MY BIG QUESTIONS: A CHRISTIAN ANSWER COMPANION
A merged study guide for Mark Misenheimer
HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE
This guide keeps the original 71 numbered questions and their full wording, followed by the original answer companion with selected clarifications and additions. Four related questions follow as 72–75. “Three considerations” may mean competing views or complementary aspects of one answer; they are not a popularity ranking.
Scripture is the primary reference. Interpretations, philosophical models, and imaginative possibilities should not be confused with explicit biblical statements. Eastern Orthodox refers to that particular tradition; historic Christian refers more broadly to the shared Trinitarian and Christological inheritance. Neither label means all members agree on every subject.
SOURCE STATUS: This is a working study guide, not a fully verified scholarly publication. Individual sources were checked selectively in the present revision; the original 69-source directory and other citations have not all been independently rechecked for every claim. A source citation supports only what that source actually says, not necessarily every statement in a paragraph. Check texts and sources before publication. Personal credits and unlocated remembered broadcasts remain identified in the original questions.
STUDY MAP
1–7 — Identity, providence, and freedom. Shared ground: God creates and sustains; people bear responsibility. Disagreements include election, the nature of freedom, and how divine knowledge relates to events.
8–20 — Judgment, suffering, hiddenness, prayer, and promises. Shared ground: God is good, evil is real, and Christians look to Christ. The nature of final punishment and reasons for particular suffering are disputed.
21–44 — Scripture, origins, creation, and the spiritual world. Shared ground: God is Creator; Scripture matters. Disputes concern how Genesis is read, the age of creation, Genesis 6, and details of the unseen world. Questions 39–44 also address spiritual beings and speculative extraterrestrial claims.
45–57 — God and time, Christ, salvation, and death. Shared ground includes the eternal God, Jesus Christ as fully divine and fully human, and salvation through Christ. The mode of God’s relationship to time and details of Christ’s knowledge are discussed differently.
58–71 — Resurrection, heaven, judgment, prophecy, and knowledge. Christians confess Christ’s return, resurrection, judgment, and God’s ultimate victory; they differ over the millennium, rapture, final punishment, and many details of life to come.
72–75 — Additional related questions on the intermediate state, divine justice and mercy, Christian effort, and the goal of history. These expand or revisit themes in the original list.
These groupings are reading aids, not declarations that every position within a tradition is identical or that every philosophical model is a matter of Christian consensus.
1. Where did I come from? Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going?
These four questions seem to sit underneath almost everything else: questions of meaning, identity, purpose, and hope. How does Christianity answer them, and how should those answers change an ordinary Tuesday?
Credit: Ken Boa uses these four questions in his teaching and in his Side B Stories interview.
https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/the-side-b-stories-ken-boa/
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Creation and identity: You are God's creature, made in his image, rather than an accident whose value depends on usefulness. For the believer, identity also includes adoption, reconciliation, and belonging to Christ. Ken Boa develops these themes through specific New Testament identity statements. [S61]
B. Purpose: Historic Christianity locates human fulfillment in knowing, loving, worshiping, and obeying God and loving one's neighbor. The Reformed emphasis on God's glory and the Eastern Orthodox emphasis on communion with God overlap here, though their broader theological systems differ. [S56; S03]
C. Destination and present responsibility: Christianity promises resurrection and judgment, not merely the survival of an immaterial part of us. Hope in a renewed creation gives ordinary embodied life significance: work, relationships, mercy, and faithfulness matter now. [S28]
Scripture: Genesis 1:26–28; Matthew 22:37–40; John 17:3; Ephesians 2:8–10; Revelation 21–22.
Assessment: Broad Christian agreement; differences concern how salvation and participation in God's life are explained.
Further perspective: Being made in God’s image gives a person dignity that does not rise and fall with productivity, health, disability, or memory. The Orthodox term theosis means participation in God’s life by grace; it does not mean becoming another god or sharing God’s essence.
2. How do free will and election fit together?
Does God choose who will be saved in a way that ultimately determines their response? Or does he graciously enable people to respond while allowing them to resist the Holy Spirit’s invitation?
How do Calvinism, Arminianism, and Molinism explain the relationship between God’s sovereignty and human choice? Does Molinism’s concept of “middle knowledge”—God knowing what free creatures would choose in any possible circumstance—help resolve the difficulty, or move it somewhere else?
