Despite being born into a Christian household (though technically starting off as Catholic), my own relationship with God did not truly become a priority until my second year of college and I only read the entire Bible for the first time back in 2018. This year I once again intend to read the Bible, this time in chronological order throughout this year. And no, this is not some New Years Resolutions nonsense; I intend to actually follow through with it, just as I did in 2018.
This is only my second time reading the Bible cover to cover and I am excited to go back and see all the notes and underlines I made three years ago (the notes I saw from today and yesterday already bring back memories and insights I had since forgotten!). The first time I read through the entire Bible, there were passages I did not fully understand (despite having the Jesus Bible that includes a bunch of additional insight) or passages sparking other questions and curiosities.
My tendency to question things, including my own spiritual beliefs began at a young age, but actually reading through scriptures led to an increase in doing so. Asking questions is beneficial, as long as I keep it from leading me towards frustration and hopelessness should I never find answers, and many of these questions are ones that likely never will get answers; I have a feeling this year I am going to come up with even more questions (in fact, I already came up with two new ones in the last two days!).
Three years ago, I wrote down all of my questions on a Notes page in my phone, and a few others have also come up and I added those as well. Below, are all of them. Some may include some additional context and for many I will reference the book/chapter it came from. Also, these are not all in order. Maybe someday a few of them will be answered. If you happen to have an answer feel free to let me know. Otherwise, please enjoy, and my sincerest apologies but not really if this leads you to an existential crisis.
- Why did God create dinosaurs? I would like to add that many people have told me something along the lines of He did it to demonstrate His glory, but honestly, that is such a ‘safe’ and uncreative answer, and there is surely a better one out there. So try again.
- How did God create day and night before creating the sun and moon? Gen 1:3-18
- If we sinned in the Garden of Eden, what will stop us from sinning again in heaven/the new earth? Will we lose our free will?
- Where is the Garden of Eden? Gen 3 In Genesis 3, God banishes Adam and Eve from the Garden, but it doesn’t say anything about destroying it and in fact mentions Him putting a flaming sword East of it. This implies it is still around somewhere, doesn’t it? Or perhaps the flood destroys it later?
- Why the flood and why Noah? Gen 6 Look, I understand humanity was wicked and Noah still followed God. But was there really no one else besides him and his family following God? And there is plenty of wickedness in humanity still, so I don’t see how this attempt at restarting was particularly helpful in that regard. Certainly, it has a great teaching moment within it and the promise from God about never flooding the earth again, but from I reboot standpoint, I am missing the logic here.
- How did Noah and his family deal with all the animals? Gen 6
- Of all the things Lot’s wife could have turned into, why a pillar of salt? Gen 19:18-26
- Why did Lot’s daughters think sleeping with Lot was a good plan? Gen 19:30-38
- Why couldn’t Isaac just take the blessing he accidentally gave Jacob and give it to Esau? Gen 27
- How did Jacob not realize he married Leah right away? Gen 29 Yes, I am aware her face was covered, but still… What about the rest of her body? Her hair? Her voice? I do appreciate the irony of him being deceived in a parallel manner to his father, but still.
- What’s the deal with Genesis 34? Not sure, how to even begin explaining this one.
- What exactly is Moses’ speech problem? A stutter? Language barrier? Exodus
- Why does the Lord continually harden Pharaoh’s heart? Exodus This one drives me crazy and it happens multiple times. The Pharaoh was certainly a terrible guy on his own, but during the instances when God actively hardens his heart, it doesn’t really seem fair to punish him and all of the Egyptians for something they themselves are not technically doing.
- What’s the significance of eating unleavened bread and making bread without yeast? Exodus 12
- I do not really understand the angels and demons stuff. I know this isn’t really a question, but just the whole concept in general raises confusion for me.
- Why did Jesus keep telling the people He healed not to tell anyone? Mark
- Who is Theophilus? Luke/Acts
- Why did Jesus ask the man why he called Him good? Luke 18:19
- Why was Achan’s entire family and livestock killed even though they were innocent? Joshua 7
- Why did Samson rip a lion and eat honey out of it and then kill people? Judges 14 I mean… First of all, how does one acquire honey in this manner to begin with?
- What did Jesus write? John 8:6 I have heard several theories on this and all seem interesting and plausible, but it still remains a mystery.
