People ask questions about God, which is good. God is never afraid of questions. In fact, when we look in the New Testament, we find Jesus’ disciples were asking him questions all the time, e.g.
Mt 13:10 The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”- they asked him about his teaching style
Mt 17:10 The disciples asked him, “Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?”- they asked him about God’s plans
Mt 19:17 Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”- they asked him about their own power limitations
Mt 19:27 Peter answered him, “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?”
- Peter asked out of self-interest.
But it wasn’t a one-way street. Jesus frequently challenged his disciples to think by asking them questions:
Mt 16:13-15 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
- Jesus challenged his disciples to really think about who he was.
Mt 11:7-9 As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind? 8If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. 9Then what did you go out to see? A prophet?
- Jesus challenged to really think about John the Baptist.
Mt 17:24-25 the collectors of the two-drachma tax came to Peter and asked, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?” “Yes, he does,” he replied. When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. “What do you think, Simon?” he asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes–from their own sons or from others?”
- when Peter spoke hastily, Jesus made him think about the truth of the situation
Mt 21:28-31 “What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, `Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ ” `I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. “Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, `I will, sir,’ but he did not go. “Which of the two did what his father wanted?” “The first,” they answered.
- he got them to think about what he was teaching them.
The apostle Peter eventually wrote:
1 Pet 3:15 Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.
‘Be prepared’ suggests we really need to think about our faith if we are Christians and be ready to give answers to those who are asking. That’s what this site is all about. If you are someone genuinely looking for answer, welcome! If you are unsure about anything, comment, and we’ll see if we can give you an answer that satisfies you.
A warning before we finish on this introductory page – by the nature of blogs, it means that posts are added, and so questions will be getting added, as and when we have time. If you don’t see the question that you have in your mind, please ask, and we’ll see if we can put it on as quickly as we can.
Why the title?
“So what God?” could appeal to those who don’t care what God says or does, but actually it really means, “So what do we know about this God that Christians talk about?” What God do they follow? Is he worth investigating? I hope you think the answer is ‘yes’.
A New Approach
Possibly the greatest number of questions I receive are about God’s love in the Old Testament. To that end I am in the process of writing a book covering this subject from an apologetics stance. Please see the website link on the main page if you are a aserious seeker of the truth.
October 4, 2009 at 8:15 pm |
I have been a christian basically all my life but lately I have been struggling with a few question’s about our faith. I will put it into the annalogy I came up with. Since the bible tells us that God created everything then I compare that to a kid playing in a sand box. (and one sand box would be the same as one planet) You start out with a completely empty structure and can set it up any way you desire because you are the creator of this situation. Hope you follow my train of thought here.
So in the beginning God created the earth and the entire universe so basically it is like you have billion’s of sandboxes in front of you to do with as you want. But the way the bible tells us is that God seem’s to only worry about this one planet and concentrates all his energy into this one situation right? It seem’s then according to the bible that God would have set up his creation in this one sand box, people, animal’s everything and made it perfect. Then for a reason I cannot get my head around he has a rebellious angel in heaven and for whatever reason he cast’s lucifer and 1/3 of the angel’s(now demon’s) down to the very same planet that he put his perfect creation on insead of A: just casting them all to hell which is where they are going anyway and this would have totally avoided completely screwing up his perfect situation on earth or B: why wouldn’t he have casted them to a planet 800 trillion light year’s away from earth so that there would have been no possible way for the devil to get in and tempt Eve in the first place. That also brings up a question about why would God have put the tree of knowledge in the garden of eden when being an all knowing God, knew that she would believe a talking snake and take the forbidden fruit and ultimately doom BILLIONS of people to an eternity in hell. Now the bible tells us that all these billion’s of people would have had to do is accept Jesus as their saviour and would have been spared this eternity of burning in hell. My question is WHY THE HECK would God have basically set up man to fail by putting the tree of knowledge in the garden in the first place (since he knows all and knows the future he would have known that eve would have fallen for the lies of the devil) and the bigger question of why he would have put satan on the same planet as us again fully knowing that everything would end up in such a complete mess that we are in today. So if God had just NOT put the devil and all his demon’s on earth, and also NOT put the tree in the garden and set Eve up for failure then God would have NOT had to send his Son Jesus to die a horrible death to reconcile human’s back to their creator in the first place because the opportunity for men to fall away from God way back in the garden of Eden would never have been there. Again my question that I am struggling with is it look’s like the One who was in control of everything and could have set it up SOOOOOO different, chose to set us up to fail and my question is WHY?????? There is so much corruption and misery in this world and if thing’s had NOT been set up as they were then we would be living the life God had intended us to have when he put Adam and Eve in the garden all along.