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Reformed/Calvinist: God graciously elects particular sinners without basing election on foreseen faith. His effective calling brings them willingly to Christ. Freedom means acting from one's desires, not independence from God's decree. This view does not teach that innocent people who want Christ are refused. [S04, chapters III, IX–X]
B. Arminian: No sinner can believe unaided. God's preceding or “prevenient” grace enables a genuine response that can be resisted; election is understood in relation to faith in Christ. Eastern Orthodoxy likewise affirms a grace-enabled human response but describes salvation through its own framework of cooperation with grace. [S25; S03]
C. Molinist: God knows what any free creature would do in any circumstances and providentially chooses a world with that knowledge. This seeks to affirm robust divine providence and freedom to choose otherwise. Its “middle knowledge” is a philosophical model, not an explicitly defined biblical doctrine. [S05]
Scripture: John 6:37–44; Romans 9; Ephesians 1:3–14; 1 Timothy 2:3–6; Acts 7:51.
Assessment: Three major approaches, not a settled ranking. All reject salvation earned independently of grace.
A helpful distinction: Compatibilists generally say a person acts freely when acting voluntarily from their own desires, even within God’s providential decree. Libertarian accounts generally require that a person could choose among alternatives in a relevant sense. These definitions are disputed, and Orthodox accounts of cooperation with grace should not simply be equated with Arminian election.
3. Is knowing what will happen different from determining that it will happen?
If God has always known every decision I will make, could I actually choose otherwise? Does his knowledge make the future certain without making my choices coerced?
I can say those words, but what do they mean in practice?
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Foreknowledge is not causation: Knowing that an action will occur does not, by itself, make the knower cause it. Arminians and Molinists distinguish the certainty of God's knowledge from a person's being compelled to act. Knowing truly and causing irresistibly are different claims. [S25; S05]
B. Timeless knowledge: On the classical account discussed by Boa, God does not first make a prediction and then wait to discover whether it succeeds. He knows temporal history from beyond our succession of moments. This changes the picture, although it does not remove every philosophical difficulty. [S01]
C. Reformed compatibility: Reformed Christians do not usually resolve this by denying determination. They affirm God's decree together with responsible human choosing, distinguishing voluntary actions from external coercion. The disagreement concerns the kind of freedom required for responsibility. [S04, chapters III and IX]
Scripture: Psalm 139:1–16; Isaiah 46:9–10; Acts 2:23.
Assessment: Your question cannot be answered just by substituting “God knew” for “God determined.” Those are distinct propositions.
The logical distinction helps, but does not end the discussion: “If God knows I will choose X, then I will choose X” does not by itself show that God’s knowledge forces the choice. Whether an infallibly known future permits choosing otherwise remains contested.
4. How much of everyday life does God determine?
Every drop of rain, every feather that falls, every wave on the ocean, every blink of an eye—is each event specifically determined by God, or does he sustain a world in which creatures and natural processes have genuine room to act?
Does the answer change when we move from rain and feathers to cancer, abuse, addiction, or a fatal accident?
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Meticulous providence: The Reformed answer extends God's decree and sustaining governance to all events, including apparently small ones. Created causes remain real; God ordinarily works through them. His relation to a sinful act differs from the creature's guilty intention. [S04, chapters III and V]
B. Sovereign permission: Arminians affirm that nothing escapes God's knowledge and governance while denying that he determines every sinful choice. He can permit genuinely resistible decisions, restrain their consequences, and accomplish his purposes through a world he sustains. [S25]
C. Dependence without a revealed mechanism: Scripture affirms both God's care for small creatures and real human responsibility. A Christian need not supply a complete account of every carpet fiber or water droplet to trust that life depends on God. The metaphysics of providence remains debated.
Scripture: Matthew 10:29–31; Colossians 1:16–17; Hebrews 1:3; James 1:13–17.
Assessment: Universal dependence on God is common ground; the causal explanation is not.
5. What is the difference between God causing something and allowing it?
If God could prevent a tragedy and does not, what does it mean to say he allowed it but did not cause it? That distinction seems important, but it does not remove the emotional difficulty.
When Christians call something “God’s will,” do we mean he commanded it, desired it, permitted it, or will eventually bring good from it? Those are very different claims.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Different intentions can concern one event: Joseph's brothers intended harm, while God intended good through the same history. The crucifixion similarly involves culpable agents and God's saving purpose. This is a biblical reason not to equate every actor's intention. [S04, chapter V]
B. Permission is morally different from approval: A sovereign God can refrain from preventing an act he forbids. Arminian accounts emphasize the responsibility of free agents and God's restraint and redirection of evil. Permission still raises a serious question about why he did not intervene. [S25]
C. Do not claim a secret explanation: Boa's treatment of Job emphasizes that sufferers may lack access to the heavenly perspective. We may affirm God's goodness without knowing why he allowed this particular death or injury. That is a limit on our knowledge, not an explanation of the tragedy. [S10]
Scripture: Genesis 50:20; Acts 2:23; James 1:13; Job 1–2, 38–42.
