I was on the radio yesterday morning. It was one of those call-in programs where people ask questions about the Bible. The regular person (the man who has all the answers) was gone. So they called me. I didn’t mind. But I’m afraid I wasn’t very good at it. My answers were too tentative. Too qualified. Too many long pauses while I tried to locate the chapter and verse. On radio the rule is talk first and think later. Or at least, think while you talk. I can do both. But I find that it usually works better if I think first.
Still, I stumbled through to the best of my ability. Do this sort of thing often enough and I suppose you eventually come up with a supply of stock answers. I have answered questions on the radio often enough to notice that they are almost always along the same line. The questions themselves are not exactly the same. But they usually fall into the same basic categories. They are the sort of questions that everyone asks:
“If God is a God of love, why is there suffering?”
“Will God really punish the wicked?”
“Are we free to choose God or does he choose us?”
“And just who does God think he is anyway?”
About half-way through the program (somewhere between the question about the Nephilim and the one about the origin of evil) it dawned on me that most of my callers were not looking for answers so much as they were hoping for air-time. They were not asking questions. They were making a point. And they are not the only ones. We all ask questions like this. We say things like, “Is there a reason you left your unwashed dishes in the sink?” or “Do I have to do it myself?”
These are questions but only in the technical sense of the word. They are not intended to solicit information. Not really. More often than not the answer is implied in the question. So why do we ask them? Sometimes we ask them to make the other person feel foolish. The point made by the question is self-contradictory. More often the question is intended to provoke a response. The Bible is full of these kinds of questions.
God, in particular, seems fond of them:
“Where are you?”
“Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
“Who do people say I am?”
If the Bible is any indication, we are just as prone to ask such questions of God:
“How long, O Lord, how long?”
“Will not the judge of all the earth do right?”
“Are you the One who was to come, or should we expect another?”
Usually, our aim in asking God such questions is the same as my callers. We hope to make a point. We want God to see the inconsistency of his position. We aim to provoke him to action. And sometimes, we are even interested in his answer.
John’s latest book is coming in September. You can find out more about it at follygraceandpower.com.
Read John’s article on “the trajectory of worship” in the March issue of Christianity Today.
