Christianity and Asking Questions

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast, making Theology Central. Good Evening everyone. It is Saturday, January eighteenth, twenty twenty five. It is currently nine forty three pm Central Time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now, when you walk through the front doors of a church. I need you to be honest here. Do you feel you are walking into a place where they are happy for you to bring very difficult and hard questions. Do you feel the church is a welcoming place for difficult questions, hard questions? Now I could ask some other questions about the church, but for the of not only this message, we may do a number of messages kind of related to this subject. But when you walk into a church and you look around, do you feel like you can ask any kind of hard question?

1:12 You could ask any kind of difficult question. If they preach a sermon and they mention God protects and God looks out for us, and God will well keep evil from us, and they say something along those lines, do you feel like you can ask the question? Maybe not in the middle of a sermon, because obviously there's a time and place. But do you think the people, the leadership would allow you to say, wait a minute, wait a minute. So God protects, but this many children in twenty twenty four were sexually abused inside churches or by church leaders or at a Christian school. God protects, but this many people were murdered. This many people were where this happened, or this happened. Oh, you say, God provides, but this many people starve to death in twenty twenty four, and it's projected that this many people will starve to death in twenty twenty five. Oh you say, God does this, and God does this, and God did this, but this many people died in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

2:12 This many people died between Israel and Goza. You could just go on and do you think they welcome those questions or like, yes, bring those questions, bring that struggle, bring that doubt, bring that confusion. This is the place for it can be. You can be raw, you can be honest, you can be blunt, and even if it makes us uncomfortable, we welcome it, We accept it. Or is the church do you feel that when you walk into the church it's more like, Oh, praise God, everything is wonderful, everything is great. Oh, I just believe. And no matter and no matter what the sermon says, no matter if it offers you any promises, no matter how vague, no matter if it's just pure surupy sentimentalism, you just are just to say, oh, praise God.

3:00 Oh that was so comforting. And in reality, do you feel like that's what the people really want? They like it simple, they don't like it complex, they don't like it difficult. They don't like to be confronted. With these things. And whenever you ask these questions, do you feel Christians get very defensive. Oh, you just have to believe. You can't question God, you can't doubt God. They almost get angry at you. What's your experience? What is your experience by asking tough questions? Now, I could probably give you two experiences. The first one was on the steps a first Baptist church Tuscola, Texas, sitting outside it had to be you know, a nice warm Texas, West Texas, evening me the pastor. I think there may have been some other teenagers there. We're all sitting on the steps right by the front doors of the church that walks directly well kind of into the four year then goes directly into the sanctuary. We were just sitting there, all talking, and I was asking all kinds of tough quote.

4:05 I was asking all kinds of questions about pain, suffering, death, God, sovereignty, fore knowledge, predestination, this. I was asking just all kinds of questions. And I at that moment, I don't know exactly when it hit me, but it was somewhere in that conversation when I kind of said, I'm never going to get any good answers here. I'm never going to get any good answers. And that's what ultimately or was one, maybe not the ultimate reason, but one of the reasons that ultimately led me to or contributed to me going to a Lutheran church, because I felt like that everybody here just wants simplicity. Simplicity, nobody ever wants to struggle, nobody wants to ask any hard questions. It's just like, believe in Jesus, be a good person, don't drink, don't listen to rock and roll, don't dance, you know, don't have premartal sex. Just it was more about moralism and make sure you witness to people, be good and witness to people. Yeah, but I got about five hundred and fifty seven thousand questions about God and about well, you tell me that now that I'm saved, I have all of this power.

5:10 But I keep sinning and like I've got all of these and I never could get any really good answers. And then the second time I really asked some questions is when we moved back to Texas and we were visiting churches and a pastor came over sitting in my living room, and I was asking one theological question after another theological question after another theological question, and the pastor was like, well, you know, I'm kind of waiting for you to get to some more practical questions. He like he didn't really care about the theological questions. And not only that, he straight up looked at me in the face and lied because he believed, he said, he believed in the immutability of God, that God changes not he believed in the uh that God was omniscient. And then we went to church. It was a that that we It was like a.

5:54 January, an early January sermon. We were supposed to join the church on that Sunday, he gets up there to preach and he basically says that God doesn't know all things. Basically, he taught open theism after sitting in my living room answering all the questions the way he thought I wanted them to answer. He preached completely opposites of that. No wonder, he didn't want me asking theological questions. And while we got up and walked out and never came back to that church, because it was I was more upset that he lied to me. Look, if you believe in open theism and you question the immutability or the omniscience of God, and how about you just be honest. But of course you know they didn't want to have those deep theological discussions. So those are two situations. And when it comes to individual Christians, I know that I have made plenty of people frustrated and upset with me sitting in my church.

