Questioning the Bible
Is this even legal?
A lot of atheists and non-believers I’ve seen lately come from churches and Sunday schools where it was nonsensical to question the stories out of the Bible. That everything in the Bible is to be accepted with no questions ask, and even a single doubt would cause ostraciztion and shame from their friends and even parents.
This approach to Christianity does not only prevent people from seeing God’s true nature, but also causes lack of critical thinking (memorization over understanding), blind obedience instead of faith, and inability to share your faith than others. Once they started asking good questions, your last coping mechanism was aggressively closing off from them or ending the conversation abruptly. After all, that’s just the devil trying to distract you rom your faith through your friends. They just don’t know God like you do.
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But what if there was more to learn from God? What if those questions are the very questions God asks you when you finally reach heaven?
God never expects you to know the answer immediately. He knows your limits, your strengths and weaknesses — after all, He fearfully and wonderfully made you. Jesus knew what was expected when He called commoners instead of scholars. Do you think that the apostles, in their limited knowledge, understood the clear morale and principles behind Jesus’ parables? That they knew He had to sacrifice Himself for the world when He compared His body to bread, or His blood to wine. Or when Jesus told them to beware the yeast of the Pharisees or Sadducees, they instantly knew that Jesus meant be wary of teachings that misalign with the Gospel.
Absolutely not! When Jesus said beware the yeast, they argued amongst themselves thinking He meant literal bread. They never understood why Jesus called His body and blood bread and wine until the crucifixion (not even in the last supper!). A lot of parables (Parable of the Sower, the Lamp, etc) were only known once the disciples continually asked Jesus what they. truly meant. Despite their lack of insight, they still had the spirit to want a closer relationship with Christ, to comprehend the wisdom behind His teachings unlike the crowd that simply comes and goes.
I think, along the way, society has slowly turned churches from building apostles to building a mindless crowd, simply listening to input yet not producing any output. This is not a new concept —for Jesus outright says in Matthew 7:7 to “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”
At the end of the day, God encourages us to be forthcoming with Him. He doesn’t pretend He is easy to understand, or that we are failures for not comprehending His nature. He knows our heart before even we do — even the burning questions that we have tried so hard to suppress with surface level answers. I implore you, research at least one question you struggle with; explore all the reasons, the disagreements, the perspectives of pastors and believers and even non-believers. Most importantly, ask your Heavenly Father, for His door is always open for you.