Assessment: “God allowed it” protects an important distinction but does not by itself solve the problem of suffering.
6. Could our lives really have unfolded differently?
When we moved to Atlanta in 1995, we could not see everything our family would experience afterward. If we had stayed somewhere else, would the same struggles have happened?
When someone develops an addiction, for example, did God know it would happen, permit it, or determine it? How should we think about choices whose consequences reach far beyond anything we could have anticipated?
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Genuine consequences: Moving, choosing friends, seeking treatment, and other decisions affect circumstances and opportunities. Christian responsibility assumes choices matter. God's sovereignty is not a reason to stop making wise decisions, addressing danger, or getting help. [S04, chapter V; S25]
B. Different theological models: A Molinist says God knows what would happen in alternative circumstances. A Reformed Christian says the actual history belongs to God's decree. Neither position gives us God's knowledge of what your son's life would have been elsewhere. [S05; S04]
C. Refuse invented hindsight: A later struggle does not prove that a move was sinful or that a parent should have foreseen it. Addiction has real human and situational dimensions; no passage authorizes announcing that God made a particular family member become addicted.
Scripture: Proverbs 3:5–6; James 1:5; Deuteronomy 29:29; Romans 8:28–29.
Assessment: Uncertain counterfactuals cannot support a verdict of parental guilt. Focus on present love and responsibility rather than an unknowable alternate history.
7. Why create people God knows will ultimately reject him?
This is one of my hardest questions.
If God knew before creating anyone that many people would reject him and face final judgment, why create them? Would it have been better for those people never to exist?
My earlier notes guessed at percentages—80, 90, even 99 percent—but I do not know those numbers. The question remains without them: how do we understand the creation of people whose lives will end in eternal loss?
Related Scripture: Matthew 7:13–14; Matthew 26:24.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Freedom and possible worlds: Craig argues that a world containing freely saved people may also contain freely lost people; a world where everyone freely accepts God may not be feasible with the persons and circumstances involved. This is a proposed defense of compatibility, not revealed access to God's calculations. [S07; S05]
B. Reformed justice and mercy: Romans 9 and Reformed theology emphasize God's freedom, mercy toward the undeserving, and righteous judgment. They deny that God owes salvation. This addresses divine rights and justice more directly than the emotional question of why create this particular lost person. [S04, chapter III]
C. Human limits and God's saving desire: Eastern Orthodox teaching emphasizes that God desires salvation and does not delight in the wicked's death. It attributes rejection to creatures rather than divine malice. Christians do not know the final percentages, so the claim that almost everyone is created for hell goes beyond our evidence. [S68]
Scripture: Romans 9:14–24; Ezekiel 18:23; 1 Timothy 2:4; Revelation 7:9.
Assessment: A genuinely difficult, unresolved why-question. None of these responses establishes that a particular person's perdition is desirable.
A possible-worlds defense asks whether a world with only freely saved people was feasible. It does not prove that God considered or selected a world in the particular way imagined, nor does it make the grief of a lost person unimportant.
8. What does Scripture actually teach about hell?
Is final punishment everlasting conscious suffering, final destruction, or something else? How should we understand the language of fire, darkness, destruction, death, and exclusion from God’s presence?
Part of me wishes the Christians who argue for eventual destruction rather than endless conscious suffering are right. But wishing something were true does not establish what Jesus taught.
How should Mark 9:48 be understood alongside Isaiah 66:24, which Jesus is quoting?
Source: Compelling Truth, “What is the worm that will not die mentioned in Mark 9:48?” This article argues for everlasting torment; that conclusion is its interpretation.
https://www.compellingtruth.org/worm-will-not-die.html
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Everlasting conscious punishment: The traditional evangelical reading appeals especially to Matthew 25:46, Mark 9:43–48, and Revelation 14:9–11; 20:10–15. It interprets destruction as ruin rather than cessation. The strongest case considers all these passages together, not the undying-worm phrase alone. [S04, chapter XXXIII]
B. Conditional immortality: Some Bible-affirming evangelicals argue that immortality is granted in Christ and that final punishment culminates in irreversible death. They take “perish,” “destroy,” and “second death” seriously while interpreting the fire imagery differently. This is a minority evangelical position, not automatic universal salvation. [S06]
C. Eastern Orthodox emphasis: Hopko describes God's unveiled presence as joy for those who love him and torment for those who reject him. This emphasizes the person's response to divine love rather than a picture of God delighting in torture. It does not erase judgment or establish that everyone is saved. [S02]
Scripture: Matthew 10:28; 25:46; Mark 9:43–48; Isaiah 66:24; Revelation 20:10–15.
