Called Into Questions Sample

Questioning Questions

The first question in the Bible is not a good one. This is an unhappy note on which to begin a Bible study on questioning well, but a necessary one: questions can draw us away from God, not only lead us to Him. There are no neutral questions in the kingdom of God. Like everything humans do, our questions are entangled in both sin and grace. Whether we ask them out loud to our pastors or in the inner reaches of our hearts, questions are either acts of rebellion or instruments of God's grace. How can we tell whether our questions are traps that would turn us from God or pathways deeper into His love?

The serpent’s question is a poison pill that has been perfectly crafted to lead Adam and Eve into rebellion. The serpent does not make open warfare against the Almighty, that would be too obvious. Instead, the serpent cloaks his rebellion in a question that invites Adam and Eve into it. He subtly brings them over to his side by asking them to think about whether God really loves them.

We can see this by looking closely at how the Serpent formed the question, which assaults God’s kindness in multiple ways. The hint of disbelief in the question is damning; it casts a shadow over the reliability of God’s revelation. Then there is the name that the serpent uses. Though the difference does not come out in most English translations, God had been called YHWH-Elohim, the “Lord God,” the one who is near to His people, up to this point in Genesis. The serpent however only names him Elohim —a generic name that replaces the intimate graciousness of the Lord God with a more distant conception of a deity.

And then there is the most obvious fault in the serpent’s question: God did not actually say, “You shall not eat of any tree in the garden.” He did not say that at all. In Genesis 2:16-17, God tells Adam “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” God had told Adam and Eve they “may surely eat of every tree of the garden,” except one. The serpent transforms God into a dour legalist, making it seem as though He would deny Adam and Eve goods that they should have access to. Where God grants permission, the serpent sees only prohibition. The quotation is a misquotation, a bit of bad scholarship. (It will not be the last time in Scripture that Satan deliberately misinterprets God’s commands.)

Questioning is dangerous and questioning well is hard. We are not only freed by God’s grace to question with Jesus but empowered by His love to question well with Him. That begins when we pay close attention to our questions and begin to submit our hearts and questions to Him.