6:45 Almost they get defensive when you start asking hard questions because it makes people uncomfortable. No, no, no, no, just give me a simple answer, Give me a simple answer. When I brought up issues about textual variance, we were taking the teenagers to a debate with bart Erman at Dallas zoological seminary, and I said, well, bart Erhman's going to win the debate because the way the Christians have framed this entire thesis, there's no way they're going to be able to prove that because we have to acknowledge there's all of these textual varias, whether we want to whether we want to say they're significant or not, we have to admit that, right, So you can't frame the thesis in a way that basically, we have a Bible that's one hundred percent perfect in every way. When someone can say, well, I've got this manuscript, this manuscript, this manuscript, this manuscript, and there's all of these variants, well well you said, well, yes, those variants, and yeah, did you get into this contradictory thing? And well, guess what. People didn't like that I said that. People got frustrated with me that I said that. But because we're not supposed to say things we're not supposed to, I feel like the church is not the place for philological, intellectual, philosophical exploration, question and study. Christianity is about walking into a building that gives you a belief system and you accept it, you believe it, you support it, and you promote it. You're not to challenge it or question it.

8:15 You're just to go along with it. They're just there to reinforce. This is the way you think you're not there, to think you're just there to accept. You're there to They give you the coloring book, they with all the lines there, and they give you the crayon, and you're just a color within the line. If you go outside the lines, then you are a heretic. Now I'm not saying we throw out biblical orthodoxy and we do not have you know, the philological systems, and we don't have creeds and confessions of faith. I'm not saying that. I'm saying, though, that when we study, we have to be willing to ask questions. Christianity should be the most accepting place for questions. We should embrace them. In fact, I will say the one who asks the deepest questions, the hardest questions, those are the ones who are growing spiritually.

9:08 Those who get offended at questions and get defensive and get bothered and don't like them and they just want it nice simple. They're not growing, they're stagnant. They're immature. They're in the infancy stage of their Christian life because they just need it simple, They need it to be spoon fed to them three points in a closing illustration, we don't want to have difficulty, we don't want to struggle. Well, then no, a faith that's never questioned is a faith that isn't worth having. It's if your faith doesn't can't handle difficult struggles and things that you may never even get answers for. If your faith can't handle that, then I'm sorry. Then I don't know what's your faith is a problem. I think that in many churches, within church culture just in general, there is an unspoken It may not be spoken, but I believe there is an unspoken reluctance to ask the really hard questions about scripture, especially when those questions challenge our understanding of God suffering, God's sovereignty, human responsibility. You just name the questions. I think that there's an unspoken reluctance and people will get defensive. People don't like when you ask the questions.

10:35 I think that that's true. Now, what I'm going to do is we're gonna talk about, well in this episode, what we're gonna do, and this may turn into a mini series, what we're gonna do is We're gonna talk in this episode about well, the necessity of asking hard questions, what kind of hard questions should we ask? And then once we kind of get that framework there, then what I ultimately they want to lead to is that if you want to be a good and forget good, if you want to be a great Bible student, the greatness of your Bible study abilities is absolutely connected to the greatness of your ability to ask questions of the text, of doctrine, of theology. So first you got to be well, I want to just talk about this asking the difficult questions, asking the hard questions.

11:32 Because church culture. It's almost unspoken. You don't ask questions like that. You ask certain questions like that, people around you in church are gonna get nervous. You're sitting in a Sunday school class and you start asking some hard questions, it'll be like whoa no, no, no, and the pastor may kind of shut it down and say, well, we can talk about that later, because you start making people very uncomfortable because everything is supposed to be just Jesus is the answer. Jesus, Jesus, Everything's perfect, everything's wonderful. Praise God. Everything's great. Everything makes sense. The Bible is perfect, there's no difficulties, there's no issues. Everything makes perfect sense. Where I'm the person sitting in the room going a minute, wait a minute, none of this makes any sense. Everything falls apart in Genesis one to one in the beginning God created. Have you looked at the mess that we have found ourselves in?

12:21 He created knowing this is where we're gonna end up, with all the pain, suffering, death, violence. He knew it before he created it, and then he created the very being that he knew would bring temptation, which would bring sin, which would bring making every person born guilty. No one asked to be born, but they're all born guilty before God, even though they didn't do anything to bring that about. I mean, there's lots of questions. Why would you create Satan knowing what he's going to do, and even if you're going to create him the minute he's. In, why don't you just destroy him? And why would you let out of an eve pro create knowing that they're gonna put do sinners who are born condemned. I mean, I could just ask a million questions, but the church doesn't ask, like any of those questions got we've got to break that.

