tough questions

When you are sharing your faith in Jesus, a fruitful time to explore is when people ask tough questions of Christianity. If they are not a Christian, then you aren’t likely to have much impact by quoting the Bible. There will be plenty of time for Bible, but in the beginning you are probably going to be asking them to look at things from a different perspective than they normally would. Over the next several days, let’s look at some clear responses to these tough questions. I am assuming you have already asked the person what they think, ala the “Columbo method.” Brief review on that.

• Ask them to tell you more about their question. What do they think?
  
• Ask them how they came to that conclusion. What are the sources that influenced them to think that way?
  

In this way, you will know what they will begin to understand, and what might take some time

Then, when they say, “What do you think?” I am going to give brief discussion starters, sound bites as it were, to get them thinking from a different angle.

But first, let me give a general teaching that is going to be used repeatedly by Christians to explain the ways of God.

God creates people out of love and wants to be in relationship with them. He wants people to know they are loved and to love Him back. But God will not force himself on anyone. Forced love is not really love, it is assault. We worship no rapist God. No abuser.

God gives the means for people to discover who he is if they truly seek him. But God also allows people to reject him. We have free will. We can trust or reject. God allows us to sin against him and against each other. If we could not sin, we would not be beings created to relate to God and with each other. We would be computer software that God simply manipulates.

Tomorrow we begin with some questions.