Assessment: Final judgment is common ground. The nature and duration of conscious suffering are disputed; the positions are not interchangeable.
One Orthodox explanation, presented by Thomas Hopko, understands the same divine presence as joy to those who love God and anguish to those who reject him. It is a substantive interpretation within Orthodoxy, not a complete description of every Orthodox theologian’s account. Conditionalism and eternal conscious punishment also disagree over the fate of the lost, not whether divine judgment matters. [S02; S06]
9. What makes our response to Christ so consequential?
I believe receiving Christ’s forgiveness and salvation is the most consequential response a person can make, affecting both this life and eternity.
What does Scripture teach about the finality of death and judgment? How do we communicate that seriousness faithfully, without manipulating people through fear or pretending we know every person’s standing before God?
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Christ is the saving ground: Historic Christians identify Jesus' death and resurrection, not moral achievement, as the basis of reconciliation. Evangelicals emphasize receiving this gift through faith; mere intellectual assent or saying a formula is not a substitute for trusting Christ. [S25; S50, Q60–64]
B. A life of grace: Eastern Orthodox teaching describes salvation as an ongoing participation in Christ's life, with repentance, faith, sacramental life, and grace-enabled obedience. It does not mean manufacturing salvation without God; it differs from a purely one-time-decision description. [S03]
C. Judgment gives urgency: Hebrews 9:27 places death and judgment together, and Jesus calls for a response now. Most evangelicals reject a promised postmortem second chance. Orthodox prayers for the departed should not be collapsed into that evangelical framework or represented as guaranteed eventual salvation. [S68]
Scripture: John 3:16–18; Romans 3:21–26; Ephesians 2:8–10; Hebrews 9:27.
Assessment: The importance of Christ is shared; traditions differ on perseverance and how salvation unfolds.
10. Why did God create a world containing so much suffering?
God knew the whole story before creating the world. So why begin a history containing starving children, sexual violence, cancer, genocide, persecution, betrayal, and ordinary families devastated by sudden death?
I think about fathers dying before meeting their grandchildren, people killed in senseless accidents, and someone asleep in his own home when a sinkhole opens beneath him.
I understand that Christians speak of redemption, freedom, and God bringing good from evil. But how does that address the particular person enduring something unbearable? In what sense can creation be worth this much suffering?
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Freedom and a disordered world: Christian defenses connect moral evil with creaturely rebellion and natural suffering with creation's present disorder. This helps explain categories of evil, but it does not tell us why God permits each individual atrocity. [S05; Romans 8:19–23]
B. Redemption and formation: Boa's ministry emphasizes that God can form character and eternal hope through suffering. That does not make the harm itself good, promise visible compensation, or justify demanding that a grieving person immediately identify a benefit. [S09]
C. The cross and resurrection: Christianity's answer is also God's entering suffering and overcoming death. Orthodox teaching particularly stresses sharing in Christ's victory. This supplies grounds for hope without offering a complete cost-benefit explanation of every child's suffering. [S49]
Scripture: Job; John 11:32–36; Romans 8:18–39; Revelation 21:4.
Assessment: These are complementary responses. A full explanation of why this entire history was permitted remains beyond us.
The cross tells us that God has entered suffering and that evil will not have the final word; it does not disclose why this particular child, family, or victim suffered. Character can grow amid hardship, but the sufferer is not obligated to call abuse or violence good.
11. Does freedom adequately explain the cost of evil?
C. S. Lewis argues that freedom makes evil possible but also makes meaningful love and goodness possible. I understand the appeal of that explanation.
But how far does it take us? Does it explain natural disasters and disease as well as human cruelty? And if we will be free in eternity without sinning, what does that tell us about freedom now?
Credit: C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book II, chapter 3, “The Shocking Alternative.” A reproduction by the C. S. Lewis Institute cites the Simon & Schuster 1996 edition, pages 52–53.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. It addresses a particular problem: The free-will defense argues that genuine moral agency can explain why a good God permits some wrongdoing. It need not prove that every actual horror was necessary. Treating it as a complete explanation overstates its achievement. [S05]
B. It needs more for natural suffering: Cancer and earthquakes are not simply individual choices. Christian accounts add the Fall, creation's order, and God's redemptive purposes. Boa's discussion of Job cautions against reducing all suffering to the sufferer's own misconduct. [S10]
C. Heaven challenges simplistic versions: Historic Christianity expects sinless life without treating redeemed persons as worthless robots. A healed will can freely love goodness. Westminster describes the glorified will as free for good; this shows that freedom need not always include the ability to sin. [S04, IX.5]
Scripture: Genesis 3; Romans 8:19–23; Hebrews 12:22–24; Revelation 21:27.
