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Some questions I submitted to our Adult Sunday School planners for a "Tough Questions Series"

Fairness:

1. Why would God not allow unreached people to be saved just because they have not had the opportunity or hear the word? According to Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship (a retired missionary who spoke to us several years ago mentioned this) there are 25,000 + or - people groups (unique languages, culture, ...) in the world today and 30-40% are considered unreached by Christianity. And what about all those past generations, Native Americans, Asians, ...

2. Why would a just God single out the Jews to be blessed.

3. Why allow so much suffering of the innocent?

Contemporary practices vs bible teachings:

1. Why do we condone cremation (My parents who were devout Christians, deacons, elders, sunday school teachers chose to be cremated) when we believe in "the resurrection of the body"? Since Jesus nail and spear hole were still there in his resurrected body does that mean the soldiers who had their head disfigured by a bomb will come back with this disfiguration?

2. Leviticus has a bunch of laws, some of which we follow and some not. e.g. We (Presbyterians) have decided divorce should be tolerated but homosexuality should not? Who decides these things and what is the Biblical basis?

3. We say believers who die are in a better place, but doesn't it say they are asleep until the end times? Rev 20:13 says at the end times "death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them" Daniel 12:2 "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake."

Seeming contradictions:

1. Death - Genesis 3:19 Dust to Dust
- Ecclesiastes 12:7 - Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
- 1 Cor. 15:13-18 f the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.

2. Salvation thru Works (James) vs Grace (Gospels).

3. Wrathful Old Testament God (wipes out whole cities, Sodom and Gamora, and everyone in the flood) vs the Grace of Christ.

4. Hebrews 6:4 If you fall away you can't be brought back to repentance. vs other places where it says you just have to be born again and believe to be saved. Does this mean you can't change your mind?

Complex teachings:

1. How important is it to believe in the trinity? I always thought if Jesus were God, then when he prayed he was talking to himself and we know people who do that are "crazy" :-).

Historical/Science Questions:

1. Why is there no record of the plagues in Egyptian history?

2. How could all of those species fit on the arc? I've also seen engineering analysis that that it would have been impossible to build a boat that size out of wood.

3. Most people agree the flood probably only covered parts of the middle east (the world as they knew it). If we don't believe the whole world was covered with water are we waisting our time coming to church?


Last updated 2 Apr 2008