13:12 We need to create. The older generation gone, they're done. I'm just there's no hope the older generation. Whatever. Maybe a new generation of Christians can arise who's willing to embrace the difficulty, embrace the questions. I think what ultimately happens to the people who embrace the questions, I think they end up deconstructing and kind of get pushed out of Christianity. They kind of get pushed out. Oh they're liberal, they're heretic, there's no room for them, They're not allowed into the care. It's like we got to get them out. And then everyone's supposed to just be like, Oh, everything's wonderful, everything's gat Brace God, Brace God, everything's wonderful, everything's great.

13:56 What does that first mean to you? I mean, and I'm not trying to be too mocking, but it really becomes very shallow. But I believe asking these questions is vital. This is what I believe is vital for a deep, honest engagement with the Bible and faith. If you want to have an honest engagement with scripture, if you want to have an honest, real faith, not a manufactured faith where you are putting on a road pretending that everything is wonderful. A faith that can scream out God, where are you?

14:37 Why? God? A faith that can scream out a spiritual lament and it be okay? No no one around you can handle it. But that's okay. Who cares if anyone else? Your faith is about you and God? Who cares if the rest of the reindeers are met that you won't play the reindeer games, Go be rude oflph and just go do your own thing. Who cares what they think? They can sit around and judge you, look down at you and go, I don't know what's wrong with their Christianity? Oh and they can act all super pious and spiritual, and they can sit around and have their three little points and have their pulux and hold hands and seeing Kumbai yah and do whatever they want. Who cares? It becomes just a meaningless exercise in futility, because I think there needs to be a place where people can be real and it can be maybe uncomfortable. I think when you ask these hard questions that reflect a genuine wrestling with.

15:33 The complexities of life. Hey, I don't know if you realize this life is complex, Life is painful, Life is confusing. Have you not noticed that? Have you not noticed the horrible, tragic things that happen in life? Things that make no sense? Pain, suffering, starvation, death, disease, murder, crime, poverty. Meant to health issues, I mean for crying out loved, I mean someone has mental health issues. I mean, if there was ever a time for God to step in, I mean, how could a person can't really there? I mean, what can they do if their mind is not working?

16:20 I mean your mind, if your mind is wrong, if your mind is offul little bit, if there's anything wrong with your brain, it's all I mean, everything falls apart. And I believe when we actually wrestle with these questions, I believe they will lead to a richer understanding, maybe of God. I think it leads to a richer understanding of theology, maybe a deeper understanding of scripture. So we're going to get to these questions. But let's talk about maybe why why at least start, Let's start with this why hard questions are avoided within the church culture. That the church culture.

17:00 Now, what I have found now I can't speak for everyone, but in my military career, medical security forces, wherever I found myself in Germany right during desert storm, wherever I find my so I can name all the different scenarios I found myself. Where wherever I found myself there were all. I tended to constantly find myself, always working overnight, constantly right, security forces, medical, didn't matter where I was at, I would find myself working over now And what I found it was always fascinating. Is eleven o'clock midnight, one in the morning, two in the morning. A lot of times people would then start having deep, kind of more spiritual questions, and many of them at that time would know that, oh, you're going to school, you're studying theology, and they would just start asking questions. And many of their questions were deep, they were sincere, They struggled, and and I love In fact, I would say that in many of those cases, those questions were far better than any questions I ever heard in church. Right, questions I heard in church were always whatever, okay.

18:18 Typically if people are asking questions in church, it's because they just simply want to argue. What I found is that when when typically lost people were asking some of these hard questions, is they're trying to struggle with the reality of life and the concept of God and pain and their stories and things that they'd gone through in their life or things that they knew, or just whatever the case may be. And I always found that those questions were they were coming from a place that were very real, right, It felt very organic, and they weren't afraid of the hard questions because. I didn't care. They didn't care who they offended. But in church, either one you feel like, oh, they're asking this, Oh they're setting me up. They're going to ask this question because they wanted to try to get me in a theological treay. Sometimes you feel like when Christians ask questions, are acting like the fair He's trying to trap Jesus. And you almost have to be three steps ahead. You're like, oh, I know where this is going. If I answer it this way, you're gonna be well, why what about Okay?

19:08 I've had too many EMO back and forth with Christians. You almost you almost with Christians, you almost are you question their motives and asking questions. I'm not saying all Christians, but I'm saying too many times. But within the church culture, there seems to be this idea of avoiding. The hard questions. So why, well, let's look at some possible reasons. How about fear of doubt many Christians, you can tell me if you agree, fear that asking hard questions might reveal or lead to doubt. See, many Christians they don't want to They don't want to reveal to anyone doubt.