Assessment: Freedom is an important partial answer, not an all-purpose explanation. Lewis's memorable argument should not be made to do more than it can.
A free-will defense is intended to show how God and some moral evil might coexist; it is not a complete explanation for every evil or the scale of suffering. The question of glorified people who remain free yet do not sin presents a serious challenge that different definitions of freedom address differently.
12. How do I avoid judging God’s love by my circumstances?
I have heard teachers say that we should not measure God’s love by how well our lives are going. I believe that matters. But when circumstances are painful for years, what should I look at instead?
How do I trust God’s character without pretending that suffering feels good, or calling an evil event itself a good gift?
Credits: Andy Stanley’s teaching, including “When Life Happens,” and In Touch Ministries, “Discerning God’s Goodness,” July 24, 2023. These are related teachings, not a claim that either source originated the idea.
https://yourmove.is/videos/under-the-circumstances-part-1-when-life-happens
https://www.intouchuk.org/read/daily-devotions/discerning-god-s-goodness
Related Scripture: Psalm 34:8.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Start with Christ: Romans 5:8 grounds God's love in Christ's death for sinners. Romans 8 places that love alongside persecution and death, not immunity from them. The question is whether God's decisive self-revelation can be trusted when present experience is confusing.
B. Read comfort without turning it into prosperity: In Touch's devotional argues that God's goodness is not confined to pleasant gifts. Its point should not be expanded into the claim that every evil action is itself a benevolent gift or that faithful people always recover earthly losses. [S48]
C. Make room for lament: Biblical faith includes asking why, grieving, and protesting to God. Trust is compatible with honest sorrow. Worship and community can help carry someone whose feelings have not caught up with what they believe. [S08]
Scripture: Psalm 13; Psalm 22; Romans 5:8; 8:31–39.
Assessment: Judge circumstances in light of God's character, while describing the circumstances truthfully.
13. Why doesn’t God visibly protect believers more often?
It would be a striking demonstration of God’s care if believers were protected from cancer, car wrecks, violence, or crushing financial hardship. Clearly, that is not the pattern we can count on.
Jesus suffered and was crucified. Paul suffered. The apostles faced persecution.
I have heard that suffering gives Christians an opportunity to demonstrate trust in God. I can understand that explanation and still admit that I would prefer protection from the ordeal. I do not get to choose, of course—but I do not have to pretend the preference is not there.
Credit: A teaching I remember hearing from Steve Brown about how Christians respond to suffering. The particular broadcast or publication has not been identified.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. The promise is not immunity: Jesus prepares disciples for trouble and persecution. Hebrews 11 includes both miraculous deliverance and faithful people who suffer and die. Different outcomes do not establish different degrees of divine love. [S12]
B. Witness and growth can occur through suffering: Christian endurance may display grace and help others. Boa's published material gives examples of meaning found amid disability. Such examples demonstrate possibility; they do not reveal the purpose of every tragedy. [S09]
C. Salvation reaches beyond present survival: Eastern Orthodox teaching treats sickness and death as enemies Christ enters and defeats, rather than evidence that believers are outside his care. Christians can seek healing and practical protection while locating final deliverance in resurrection. [S08; S49]
Scripture: John 16:33; Acts 12:1–11; Hebrews 11:32–40; 1 Peter 4:12–16.
Assessment: A faith that guarantees protection from accidents would contradict the New Testament's own examples.
14. What kind of protection did Jesus ask the Father to give his disciples?
In John 17:11, Jesus asks the Father to keep or protect his disciples. Yet they subsequently faced persecution and death.
What protection was Jesus asking for—physical safety, preservation of faith, unity, protection from the evil one, or something else? How should that shape what I expect when I pray for someone’s protection?
Related Scripture: John 17:11–19.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Preservation in faith and unity: John 17:11–12 connects keeping the disciples with their unity and belonging to the Father. The prayer's immediate concern is deeper than preventing every injury.
B. Protection from evil within mission: Jesus explicitly does not ask that they be removed from the world, but that they be kept from evil or the evil one. Their continuing mission can include danger without the prayer having failed. [S12]
C. Faithfulness through death: Paul can expect execution while trusting God to bring him safely into the heavenly kingdom. Protection can mean that evil does not finally separate the believer from Christ, even when it destroys bodily life.
