From the Famous to the Thoughtful: Questions the Bible Asks

in

By Wil Triggs

The Bible is filled with questions. As we begin 2016 at College Church, Pastor Moody is preaching a new series, “Biblical Answers to Life’s Big Questions.” So our word for January is “Questions” because of that series.

Whereas the sermons in this series provide answers, OneWord Journal wants to take a look at questions, and open up this space for us to ponder and consider questions.

So God’s Word gives us answers. But we can also learn a lot from the questions that are in the Bible. Here are some of the questions we find in the Bible, some of them coming from the very mouth of God, others by Satan, still others voiced by mortals like us, talking to one another or to our Maker and Savior.

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
Genesis 3:1B

But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” …Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?”
Genesis 3:9 and 13a

Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?”
Genesis 4:9

But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”
Exodus 3:11

Then the LORD said to him, “Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?"
Exodus 4:11

But Pharaoh said, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.”
Exodus 5:2

They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt?"
Exodus 14:11

When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?”
Exodus 16:15a

“Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods?
Who is like you, majestic in holiness,
awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?
Exodus 15:11

And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?”
Exodus 15:24

And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”  Exodus 17:7

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
Psalm 22:1

Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?
Jeremiah 8:22

Where can I go from your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?
Psalm 139:7

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?
Psalm 8:3-4

To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these?
Isaiah 40:25-26

With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? … He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:6, 8

Jesus … asked his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" … He asked them, "But who do you say that I am?"
Mark 8:27, 29

Then someone came to him and said, "Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?"
Matthew 19:16

For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?
Mark 8:36-37

He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”
John 21:17

. . .and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
John 11:26

And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
Matthew 6:27

What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? … How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
Romans 6:1-3

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Romans 8:35

And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “WHY DO YOU SEEK THE LIVING AMONG THE DEAD?”
Luke 24:5

A poem from the other side of the world

in

I Want to Live in Your Word

 

The poet at right comes from Kyrgyzstan. Her people are proud of their poetry and she is using poetry to express her love for Christ. We met her at the LittWorld conference in Singapore where she shared the poem below with us, and we now share it wi…

The poet at right comes from Kyrgyzstan. Her people are proud of their poetry and she is using poetry to express her love for Christ. We met her at the LittWorld conference in Singapore where she shared the poem below with us, and we now share it with you. Many years ago, I visited her country, but found no Christians of Kyrgyz heritage. What a joy to meet her now and hear of her heart for God's Word.

In your word I find my utmost delight.

I want to honor it's great worth aright.

Let me forever live within your word.

Pressed into it, may it and I unite.

 

I find with your word sweet wisdom's light.

Your holy word is my source of advice.

I long to train myself to every mind

Your word's instructions and decrees outright.

 

In your word only meaning do I find

From its vast stores is heaven's knowledge mined.

On your word do I meditate each day

To within your word is my design.

 

Into your word my being longs to dive.

To be forever into it entwined.

Discerning heaven's righteousness from sin

Through what I gather written down within.

 

Examining your word each night and day,

May it forever over me hold sway.

And may my sin be driven far away.

May I forever in your dear word stay.

 

That I may understand all of your word,

Let naught be it within my ear be heard.

Examining, inquiring from its depths,

Your word before me spread; let me sleep sure.

 

Lord, let me grasp your word and hold it fast.

And never let it be from my heart cast.

Forever only holding to your word, 

Let me my weaknesses correct at last.

 

Reading your word and with it spending time,

Within me rise up feelings so sublime.

You are my perfect Lord on High and God.

I hold you as the pattern of my rhyme.

 

May your word only lead me and direct.

May I, with utmost honor and respect,

In righteousness and justice ever live

Let me not any word of yours neglect.

Mysterious Benediction

in

Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness:
He was manifested in the flesh,
vindicated by the Spirit,
seen by angels,
proclaimed among the nations,
believed on in the world,
taken up in glory.
(1 Timothy 3:16)

benediction, (Latin, bene-well+dicere, to speak) is a short invocation for divine help, blessing and guidance. Usually at the end of worship.

by Virginia Hughes

Like careless children on Christmas morning we broke everything in the Garden of Eden. When it all came tumbling down, Jesus spread his vast arms, outstretched in sacrifice, and forgave us.

When Christ died, he gave more gifts to us than he had ever given before. Which is saying a lot for the Alpha and Omega, co-author of the whole world and everything in it—including the creation of ourselves and the very measures of time. For our sake; not his.

Traces of his story are written everywhere in the universe. Unfathomable, even as we witness the seasons, stars, oceans' depths, highest mountains, lilies of the valley and power of the winds. Don't forget the invisible matter that holds everything together: the "God particle," or "Higgs Boson." 

We read about the trumpet blast of his second coming. Imagine rising to meet him in the air. His birth, death and resurrection are hope promised and eternity realized. 