19:54 They don't they don't want to lead anyone about. They don't want to lead on. They don't want anyone to know. Hey, maybe I doubt a whole bunch of this, Maybe I question how about I think a lot of this just makes literally no sense of Shhh, we don't. We don't. We don't use the D word. We don't have doubts. Okay, we have victory. We're more than conquerors. We gotta we gotta, we gotta act like you know, we're we're superheroes, not not human beings that are going man. Sometimes this Christian stuff makes literally no sense. Sh We're not. Exposed to expose doubt, And then many Christians are afraid it will lead to doubt. You never say or do anything that could lead to doubt. Now, many times I've said things and sermons and then I've been rebuked or correct Oh you can you could lead people to doubt, you could lead people to question. I'm like, yeah, yeah, exactly, that's what I'm supposed to do. No, no, no, no, no, no no.

20:53 You never lead anyone to doubt. Now. I think sometimes you have to be led to doubt because it's going through the valley of doubt that you come out actually growing. I don't think there's much growth if there's never any doubt. And what some people do, so many Christians fear that you never want to reveal doubt. You never want to lead people in doubt. And I think many Christians kind of connect that if you doubt, it's because of a. Lack of faith. If you just had faith, you would not have any doubt now, and that's their answer if you ask tough questions, well, you just have to believe. We walk by faith and not by sight. No, never worry about what the context is there. They just throw that out there. And because they don't want to deal with doubt.

21:40 So guess what. You can pretend not to have doubt, and you can pretend to have faith. Sometimes you're just pretending because the doubt's really there, even if you're not letting anyone on and guess me. Let me get very clear, doubting is not the enemy of faith. I think a strong faith, the maturing faith, and doubt work together. See Scripture itself. I believe encourages honest wrestling with questions and with doubt. You see this in the lives of job. You see this throughout the Psalms he beekak, you see it there.

22:24 There's many places in the Bible with great men, you may even call them great men of faith expressed strong doubt and confusion. So I think this fear of doubt, this doubt is seen as the enemy. So therefore we just have to pretend that we don't have it. I think. I think that's the reason the church culture doesn't allow for hard questions. I think another reason is many in the church they want simple answers. They have a desire for simple answers. I believe church culture gravitates towards simple, comforting answers rather than engaging with the tension and mystery found in scripture. They don't. They don't there's no mystery, there's no tension in scripture. No, the scriptures are filled with mystery and tension and confusion and things that are that make no sense. But see, you're not supposed to say that. The church doesn't want to hear that. No, no, no, everything is simple. Everything makes perfect sense, and so there's no problem. The people who don't understand is because they just don't know how to read their Bible. They just go to a good church. They believe it. Okay, well whatever.

23:41 You oversimplify things because you just you want simple answers because it makes you feel better and you get nervous and you get to and you can see it when you're in church and you start asking some difficult questions. If you've ever just try it, ask to preach a sermon or teach a Sunday school lesson to adults. Don't start No, no, no, no, no, no, no no, it's this, it's this, it's this. Hey, you're just like, oh, for crying out loud, can. You calm down for five seconds? Can we have the struggle with it? No? No, no, no, it's just as simple. It's just Jesus and that's the answer. And you're like, or maybe maybe, maybe, just maybe I know you're gonna have a hard time with this. Maybe there's not any of the answer. I think the church gravitates towards the simple. When it comes to complex questions about suffering, sin and God's sovereignty. I think many in the church it feels unsettling. It feels overwhelming. They're overwhelmed by it. It feels like because they feel like that you're taking their faith and you're just crumpling it up.

24:55 They feel like their faith is just gonna collapse because they don't know what to do with that. They don't like these hard questions. Christianity is just supposed to be simple. So I think the church culture fears. They have these fears of doubt, and they see doubt as the enemy, and they want simple answers. Listen, they want how can I say this? They would rather have something that is sure. They want they want to be sure of something. They want this. They are more. They are they are more How can I say this? They desire more simplicity surety than they are truth. They don't care about truth because truth and reality is never simple and it doesn't always give you that sense of surety. They just want it simple.

25:45 They want it sure. They don't care about truth. They don't care if it contradicts reality. They don't care. They got their idea and if you come along, well, wait aboute what about no no, no, no no no no no. I want it simple, I want it sure, don't don't overwhelm me with this. So I think there's a fear of doubt and seeing doubt as the enemy. And I think there's this desire for simplicity, this desire for sure to be sure of something. The idea necessarily the pursuit of truth, because the pursuit of truth is messy and ugly and it's not easy. I think another reason the churches avoid hard questions is maybe cultural expectations. In some church settings, questions could be seen as irreverent, confrontational, and this leads people to suppress their doubts or concerns.