Another way I look at it other than the kid setting up his sandbox to fail, is since God has the ability to see the future then this whole earth experience could be likened to a movie. So before God even created this earth and universe that we know he would have known exactly what was going to happen because he can see the future and know’s the future, kinda like watching a movie that you directed (or created if you will) God would have been able to watch the entire “movie” and knew exactly what was going to happen with all the murder’s, rapings, child molestings, sorrow, starvation etc. but he STILL went ahead and made the movie for real even though he knew from the onset that it would basically be a disaster! Now I have read that one line of thinking is that God did NOT see the future when it pertain’s to his creation but that he know’s the future about only certain other thing’s… Like the book of revalation which is all prophecy about thing’s to come in the end times. This explanation makes absolutely no sense at all to me because if you are God and have the power to create worlds and universe’s and can see the future for some thing’s then it makes NO sense at all that you would have a blind spot when it comes to your very own creation and what the future has in store for it.
So every Sunday people go to church and listen to preacher’s tell them that they have to accept Jesus as their savior or they will suffer unbelievable agony and torment in an eternal lake of fire if they don’t believe this. Does this sound anything like a dictatorship to you? Either fall in line with what I tell you (even though if I had set it up different NOBODY would be going to hell in the first place) or suffer for ever and ever and ever…. So when we are told that we have freedom of choice as to whether we accept Christ as our saviour, we really do not at all. The 2 choices are either accept christ or burn in hell… And I feel bad for the people that die and had never even heard of christ and their need for redemption. According to the bible it looks like they are screwed and they didn’t even know what was going on? How is that fair is another question?
And to be honest I feel like a heretic for even bringing these question’s up to someone but when I found this website where you invite peoples question’s then I just had to get this off my chest.
Now I have in NO way rejected Christ as my savior because if this is how it is then I basically have no choice because if I do reject the plan of salvation that is explained in the bible then I am dooming myself to fiery torment and that aint gonna happen.
Please respond to this rather long winded novel with your thought’s….
Jim
October 5, 2009 at 6:34 am |
Wow, Jim, what a great primer for discussions. Thank you for writing. I’ll work my way down the page if I may:
1. God seems to only care about this one planet? Is it that He only tells us about this one because a) we’re here and b) perhaps any other similar one is too far away for us to bother with.
2. God and Satan? Go to the question headed “God and Satan” [using the 'Content's button at the top] on the ‘So what God’ blog and you will find nine ways that God USES Satan. All part of the divine strategy.
3. Eve, Satan and Garden of Eden? All of your questions hinge on what it means to be human. Being made in the image of God means, among other things, that we have the capacity to think, decide, choose and take responsibility. All the tree in the garden was, was God’s giving Adam and Eve the opportunity to take responsibility for themselves and exercise that capacity to choose. So right, He knows they will eventually fall but if we are to genuinely have free will then that HAS to be the cost. Everything about Jesus then follows because the whole history of the Bible is about a) drawing mankind back to Himself and b) providing a means of redemption through Jesus.
4. A film of an ongoing disaster? I don’t think disaster is the right word for that is too one sided. Whenever people come down this path exploring they seem to focus on bad and forget all the staggeringly good things that happen in history from the great inventions to help mankind to the daily love and care of a mother. While you are focusing on the bad things, remember that they are the choices of sinful mankind and that mankind, as a whole, could, with God’s help do staggeringly more to stop such things happening. Using your sand box analogy, I would suggest it is the kids playing in the sandbox who are at fault not the provider of the sandbox – but how do you change the kids? You love them, correct them and discipline them while doing everything you can for them to play rightly.
5. Hell? You seem rather taken up with hell. I assume this is because of the style of church you come from which appears to drive people by fear rather than lead them by love. Although Jesus did allude to hell he actually focused on blessing people in a whole variety of ways and demonstrating God’s love to them. His was a love filled ministry not a fear filled one. OK while you’re on hell, is it literally a place of burning fire or is that picture language to show the awfulness of a place where God is not? Just a question. But why focus on the default position? Why not focus on the wonder of what God has provided – a glorious eternity in heaven where everything is perfect. To see something of heaven, you might like to go to one of my other blogs – Faithcatalysts – and either search for or keep on scrolling down to a series of 4 blogs I wrote entitled ‘Thoughts of heaven’
6. Asking question is heretical? No way! God doesn’t mind His kids asking questions, so keep on asking to your heart’s content – i.e. until it is content!
Well I think that covers the main bases. If it doesn’t come back to me, and if you think I haven’t given an adequate answer come back again. Thanks again for writing.