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Totally Authentic - Week Four

April 01, 2025 0 0

 

Always more questions

 

Part of being an authentic Christian is wrestling with doubt and ongoing questions. In the same way physical pain is giving the body important information — doubt informs our faith and it can help develop it. The Bible is not a straightforward manual for life, and Christianity does not offer a 10 stage programme to enlightenment. What it is is a relationship. And like any relationship, we go on asking questions and discovering more about each other.

 

SEEDS TO SOW: How would you describe ‘faith’ to someone who had never heard the word before?

 

Read 1 Kings 19: 1-15a

Where do we hear God?

It is human nature to look for God in the chaos, in the earthquake, in the fire… but it is also human nature to find God in the silence. To enter that place where we ask God questions and God asks questions of us.

What words leap out to you in this reading? 

And how long do you think the silence was from verse 12 to 13?

 

Read Psalm 43

Questioning God, questioning ourselves.

This psalmist begins questioning God and ends questioning themselves. This can often be our experience of coming to God, through prayer or when reading the Bible. We bring all these expectations and sometimes when we don’t get the answers we are looking for we either rail against the God and the Bible or rail against ourselves. 

What’s fascinating is that this very dynamic is played out WITHIN the Bible itself. This is a clue that we are to have a rich ongoing relationship of discovery with the Bible. Even the Bible is trying to figure out the Bible! Why would we expect to have a straightforward cookie-cutter experience of the Bible when nobody in the Bible has a mundane cookie-cutter experience of their faith!

We don’t have to give ourselves such a hard time when we find parts of the Bible frustrating, alienating or confusing and it’s okay not to find quick answers to our questions. The Bible is meant to take time, we are meant to build a relationship with it. 

What do you reckon? Agree? Disagree? 

Discuss! 

 

Read Romans 12: 9-21

Is our love genuine?

While this sounds fantastic it also sounds like a tall order! We will have to support one another to practice this genuine love.

Do you reckon Christians have a reputation for rejoicing with those who rejoice and weeping with those who weep? Or are we more often seen as out of touch or judgemental? Discuss!