26:45 You can't be asking those kinds of questions. What do you do that's irreverend? Or no, you can't do that. You're just supposed to go with the dogma that's been handed to you. Basically, the church is the magisterium. They hand you the dogma and you're just supposed to go along with it. Now. But when Christians don't go along with it, it's usually because along some doctrinal lines they don't. They're they're more willing to accept those kinds of questions, doctrinal questions, but not the hard more philosophical questions. That's where they then get really upset and they don't like those. So I think those are three possible reasons why the church does not like hard questions or they avoid them. But we have some examples of hard questions, right, I think I think we can look at some examples of hard questions.

27:40 A good Bible student should ask, let's do it that, Let's do it that way. Those are some reasons why the church doesn't like them. But I think we need to look at some examples of some hard questions. A good Bible student should ask. I'm gonna say this, I'm gonna I'm gonna rephrase this, right, Kyle went back and forth on how to necessarily do this. I think you're I'm gonna give you some examples of the good questions a good Bible student will ask, and they will not care who is or isn't offended. They will ask these questions and they don't care if it gets them in a sense becoming the outcast and a church. Because if you if you desire to be a good Bible student, the last thing you need to worry about is Christians.

28:25 Christians are the. Enemy to good Bible study in most cases. They don't want it. They don't want good Bible study. They like they just want a sense of spirituality. They want a little bit of sentimentalism. They want to they want some assurance, they want encouragement, they want they just want a taste of spirituality. They don't want to dive into the depths of these things because it's difficult. Here's some examples of some maybe hard questions that I think a Bible student will ask. For example, God's protection and deliverance. If we read a passage about God promising protection, maybe say Psalm ninety one, then maybe you would ask, well, why do terrible things happen even to faithful believers?

29:10 Wait, if God protects, then why did. This happen or this happen, or this happen, or this happen or this happen. Because then you would have to say, well, God protects until God doesn't protect, meaning therefore there's no guarantee that God will protect. So you don't really have a promise of protection, right do you. Well, God will protect until he doesn't protect, but I don't know when he's going to stop protecting, So I can't be assured that he's going to protect me five minutes from now, since he only protects until. He doesn't protect. So then can I even say that God really has a promise of protection? Now, I have a promise of protection spiritually speaking, because in Christ, I am protected from condemnation and judgment. Because Christ has paid for my sins and I and He has accredited his imputed righteousness to me.

29:51 I am protected from the penalty of sin, from the punishment of sin. Okay, now we're getting somewhere. I am protected from eternal death and hell. Okay, yeah, but when it comes to life, can I really have any assurance that God is going to protect me? You say, well, God will protect until it's not his will, but I don't know five minutes from now if it's not as well. So he may protect me right now, but then after this message is over, I may decide to get it into the car and go somewhere to get it, pick up a drink or a snack from the convenience store, and I could be in the store, someone could come in and rob. It, and I could get shot four times. There's no guarantee. In fact, by Monday or Tuesday, I could be diagnosed with with terminal cancer and gonna be dead in six months. There's no guarantee of anything. So but but you're not supposed to talk like that. How do we reconcile God's protection with the reality of abuse and suffering and evil even within the church? God protects. Yeah, but that child's been molested eighty times in the church by a church leader. And we're just not talking Catholic churches.

31:07 Oh see, See this makes people very uncomfortable. So I think we can ask hard questions about God's protection and deliverance in any good Bible student, when they come across a passage that seems to make some promise, I think they're gonna be like, my don't wait, wait a minute here, I'm confused. And we asked that question earlier today we listened to a sermon on Isaiah chapter forty, verse eleven, where these words were read, he shall feed his flock like a shepherd. He shall gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom. And she'll gently lead those who are with the young. And then he talked about how this is young people and this is mothers with babies, and this is all of us. And God grabs all of us and he brings them close, and he holds us close to his bosom, and he protects and he guides and he feeds, and he does this for everyone. Oha, wait a minute, Wait a minutea aeut, I got about a million questions.

32:01 Now. First of all, the first problem with that is the passage literally says this is what you say into the cities of Judah. So I'm not part of the cities of Judah and Babylonian captivity. So it's literally nothing to do with me. So I don't know why the pastor was doing that. But secondly, if you're gonna make that claim God, so God protects me from what I If he's holding me against his bosom, then what can get to me? Can temptation get to me? Can pain get to me? Can suffering? Can disease? But then we were told in the same sermon, God is the one who brings the pain and the suffering into your life. It was all confusing, But see, you're not supposed to ask those hard questions. I think anytime you see a passage about God's protection and deliverance of any kind. You've got to ask these questions. And again with Isaiah forty eleven, it's not hard. You asked the question and you immediately go, well, well, first, I don't need to worry about Isaiah forty eleven because it's not about me. Okay, it's about the people in Judah.

