DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What is the difference in believing in only one God and believing our God is the top God or best God? How does this relate to our view of other non-Christian religions?
2. It is popular today to say the Christian God-the-Father is the same God as all other religions… that “the Father” is Allah, or any other God and Jesus is “our way” of getting to the Father but there are other ways—what do you think of this?
3. What are some mistaken view of God he Father that cold come from our human situation and how would you answer the person who says, “If God is like a Father then I hate Him.”
4. What is the doctrine of providence? How can we say that God provides us with a car and house when we ourselves purchased it with out own hard-earned money?
5. Make a chart of the various answers to theodicy—the problem of evil. If God is almighty how can he let bad things happen? Which one of these answers would you use most in explaining the problem of evil?
6. This book repeatedly claim there are things we can’t explain or prove to unbelievers—we “just believe” them. Discuss the difference between believing on evidence and believing by faith and how both have a role in faith. What have you believed due to evidence and what by faith alone?
7. Have the group read the “What about us” ending to this chapter to themselves as a closing meditation, or have someone prepared to read it aloud for the group. Or perhaps actually have someone read the prayer at the end for the group, or have someone pray based on the lesson a similar prayer.
I invite you to post your own ideas on this chapter by adding a comment to this post to help other leaders. -- Keith Drury
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2 Corinthians 6: 16-18 ... “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”
God is the father to us, the father to the fatherless, and the father of his church. We have a family under him, as his children, with brothers and sisters that span the globe. Toward them, even the least of them, what is our family responsibility, God’s expectation, minimum duty?
John 16:33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
In his perfect glory, Jesus condescended to earth out of love for us, providing the perfect sacrifice we would otherwise have never been able to offer. In his perfect innocence and unending love he suffered and died. Yet like him we suffer, but unlike him we are not perfectly innocent. We ask, why did my friend die of cancer? But, why aren’t we also asking, why haven’t I, or we all, so equally suffering as a result of our own endless rebellion? What have we done to expect a pleasure-filled life or a comfortable death? And, who, when we step back to assess the universal blight of sin staining our every day, deserves more than the worst this broken world has to offer? What gives us the authority or the right to expect the entitlement or demand from God almighty, who has already rescued our soul, to also charm our every moment on earth? Who is innocent? Who is good?
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