Answering Questions About God

We all have questions about God, the Bible, or our faith and have probably all been asked questions by others. Below are some helpful resources as you tackle these issues, there is a section for adults and one for parents dealing with questions from their children.

Do scroll down through the page and have a browse and also do get in touch if there are questions you are really struggling with and would like to talk through 

Katie Croft

There are plenty of great books around for adults that address many of the common questions asked about God and faith. They are often under the categorisation of "Apologetics" coming from the Greek word "apologia" which was a word used to describe the defence given by a defendant in court. You can search Christian bookshops for books on apologetics to get helpful books with answers to lots of different questions from the reliability of the Bible, to why God allows suffering. 

Here are a few to get you started.

"Grill a Christian - Answers to tough questions about Christianity, God and the Bible" by Roger Carswell is the kind of little book you can use as a reference, with a helpful index directing you to the answers of different questions. It covers questions about God, the Bible, Jesus, morality, suffering, religion, life after death, the church and becoming a Christian.

Both 10ofThose and the Good Book Company have books in the series "Questions Christians Ask". These are short helpful books on a range of topics.

"Where's God in a Coronavirus World?" by Oxford professor of Mathematics John Lennox,  is a short book looking how different world views cope with the current crisis and why he believes Christianity offers us the most hope. Available from both 10ofThose.com and the Good Book Company.

If you find your biggest problem is not knowing the answers, but knowing how to start a conversation about faith, or how to deal with different types of people and debates you find yourself in, then have a look at Tactics by Gregory Koukl it's a brilliantly helpful book that you will read and re-read!

If your children are anything like mine they ask the hardest questions at the most inopportune times, I often found that was when I was driving!

Something I found helpful through the mist of panic and the "help, what am I going to say?!" was to think, hang on, what is the question they are actually asking. Sometimes our minds flit to a wider or more complex issue and we wonder how we are going to tackle it, when really they are asking something smaller. 

Questions about God can be particularly hard to answer, especially if we feel that we have our own questions or just don't know the answers for ourselves.

Spending time regularly with God ourselves, reading the Bible and praying, is a great way to get to know God better and to deepen our trust in Him. It also equips us to answer our children's questions. Have at look at the "Daily Bible Times for Families" page for help with family devotions and check out both 10ofThose.com and the Good Book Company for Bible notes for adults. "Explore" notes are available to download as an app.

There are also some key strategies we can use. It's always good to ask our children what we do know about God - that He is loving, that He is just, that He is patient, faithful, kind, that He is with us and never leaves us. That He is so much bigger than us, that there are things we won't be able to get our heads around and will have to trust to Him, knowing that He is good and fair. Knowing the character of God, that He is for us, is often what we, and our children, need to hear in times of fear.

But there are other questions that often stump us, that we'd like to give more specific answers to, I remember both my children asking why they couldn't go to play at Jesus' house when they got to visit all their other friends! Why we can't hear God when He answers our prayers? Or why did God create the Coronavirus, might be other challenging ones!

Below are some resources that might be a help and also please do email us directly with your kids questions, we'd love to help!

Katie Croft (Children's Work Coordinator)

Both 10ofThose.com and the Good Book Company have a range of books that can help us. You could also phone in an order to our local bookshop Quench.

"Everything a Child Shoud Know About God" is a great book which you could use as part of your bedtime routine with your children. It's part of a series, along with "What Every Child Should Know About Prayer" and "Everyone a Child Should Know". There are part of an offer at 10ofThose.com at the moment.

"The Moon is Always Round" by Jonathan Gibson, is a book that addresses the questions of God and suffering. It eavesdrops in a conversation between and father and his son after the sad death of a new baby. It compares the different phases of the moon to the different phases of life, but that just as the moon is always present, so God and His goodness are always with us.

"Why do we say Goodnight?" by Champ Thornton, is a book that deals with bedtime fears and reassures of God's presence with us even when we're afraid.