Scripture: John 17:11–19; Romans 8:35–39; 2 Timothy 4:6–8, 18.
Assessment: The passage itself rules out equating protection with uninterrupted physical safety. The traditions about each apostle's death require separate historical checking.
15. If my hope is only for this life, am I expecting something this world cannot deliver?
Even a good life includes loss and eventually ends in death. What does Christian hope offer beyond better circumstances here?
How do I hope in eternity while still loving people, enjoying life, and taking responsibility for the world in front of me?
Related Scripture: 1 Corinthians 15:19.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Resurrection is essential: In 1 Corinthians 15:19, Paul's point is not merely that earthly pleasures disappoint; it is that Christianity collapses if Christ is not raised. Its hope includes the defeat of death, not only coping better before dying.
B. Eternal hope strengthens present faithfulness: Boa argues that an eternal perspective changes how we bear temporary hardship. This is not a guarantee that grief becomes easy or that every earthly ambition will succeed. [S10]
C. Creation still matters: Eastern Orthodox teaching expects the renewal of this created order. Hope beyond death therefore supports bodily care, justice, relationships, and meaningful work rather than treating earthly life as disposable. [S28]
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 15:12–28, 58; Romans 8:18–25.
Assessment: Christian hope exceeds this life without making this life worthless.
16. Why does God seem hidden?
Why doesn’t God make his presence clearer and more consistently recognizable? Why does he place such importance on faith rather than giving everyone unmistakable evidence?
I know encounters with God in Scripture could be overwhelming. Still, could he not reveal himself more clearly without destroying us or removing our ability to respond freely?
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Christians claim revelation, not total absence: Creation, conscience, Israel's history, Scripture, and especially Jesus are understood as genuine disclosures of God. The issue is why this disclosure is not more immediate and unmistakable to every person. [S56]
B. Relationship involves more than recognition: Craig distinguishes acknowledging God's existence from trusting and loving him. Greater visibility might produce recognition without repentance. His further claim that God gives sufficient evidence to those who would respond is a Molinist proposal, not something we can independently verify person by person. [S33]
C. Hiddenness can be a lived trial: Job and the lament psalms allow faithful people to experience God's absence. Continued seeking, prayer, and patient inquiry are appropriate. It is unwarranted to infer that every struggling seeker is dishonest or secretly unwilling.
Scripture: Psalm 19; Psalm 88; Isaiah 45:15; John 1:18; Hebrews 1:1–3.
Assessment: There are credible Christian responses, but none licenses diagnosing a particular person's motives from their doubt.
Evidence of God’s existence is not identical to a relationship of trust. Still, that distinction does not prove that clearer evidence would destroy freedom or explain why a sincere seeker experiences silence. Scripture’s stories of lament give that experience room.
17. Would clearer evidence of God actually prevent a loving relationship?
I have heard the argument that God invites rather than overwhelms us because he wants freely given love. But would knowing with certainty that God exists necessarily force someone to love him?
How much does that explanation account for divine hiddenness?
Credits: Frank Turek’s conversation with Jon Steingard, “How is it my fault if I can’t feel God?” The longer transcription in my original notes has not been verified word for word.
https://videos.crossmap.com/video/112951090305997-2/
Related literary source: C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, Letter VIII. The discussion of God’s wooing occurs in fictional dialogue spoken by Screwtape.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Not necessarily: Craig explicitly concedes that making God's existence obvious would not by itself remove free will. Scripture depicts people and spiritual beings resisting God despite considerable knowledge. Your objection therefore exposes a weakness in a simplistic “more evidence would destroy freedom” argument. [S33]
B. Evidence and saving faith differ: A demonstration might settle whether God exists without settling whether someone loves him. This distinction explains why proof alone is not identical to conversion. It still leaves open why God would not provide more helpful evidence. [James 2:19; John 12:37]
C. Coercive glory is a different proposal: Some writers distinguish ordinary clearer evidence from an overwhelming vision of divine beauty. The latter may change the conditions of choosing. That remains a philosophical explanation rather than a reason Scripture expressly gives for every instance of hiddenness. [S05]
Scripture: Exodus 32; Luke 16:27–31; John 20:24–31; James 2:19.
Assessment: Clearer revelation and freely given love are not inherently incompatible.
18. How much should I pray, and about what?
Watching the news gives me enough things to pray about to occupy the rest of my life. How do I balance prayer for my family and the people I know with prayer for suffering people around the world?
What does praying “without ceasing” look like for someone who also has to work, sleep, and live? How do I pray faithfully without treating every unmentioned need as a failure?