Christ couldn't be contained as he walked on water along the edges of the earth telling wind and waves to behave and be still. Tipping the scales at every turn, he agreed to lay down his life and rise again. Among those he brought back to life were children, moms, dads and friends.

We don't know what it is like to summon a friend with defibrillating words. Christ does that every time one of us accepts his gift. He is constantly bringing new life to all who believe. Recall the miraculous visual of Lazarus rolling out of his death wrappings after a few days in a sepulcher. 

I once read about a "Lady Lazarus," not pleased to be beckoned back from death. A gifted word wizard with mental burdens and debilitating depression, she finally did herself in, overcome with sadness. She left behind a poem that provokes its readers. Like Sylvia Plath, I now am a "Lady Lazarus." 

Unlike Sylvia, I didn't have a death wish, and still do not. Death wasn't on my mind the day I passed. I left quickly sitting quietly at dinner. Here one moment and gone the next, on October 25, 2015.

The immediacy of passing so quickly without a moment of pain or good-bye wave, is not an event one expects. Providentially, the paramedics arrived immediately and restarted my heart. Learning about it later, the panic in the voices and eyes around the hospital bed didn't alarm me. Paramedics, nurses and cardiologists kept recounting how I had died. 

I lost count of how many times I was told of my own death. It was a big deal to them, and I had missed the whole thing. My husband thought I had really gone, and what if it happened again with no warning? Worried family members drove across a few states to see. Everyone was wary, except for me.

I alone found news of my dying oddly comforting because it didn't hurt at all. Maybe it was shock, a built-in grace. Maybe it was grace, a built-in shock. I felt fine immediately. I was awake and what was all the fuss?

When my heart stopped, I didn't go anywhere, what a dummy. No bright lights or angel greetings. Should I be worried? Nah. I was a little disappointed actually. No drama to report on my end. I didn't even walk into the "wood between the worlds," written about in a C.S. Lewis book. They restarted me like a machine. I had been revived. Reset button pushed.

Now there is a battery implanted near my heart to give it a shock if it stops again. I am a question needing an electrical answer. Test after test after test. A mystery to an electrophysiologist who knows everything about the heart except why mine stopped beating.

I only know how ordinary I am and further humbled to be alive. Obviously my work here isn't complete. In a blink I could have passed into eternal work and worship. 

Having resumed an earthly routine, awareness is keen that the best life for a believer is what we've always been taught: Follow Jesus. His life is our prayer. He will carry us through anything including the disruption of dying for a few minutes during dinner. 

He wills where we arise. We may carry on with confidence here knowing he manages our details—even those surrounding a mysterious benediction.

An Advent Prayer

This is the Advent Prayer that Pastor Dave Bullock prayed during our Sunday evening service of carols and readings. The prayer was written by Paul A. Richardson, a professor with whom Pastor Dave studied. May this become our prayer this Advent season.

Almighty God,

            who, having created all worlds and mankind,

            has profoundly pitied us;

            who has come to us that we might be saved,

            not of our merit, but of your unquenchable love;

look on us who worship in comfort,

            in light and warmth,

            in health and prosperity,

            in pride and in presumption:

For,

          having all glory,

                       you became incarnate in the dishonor

                        of a defeated line of kings;

            having all riches,

                        you became incarnate in the poverty

                        of the working class;

            having all illumination,

                        you became incarnate in the darkness

                        of night and obscurity;

            having all wisdom,

                        you became incarnate in the confounding simplicity

                        of a child;

            having all life,

                        you became incarnate in the emptiness

                        of a virgin’s womb;

            having all power,

                        you became incarnate in the weakest form

                        of human life—a male infant.

Help us to recognize

            our shame, our poverty,

            our darkness, our foolishness,

            our emptiness, our weakness,

that we may know our need of you.

And then . . .

            become incarnate in us.

Let your servants depart in peace, O Lord,

            full of the vision of your salvation,

            ready to make it plain before all the faces of the earth.

We pray through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.


 

In Words Unspoken

in

All You are, I cannot relate.

You are in the moment before pen meets page.

You have given me the pen, the page,

and the mind to pour You onto this canvas.

Your image I fail to capture.

 

You are beyond all of my fumbling prose.

The praise I strive to express is found

under my words, behind my letters.

In the space between this word and the next

are all of the things I long to sing, praise, and shout

to Heaven…to the world around me!

 

In that space, You are free to exist as You are:

Indescribable, untamable, unstained by the

blackness of my ink.

I long to dwell in that space.

So, I will build a ladder of words

(each letter to give You praise)

until you lift me up from my

Tower of Babel.

 

When I join You in that space,

the unknowable and mysterious,

I will see the face that I sought

through my words.

Then, my heart will be loosed to replace the pen,

and I will know that I was the canvas,

and You, the author of my life.

by Alyssa Carlburg