came up with the idea of respond­ing to my search refer­rals. Not only will it help future searchers find the right mate­r­ial if the same terms are used, but it will pro­vide me with vir­tu­ally unend­ing top­ics to write about.

What does any of that have to do with the title of this post? “Bible verse that says God will never give us more than we can han­dle” is the first search result I’m going to reply to.

It should be noted that a page which pro­vided that verse was given in the results (on the first page, even). How­ever, that is one of my more con­tro­ver­sial (and most often stum­bled upon) mes­sages, and the verse in ques­tion was only noted in passing.

So with­out fur­ther ado, what is the Bible verse that says God will never give us more than we can handle?

There isn’t one! What? Wait, what about… ? Nope, that’s dif­fer­ent. To the best of my knowl­edge and search­ing, I can­not find a verse of the Bible which states that God will not give us more than we can han­dle. Sorry to disappoint.

So what verse was this searcher prob­a­bly think­ing of? Get­ting inside searchers’ minds can be an amus­ing past­time. One of the ear­li­est activ­i­ties I was ever intro­duced to online was on the MetaCrawler MetaSpy. Back then, it was a text list that con­tin­u­ally reloaded, if I recall cor­rectly. Now it’s a fancy ver­ti­cal Flash mar­quee. But the point of it is the same: Look­ing in at what the world is search­ing for can yield some fas­ci­nat­ing insights into the mind of man.

Any­way, back on topic… What verse was prob­a­bly being ref­er­enced? First Corinthi­ans 10:13! It cer­tainly doesn’t say that God will not give us more than we can han­dle, but it does give us the extra­or­di­nary promise that God will never allow us to be tempted more than we can han­dle and that He will always pro­vide a way of escape. And in light of this truth that temp­ta­tion is never too strong and that there is always a way out, Paul admon­ishes the Corinthi­ans to flee from idol­a­try, one of the eas­i­est sins to fall into. How reas­sur­ing the thought of a means of escape made by God Him­self when charged to flee from such a sin as idol­a­try! It’s no won­der Paul placed the promise before the admonition.

So, to answer the revised search, “Bible verse that says God will never allow us to be tempted more than we can han­dle,” here is 1 Corinthi­ans 10:13 as ren­dered in a vari­ety of versions.

No temp­ta­tion has over­taken you except such as is com­mon to man; but God is faith­ful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temp­ta­tion will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. New King James Version

There hath no temp­ta­tion taken you but such as is com­mon to man: but God is faith­ful, who will not suf­fer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temp­ta­tion also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. King James Version

No temp­ta­tion has over­taken you but such as is com­mon to man; and God is faith­ful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temp­ta­tion will pro­vide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it. New Amer­i­can Stan­dard Bible

No temp­ta­tion has seized you except what is com­mon to man. And God is faith­ful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also pro­vide a way out so that you can stand up under it. New Inter­na­tional Version

No temp­ta­tion has taken you but such as is accord­ing to man’s nature; and God is faith­ful, who will not suf­fer you to be tempted above what ye are able to bear, but will with the temp­ta­tion make the issue also, so that ye should be able to bear it. Darby’s Trans­la­tion

No temp­ta­tion hath taken you–except human; and God is faith­ful, who will not suf­fer you to be tempted above what ye are able, but He will make, with the temp­ta­tion, also the out­let, for your being able to bear it. Young’s Lit­eral Translation