#STRask

Questions about how to answer someone who says, “Everyone deserves love and happiness,” in response to objections to same-sex weddings, and how to think about same-sex adoption when looking through the lens of the greater good.

 

• How would you answer someone who said, “Everyone deserves love and happiness,” in response to my objections to same-sex weddings?
• How should I think about same-sex adoption when looking through the lens of the greater good? If same-sex marriage is legal, what is the greater good in terms of children—giving a child a home or fighting against same-sex adoption ever occurring?

Questions about how to make a biblical case for God’s good design in creating two genders and the rightness of submitting to his design for our own bodies, and how “gender-affirming” care can be wrong if it’s not discussed in the Bible.

 

• Would you make a biblical case for God’s good design in creating two genders and the rightness of submitting to his design for our own bodies? My trans, Episcopal brother is asking why “gender-affirming care” is wrong and harmful if it’s not discussed in the Bible.

Questions about whether the despair portrayed in Psalms and Job is descriptive, prescriptive, or something else, whether the Beatitudes are descriptive or prescriptive, how to meditate on God’s Word, and whether reading the Bible gives us information about God or a relationship with him.

 

• Should we view the despair of believers portrayed in Psalms and Job descriptively, prescriptively, or some other middle way?
• Are the Beatitudes found in Matthew 5 descriptive, prescriptive, or both?
• How do we meditate on God’s Word just by reading it, and how is meditating on God’s Word different from yoga?
• How should I respond to someone who says, “The Bible gives us information about God. You can’t read it again and again and say you have a relationship with God.”

Questions about the difference between believing and knowing from a biblical perspective, why it’s considered bad manners to ask for testable, repeatable evidence for the existence of gods, and why Christians don’t prove God exists by asking him to change carbon dioxide into hydrogen.

 

• How would you understand the difference between believing and knowing from a biblically informed Christian perspective, with knowing from a secular perspective being that which one can see, smell, touch, or demonstrate empirically?
• Why is it considered very bad manners to ask for testable, repeatable, consistent evidence that gods and goddesses do exist?
• What prayer can anyone say over a small amount of baking soda so that when vinegar is poured onto it, the bubbles test positive for hydrogen instead of carbon dioxide, thereby giving evidence that the supernatural being to whom the prayer is offered does exist?

Questions about our best answer when an atheist asks us to prove God exists, how God can be merciful and forgiving without the existence of fallen humanity, and why, if God is complete in himself and already receives glory from the angels, he would create us to witness his glory.

 

• What is your best answer when an atheist asks you to “prove God exists”?
• Since God is a Trinity, he can be love without needing creation, but how can he be, by nature, merciful and forgiving without fallen humanity, and wouldn’t that make us necessary?
• If God is complete in himself, he didn’t need to create us, and if his angels are there, he already receives glory, so why is it to the benefit of an uncreated creation that they should be created and witness the glory of God?

Questions about why the Sadducees and Pharisees wanted to kill Jesus and why God doesn’t say anything when we pray to him.

 

• Why did the Sadducees and Pharisees want to kill Jesus?
• Why doesn’t God say anything when we pray to him?

Questions about whether 1 Corinthians 3:15 indicates that a person can be saved but have nothing to show for it in the way they live, and whether a lack of good works after salvation means the person is not really saved.

 

• Does 1 Corinthians 3:15 indicate that a person can be saved but have nothing to show for it in the way they live, and if so, how does this fit with passages like James 2 and John 15?
• If good works demonstrate/follow salvation, does that mean I’m not saved since I still fail so much when it comes to selfishness, not helping others much, not giving much, etc.?

Question about the questions we need to answer for our youth to help keep them from walking away from the faith.

 

• What questions do we need to answer for our youth to help keep them from walking away from the faith?

Question about how to love those who hate us.

 

• How would you answer the question my former professor says is the most pressing question his students are asking right now: How do we love those who hate us?

Questions about whether biblical fasting is food specific or could include things like social media, how the “faith” listed as a gift of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12:9 differs from the saving faith given to all believers, and whether it’s biblical for people with a prophetic gift to predict suffering and death.

 

• Is it biblical to abstain from something like social media as a form of fasting to pray for a specific thing, or is fasting food specific?
• Is the “faith” listed as a gift of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12:9 somehow different from the saving faith given to all believers?
• Is it biblical for people with a prophetic gift to predict seasons of suffering or when a person will die?