Related Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:17.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Regular and recurring: Boa recommends a consistent time and place for prayer while cultivating prayer throughout the day. This is a habit of relationship, not a requirement to spend every waking minute naming every global problem. [S17]
B. Broad concern, finite responsibility: The Lord's Prayer includes God's kingdom, daily needs, forgiveness, and deliverance. Paul includes rulers and all people. Pray both for those entrusted to you and wider needs, accepting that you are a finite person rather than the world's indispensable intercessor.
C. Orthodox practice: Hopko describes set prayers together with ongoing remembrance of God; the Jesus Prayer is another established practice. Attention and humility matter more than perfect performance. A sustainable rule of prayer is preferable to a crushing, impossible quota. [S18]
Scripture: Matthew 6:5–13; 1 Timothy 2:1–2; 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18.
Assessment: No biblical minimum number of minutes or exhaustive prayer list is prescribed for every believer.
19. Why ask God not to lead us into temptation if God does not tempt anyone?
James 1:13 says God does not tempt people to evil. Yet Jesus teaches us to pray that we will not be led into temptation.
How do temptation, testing, and trials relate to one another? What exactly are we asking God to do in the Lord’s Prayer?
Related Scripture: James 1:13; Matthew 6:13.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Testing and enticement differ: The relevant language can concern a trial or temptation. God may permit a proving situation without enticing someone to wrongdoing. James locates sinful enticement in disordered desire, not God's evil intention. [S58]
B. It is a request for protection: We ask God to spare us circumstances in which we would fall and to rescue us when temptation comes. Asking for such care does not imply that God normally tries to make us sin. [S58]
C. It confesses dependence: Jesus tells disciples to watch and pray because they are weak. The petition rejects self-confidence and asks for deliverance from evil or the evil one. It belongs beside practical avoidance of temptation, not instead of it.
Scripture: Matthew 6:13; 26:41; James 1:2–4, 13–15; 1 Corinthians 10:13.
Assessment: The passages concern different relations to a trial, so there is no necessary contradiction.
The Greek word can describe a trial or temptation, depending on context. That helps explain how God can test while never enticing anyone to do evil. Christians still discuss the exact force of the Lord’s Prayer’s petition; the word study alone does not answer every question.
20. Which biblical promises can I personally claim?
When Psalm 121 says the Lord will keep us from evil and watch over our lives, what does that promise mean for someone who later becomes sick, suffers violence, or dies?
Was the promise addressed to Israel, to particular worshipers, or also to believers today? How do we receive its comfort without turning it into a guarantee the passage was never intended to give?
Related Scripture: Psalm 121. The psalm’s heading does not identify David as its author.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Identify the original promise: Ask who is addressed, under which covenant, in what literary setting, and whether a condition is attached. A promise to a particular king or nation cannot automatically become an unconditional promise about my finances or health. [S11]
B. Read Psalm 121 with the whole Bible: Its language celebrates God's comprehensive keeping. The same canon depicts faithful sufferers. Christian interpreters therefore read ultimate preservation and God's vigilant care without turning every poetic image into immunity from physical harm. [S12]
C. Receive the promise through Christ: Believers may draw comfort from God's character and covenant faithfulness while respecting how a promise reaches them. Paul nearing execution offers a particularly useful model of confidence in final preservation rather than guaranteed survival. [2 Timothy 4:18]
Scripture: Psalm 121; Romans 8:35–39; Hebrews 11:35–40.
Assessment: You can trust the Keeper without claiming the psalm guarantees that nothing painful will happen.
Psalm 121 offers real comfort about God’s watchful care. Its poetry should be heard on its own terms and read alongside passages where faithful people suffer; neither a promise of physical immunity nor a claim that the psalm means only life after death exhausts the interpretive question.
21. How do we apply the Old Testament without picking and choosing?
Why do Christians claim Old Testament promises while not observing its dietary restrictions or enforcing its civil penalties?
I know the new covenant matters. But how do we explain the difference carefully rather than using “that was the Old Testament” whenever a passage becomes inconvenient?
How does Peter’s vision of the animals fit into this discussion?
Related Scripture: Acts 10–11; the old and new covenants.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Traditional Reformed distinction: Moral, ceremonial, and civil categories distinguish enduring moral obligations from Israel's worship regulations and national legal order. Ceremonial laws find fulfillment in Christ; civil laws provide principles without automatically governing the church as a nation. [S04, chapter XIX]
B. Covenant-fulfillment approach: Wellum emphasizes reading all commands through their covenant setting and fulfillment in Christ. Christians are governed by Christ's new-covenant instruction, not placed directly under the Sinai covenant. This differs in method from simply extracting a timeless moral-law category. [S11]
C. Canonical consistency: Acts 10 concerns Gentile inclusion as well as food imagery; Acts 15 addresses Gentile obligations more directly. Reading those passages with Mark 7, Hebrews, and apostolic ethical teaching supplies principled reasons for differences rather than selecting commands by preference.