33:03 Well, what happened to the people in Judah? Oh? Wait, God brought up Cyrus. Cyrus literally delivered them and they were brought back safely from Babylon back to Judah, back to Jerusalem and rebuilt the temple. Hmm, well, okay, seems like that there was a historical fulfillment, not a thing to do with me. How about this? I think it's I think here's another example of hard questions. A good Bible student will ask, not should will ask questions about God supposedly empowering us to overcome sin. If God empowers believers to resist sin, will win? Do Christians continue to sin and even in very grievous ways? You hear this all the time. God empowers us. God has set us straight from said if anyone knows Christ, he's a new creature. You've been completely changed.

33:58 You're not the same. But bye way you're still gonna say, well, I mean you, well, do I have power? Do I not have power? Well, I mean you got power, But you can't be perfect? Well, well, how perfect can I be? Because the Bible says to be holy as He is holy, I'm never holy as he is holy. I means I'm in a perpetual state of sin. So if He's empowered me, but I'm in a perpetual state of sin, you're telling me his power can't even get me out of a perpetual state of sin. That seems problematic. In fact, see when you hear a sermon that quotes this verse, there hath no temptation taking you, but such as common demand. But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation make a way to escape that you may be able to bear it. Now, that seems to imply that anytime I'm tempted, I don't have to sin.

34:52 God gives me a. Way of escape, So meaning that it's at least possible, it's at least plausible that. I can be without sin. I think that's a good question. Asker. That's a problem if God empowers believers to resist sin. Then why do Christians continue to sin sometimes in a grievous way? Why do some Christians fall into repeated patterns of sin and even cause harm to others? Do I have the power? Does God? Well? Man, I got all kinds of questions, so we could.

35:33 I think a good Bible student's gonna ask questions about God's supposed protection and deliverance. It's gonna ask. They're gonna ask good questions about God at supposedly empowering us to overcome sin. And it's really not that hard to ask these questions. It's just this when you enter when you when you enter into the church, say the church wants you to forget the reality behind you. They only want you to remember the. Reality when we talk about all those bad people outside. But they don't want you to talk about how it really is, because if if you really know how it really is. Sometimes when you listen to sermons. They paint this idea of a reality that you are going to get back into your car and drive back into that does not anywhere fit to what the nonsense you just heard in a sermon, Because when you get back into that car, you know what you're going to find out you're still a sinner. You sin, your kids sin, your spouse sins, your neighbor sins, everybody sins. You know what happens, Pain, suffering, and death comes into your life, and you know what, Wait a minute, where's the protection, where's the provision, where's the power for me to stop sinning?

36:28 You're gonna be like, wait a minute. There is a disconnect between the sermons I hear and the reality I live. You know why there's a disconnect because sermons make up stuff and give you promises that are never supposed to be promised. But nobody is supposed to ask the hard questions because you're supposed to just go along with it and say, ay man, we could ask questions about God's sovereignty. Of God is sovereign, why doesn't he intervene to stop atrocities, especially those committed by people claiming to represent him? I mean, you know, we talked about the show of that new Netflix show American Primevil right, definitely not a Christian show, very violent, very explicit, but it talks about the Mountain Meadows massacre where religious people, Now this is the case Mormons. No, I'm not saying they're Christians, But I mean.

37:21 God let people be slaughtered. God didn't intervene when the Puritans were killing people in Salem. God didn't intervene with people were being slaughtered in the Mountain Metals massacre. God didn't intervene with people were being slaughtered. And we can go through all kinds of horrible atrocities done in the name of God throughout Church history. How does God's sovereignty interact with human free will in cases of abuse or sin? Now, do we believe in free will? Do we not believe in free will? We get into questions. Another thing that a good Bible student will ask is maybe some questions about the church's role in suffering. Why has the church throughout Church history failed to protect the vulnerable and hold abusers accountable instead of covering it up?

38:15 How should the Church respond to its own failures. We're good at pointing out everyone out the world, the world, the world, the world, the world, the world, the world, the world, the world, the world, the world, the world, the world. Look at them, look at them, look at them, look at them them. Damn damn, they're the ungodly. They don't have the power that we have. They haven't been for set free from sin. We are the conquerors, even though we send sin and sins, and but we can't acknowledge it because no, no, no, no, no no no, let's not have any hard questions. So those are some different types of questions any great Bible student will ask when they're studying their Bible, about God's protection and deliverance, about god empowering to overcome sin, why Christians fell or number, God's sovereignty and human responsibility, and the Church's role and suffering.