- Why did the Levite cut up the girl? Judges 19
- Where was Thomas when Jesus first came back to the disciples? John 19:25 I’m just curious, was it his day off? Was he on his honeymoon? Feeling ill?
- Why are they called 1 and 2 Samuel when Samuel dies midway through the first one and isn’t technically the “main character?” 1 and 2 David makes more logical sense for the names of the books, but whatever.
- Why was it a sin for David to take a census? 2 Samuel 24
- What is the book of annals of the kings of Israel? 2 Kings
- What is going on in Ezekiel 1?
- Why are gay acts considered sinful? I realize this is a really controversial issue, and something that I couldn’t really explain my thoughts or misunderstandings properly in this kind of format, so feel free to reach out to me directly on this one.
- What is the deal with speaking in tongues? Again, like the question above, this isn’t something I can really explain in this format, so feel free to reach out to me directly on this one.
- If God lovers everyone and wants everyone to follow Him, why does He make it more possible for some people to learn about Him than others?
- Why isn’t there always a logical answer to questions like these, and is it wrong/what is wrong with desiring a logical answer?
So there they are! This list will likely expand as the year goes on. Have you ever wondered any of these things? Do you have other questions? Do you have answers? Feel free to let me know! God is certainly an interesting a complex being.
If you’re intrigued by this post and looking forward to what I’ll write about in the future, you can expect a new post at some point in the future. Also, if you feel inclined, feel free to leave a comment below about what you think. Thanks for all your support and I hope you’ll come back the next time I post. Stay Amazing!
Wow! These are all really great questions! I can say I’m in the same boat as you for many of them but for question #5 I might be able to provide some more insight. I’m not sure if there was any other people besides Noah worth saving, although I’d have to imagine that God wouldn’t destroy the righteous people so maybe the entire world really was evil besides Noah and his family. In any event, you referenced how there is still a lot of evil in the world today so did the flood actually serve its purpose/reboot if sin still exists? And why go to such extreme measures just to rid evil from humanity for a small amount of time. Well, I believe the answer comes in Genesis 6:1-4. These verses are often overlooked by most of church culture these days and even for me growing up. But recently I’ve learned to look at these verses in a different light, for instance: Referencing the ESV version of the Bible, verse 1 begins with mentioning how humanity was multiplying on the face of the earth. Verse 2 then talks about how the sons of God saw the daughters of men and took them for their wives.
“The sons of God” is where interpretations begin to vary and many different ideas have been put forth. In light of the question why did God send a flood to wipe out humanity, it makes the most sense to me if the sons of God is a reference to supernatural beings. Many think that it could be normal humanity but that doesn’t make any sense for what happens next! Verse 3: God did not like what he saw and why would he! If it was just men taking women as their wives, or even defiling them well what’s the harm in that, hadn’t they been doing it all along since Creation so why was it such a big deal? Of course I’m playing the devils advocate here a bit but if it was supernatural beings marrying human women, that just wouldn’t end well and certainly that was not what God intended. So God was very angry, mostly at the sons of God for marrying human women. And what’s worse, the offspring created by this union were called the Nehpilim (Verse 4). Simply put the Nephilim were giants and they came from a very unholy union.
That’s why when I get to verse 5 it makes sense to me that God would want to punish such sinful behavior and He needed to do it in a way that could destroy giants! It had to be extreme and quick to eradicate the Nephilim from the face of the earth. Now at this point I’d be asking the question well why is God destroying the world for the sin of a supernatural being? Well in verse 5 God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and although the sexual sin between humanity and the supernatural beings was great, now the offspring of this union was part human and part supernatural and they didn’t turn to God. In fact they continued in sin and it was even greater than before!
That was a long explanation for a single question but it was a really good question! I hope my ideas were somewhat helpful even if they only stimulated more questions and in answer to question #31, it is definitely okay to desire answers to these questions! In fact having questions like these can stimulate our growth to be more like Christ. I don’t think we will know all the answers until heaven but they do promote great conversations!
Hey!! So I have some info about question number 8 that may or may not be helpful to you… I can’t explain why Lots daughters did what they did, but I can tell you that God redeemed their mistake in an amazing way…. one of Lot’s daughter’s son became the father of the Moabites, the people group that Ruth the moabite came from (you probably know that book). Ruth married Boaz and both of them are great, great…etc. Grandparents of Jesus!! Just some food for thought! The genealogy of Jesus is in Matthew 1 if you’d like to look at that!