Introduction: More Questions

The first Real Questions book ended by telling you to keep asking. If you’re holding this one, you did.

Maybe your questions have changed. Some are big and abstract: Who made God? How can God be three and one? If He knows everything, am I really free? Others are close to home: Why are Christians such hypocrites? What if my parents are splitting up? What if I’ve done something I can’t undo? Some you might not want to ask out loud at all.

All of them are welcome here.

Did you know that the only story the Bible tells about Jesus as a teenager is about questions? When He was twelve, His parents lost Him on the way home from Jerusalem. After three frantic days, “they found Him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard Him were astounded at His understanding and His answers” (Luke 2:46–47). Jesus listened, asked and answered. Asking questions isn’t the opposite of faith. Jesus did it.

God even invites it: “Come now, let us reason together,” says the LORD (Isaiah 1:18). And the Bible praises a group of people in a city called Berea because, when they heard the apostle Paul, they “examined the Scriptures every day to see if these teachings were true” (Acts 17:11). They didn’t believe him blindly. They checked. Do the same with this book.

How each chapter works

As in Book 1, every chapter is one question, with four parts:

• The short answer. Two or three sentences, for when you only have a minute.
• The longer answer. What the Bible says, and real reasons, in a few pages.
• Think about it. One question to take away, alone or with friends.
• Go deeper. A chapter from a classic in the Ochorus library, written by someone who wrestled with the same thing.

Two kinds of questions, again

Some questions have one clear Christian answer, given by Christians across the world and through history: that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit; that Jesus died for our sins; that God’s love reaches people who feel beyond it. This book gives those answers plainly.

Other questions are ones on which faithful Christians, who love Jesus and trust the Bible, have reached different conclusions. How does God’s knowing everything fit with our choices? Does God still give prophecy today? Should babies be baptised? What happens at communion? Here the book sets out the main views fairly, shows what they share, and leaves you to think it through with your church and family. Each of those chapters says so clearly.

Read it your way

You don’t need to have read Book 1, and you don’t need to read this one in order. Start wherever your question is. If an answer doesn’t satisfy you, say so, to God and to a Christian you trust. Honest questions get further than polite pretending.

For parents, teachers and youth leaders

Real Questions is written for readers aged 13 to 17. It takes a mainstream evangelical view, and where faithful Christians genuinely differ it sets out the main views without taking sides.

Several chapters in this book handle painful subjects: abuse in churches, pornography, self-harm, divorce, guilt and forgiveness. They are written with compassion and without graphic detail, and every one of them points the reader to a parent or trusted adult, and, where someone is in danger or is being hurt, to getting help straight away. You may want to read those chapters first. The “Think about it” questions also work well for group discussion. All Scripture is quoted from the Berean Standard Bible.