39:04 Are the churches rolling sin? We could change those up in a number of different ways. Now, why asking these hard questions? Why is it important? The church doesn't really like it? Those are some examples of some questions we should ask. Why asking hard questions are important? I think I think number one Scripture I think encourages it. The Bible is full of examples of people asking hard questions. Job ask a question something like this, why do the wicked live on growing old and increasing in power? That's in Job twenty one to seven. That's kind of maybe a paraphrase, depending on your translation. Why do the wicked live on growing old and increasing in power? Job asked a lot of questions Habakuk, why do you tolerate wrongdoing?

39:52 That's him asking what God, why do you tolerate wrongdoing? What do you do? That's Habaccic chapter one, verse three, and Psalm thirteen one David asked, how long? Lord will you forget me forever? Now? These questions are not condemned. They're not condemned. These questions are a part of a right relationship with God. A right relationship with God is where you can ask the difficult questions. And who cares? If Christians get upset? Who cares? Who cares? If the church gets their little feelings hurt and they get all defenses, who cares? You don't need them if that's the way they're going to be. But you can come to God and you can ask these tough questions. You can ask these questions when you're reading the Bible.

40:34 You should. It's not that you can. You must ask them if you're really going to have a fate that's real versus a faith that's just something you pretend to have. Scripture encourages these kinds. Of questions, and I think we should ask them. I think another reason why we should ask questions. I think it actually deepens faith. See When you wrestle with hard questions, it forces you to move beyond surface level faith and it makes you grapple with the deeper truths of God character, sovereignty, of grace. It makes you deal with deeper issues. Simplicity keeps you away from truth. Simplicity is the enemy of truth.

41:20 The lack of questioning, the lack of struggle is the enemy of a deep mature of faith. It keeps you, it keeps you in the spiritual nursery. You've got to break out of the spiritual nursery and you've got to ask some questions. It deepens faith. I think a third reason we should ask these hard questions and why it's important is that I think it exposes misunderstandings. Hard questions challenge. It challenges the oversimplification or faulty interpretations of scripture. When you ask the hard questions, it destroys that over simplification and that understanding of scripture. It makes you force to a wait a minute, Wait a minute, wait a man, wait a minut, wait a minute. If this scripture, like for example f one Corinthians ten thirteen, wait with every temptation, God's going to provide a way of escape.

42:11 Oh, wait a minute. That would mean that then Christians should never sin. At least, that would seem that for every temptation there is no reason for sin because there is a way of escape, meaning you can escape every temptation, meaning therefore you can be sinless. Well, wait, that doesn't make any sense. Huh. I wonder if there's a different way to approach it. I think there's a lot of different ways to approach it. We've talked about that in. A number of passages where we blew up the normal way of interpreting the text because the normal way of interpreting the text just doesn't coincide with the reality that we all live. Or Isaiah forty eleven, Oh, this is what God does for us. No, it's what God did for the people in Judah. I mean read the text.

42:56 So when you ask hard questions it I think it destroys the oversimplification of scripture. It destroys the faulty interpretations. I think it leads to a greater clarity and greater philological precision. I think if we would really ask questions, I think it would actually strengthen the church. I think if we address difficult. Questions, it and equips the church to confront sin, comfort the suffering, and engage a skeptical world with honesty and integrity. You're not dealing with the world in an. Honest way if all you give them is pat cliches, bumper sticker answers that are meaningless in the face of reality.

43:44 So why should we ask hard questions? Because I believe Scripture encourages it. Number two, because I believe it will deepen In fact, I believe it deepens our faith. Number Three, it exposes misunderstandings, and I think ultimately it strengthens the church. Now, how do we handle hard questions biblically? How do we handle hard questions biblically? I think we have to acknowledge mystery. We have. You're gonna have to acknowledge it. You're gonna have to embrace mystery. You're gonna have to embrace not having answers. See some questions, such as the coexistence of evil and a good God, it involves mystery. Scripture doesn't always give a complete answer, but calls us to trust in God's wisdom and sovereignty. But there's a good God who's loving and caring and compassionate, and doesn't anyone know doesn't want anyone to suffer, Then why create a spiritual being by the name of Satan who's going to fall, and instead of destroying him, you'll let him teap tempt your creation, knowing that once they are tempted, they're going to fall into sin, and then and then allow them to pro create, bringing more and more people into life, so that sin spreads to every human being born a sinner, and then there's gonna be suffering pain and death. Oh and an these people are condemned to go and burn it for hell eternity. No, and you know all of this before you even create, before you create the very first thing.

45:07 You know all of this is going to occur. Come on, if you can't understand the difficult now you can come up with every kind of little I've heard all the little church answers, and it's just pathetic that they even think that it even comes close to handling the complexity and difficulty of that. It's a mystery. It is confusing, and it will't mate. You'll never be able to get a good answer. And if you think you can, any pastor who says they've got a good answer for you, I'm sorry. You're you're falling for it, you're being you're being you're being sold a bill of goods because it's just it's not the case. So I think you've got to acknowledge mystery. I think second, I think you have to engage the whole whole of scripture, the whole council of Scripture. Let's say it the way you go to You've got to engage.

45:52 All of scripture. Hard questions require examining the broader biblical narrative. Everything you got to it. You've got to go from the beginning all the way to the end. Now, I'm not saying even then you're gonna find good answers. I think you may find that you have even more questions. I think what we have to do is be honest. That to me is the big one. How do you handle hard questions? You gotta be honest. You just gotta be you gotta be like, wait a minute, come on, people still sin or in a perpetual state of sin, people suffer, people die, Come on, you can just gotta be brutally honest with reality if you if you want to, just sometimes Christianity is like a Hallmark movie, It's like a Disney movie.

46:42 Come a wake up, walk into the real world. Be honest with who you are, Be honest with your own failure, your own sin, be honest with those things you really do think even though nobody knows. I think that's the key. You got to just be honest. So why does the church avoid hard questions? I think because the fear of doubt, and they see doubt is an enemy, they see doubt is inconsistent with faith. I think they do have a desire for simple answers, and I think there's kind of a cultural expectation not to get into this kind of stuff.

47:23 There's some examples of hard questions you should be asking. Is questions about God's protection and deliverance, questions about God's empowering us supposedly to overcome sin, questions about God's sovereignty and human responsibility, and questions about the Church's role in suffering. Why should you ask hard questions? Because scripture encourages it, It deepens faith, it exposes misunderstanding, and I think ultimately it strengthens the church. How do you handle it. You've got to embrace mystery. You've got to embrace questions with no answers, and I think you have to engage all of scripture, all of it in its context. And I think number three, you get just got to be brutally honest. You've got to be brutally honest with reality, brutally honest with truth.

48:08 Now we'll stop there and then we'll move on. To I think what we're going to try to do is formulate the kind of questions, hard questions, biblical questions that a Christian should ask when they read and study the Bible. You need to be trained, I think. I think Bible study. If you want to know how to study the Bible, I think you have to be first taught how to ask questions. I know, I know. I typically would say you've got to be taught a method. I think before you can be taught a method, you've got to be taught. I think you have to evaluate.

48:49 Are you a person who asks questions? Are you a person who does it? Now? In many aspects of my life, I don't care to ask any questions. I just don't care. I don't need to know, don't want whatever. I'm just I'm moving on. But when it comes to theology and the Bible. Oh man, I have so many questions. Whenever I read any verse in the Bible. I'm like, okay, I got like fifty I got about one hundred questions here, and I know I'm never going to get an inner. This makes no sense, This makes no sense. Well what about this? And what? Wait? Wait? What just happened? Wait? Are you kidding me? What is going on here? Wait? What is happening? Wait? No, this makes literally no sense. Wait are you telling me this? I mean, I just I've got question after question after question after question after question after question. Now, some people will say those questions are bad. Now I understand. Now, now listen, there are Now this is very important. You can, if you're not careful, be a person that asks questions and simply an attempt to avoid truth.

49:57 That's not the way you should use questions. Some people just ask questions because I don't ever want to deal with truth, so they just kind of hide from the truth by asking questions. All right, Now, that this comes down to motives, But I think that then there's those honest asking questions that you should ask because the text screams that any smart person who would be asking those questions and that is a desire to find the truth. So just make sure you I can't speak for any person, but sometimes asking questions as an attempt to hide from the truth. Right, But you if you're gonna be a good Bible study, you've got to do this. So we're gonna talk about the hard questions we should ask in the biblical questions. And I'm gonna really try to formulate a good list of the kind of questions we may we may kind of wart work through this and may be a little disjointed and thrown all again, and then we'll try to organize it, and then we're gonna make maybe twenty twenty five, we're gonna we're gonna maybe we just create a series of questions that everyone should ask, and then every sermon that we listen to, every text that we approach in twenty twenty five, we are going to ask the text these questions.

51:02 I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I can formulate the perfect ones or the type of ones, but I think we should. Do that is what I think we should do. But we're gonna stop right there, and yeah, I hope that's beneficial. But the church should be a place that accepts these questions. And if you're a person who's asked these questions and you've been kind of cast out. Oh, join the club. Church doesn't like it. But who cares? Who cares? All Right, I'll stop right there.

51:42 Thanks for listening. Everyone, have a good night. We'll be talking about more about this soon. Everyone, have a great night. God bless