Scripture: Matthew 5:17–20; Mark 7:18–23; Acts 10–11, 15; Hebrews 8–10.
Assessment: Faithful Christians differ over the exact framework, but covenant context and Christ's fulfillment are essential.
A common Reformed framework distinguishes moral, ceremonial, and civil law; other evangelicals emphasize the Mosaic covenant as a whole fulfilled in Christ and ask how its commands are carried forward under the new covenant. These are frameworks for reading Scripture, not labels the biblical text always assigns to each command.
22. Why were some biblical marriages tolerated when they seem contrary to God’s design?
Abraham says Sarah was his half sister. Jacob had multiple wives and concubines. David had numerous wives, and Solomon had far more.
Were these arrangements permitted, tolerated, condemned, or simply reported? How do we distinguish God choosing to work through someone from God approving that person’s conduct?
Related Scripture: Genesis 20:10–13; Deuteronomy 17:17; 2 Samuel 5:13; 1 Kings 11:1–13.
Sources: Christopher R. Smith, “Is it a sin for a man to be married to more than one woman?” July 13, 2016, and “What does allowing polygamy say about the character of God?” September 29, 2020.
https://goodquestionblog.com/2016/07/13/is-it-a-sin-for-a-man-to-be-married-to-more-than-one-woman/
https://goodquestionblog.com/2020/09/29/what-does-allowing-polygamy-say-about-the-character-of-god/
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Description is not endorsement: Genesis and Samuel report conduct by chosen people without approving every act. The original one-flesh pattern and the troubles generated by rivalry help readers evaluate the stories. Election to a role is not a declaration of moral perfection. [S42]
B. Progressive covenant history: Abraham and Sarah lived before the Mosaic prohibition of half-sibling unions. This explains the historical difference in explicit commands; it does not establish that all pre-Mosaic practices were ideal. Genetic explanations sometimes proposed for the change are not supplied by the text. [S66]
C. Polygamy is confronted within the Old Testament too: Deuteronomy warns kings against multiplying wives. David and Solomon cannot simply be treated as exceptions exempt from God's standards. The New Testament recalls creation's marriage pattern. [S41]
Scripture: Genesis 2:24; 20:12; Leviticus 18:9, 11; Deuteronomy 17:17; Matthew 19:4–8.
Assessment: Cultural tolerance, divine accommodation, and moral approval must be distinguished.
23. How could David be a man after God’s own heart while committing such serious sins?
What does that description affirm about David? How does it fit with his adultery, his responsibility for Uriah’s death, and his family life?
Does it concern his repentance, his attitude toward God and kingship, or something else? How do we avoid treating the phrase as approval of everything he did?
Source: Christopher R. Smith, “Was it a sin for David to have many wives?” February 13, 2021.
https://goodquestionblog.com/2021/02/13/was-it-a-sin-for-david-to-have-many-wives/
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. The phrase is not blanket approval: Scripture directly condemns David's treatment of Bathsheba and Uriah. An earlier commendation cannot cancel the narrator's later moral judgment. [S41]
B. Kingship and responsiveness: Smith relates the description to David's relation to God's rule and his willingness to repent when confronted, in contrast to Saul. This is an interpretive explanation, not a claim that every action David took pleased God. [S41]
C. Grace works through flawed people: David's repentance matters, but forgiveness does not make the damage disappear. His story combines genuine faith, grave wrongdoing, judgment, mercy, and enduring consequences. It should produce humility rather than excuses for powerful leaders.
Scripture: 1 Samuel 13:14; 2 Samuel 11:27; 12:1–14; Psalm 51; Acts 13:22.
Assessment: Being chosen and forgiven is compatible with serious failure; neither authorizes protecting an offender from accountability.
24. When does resisting oppression become disobedience to God?
Christians are instructed to endure unjust treatment and respect authority. How does that fit with resisting tyranny or participating in a revolution?
Were Christians who supported the American Revolution acting wrongly, or are there biblical grounds for that resistance? How do we distinguish instructions to servants suffering under unjust masters from instructions governing citizens and rulers?
Related Scripture: 1 Peter 2:18.
Credit: This question was prompted by someone else; my notes do not identify the source.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Submission and nonviolence: One longstanding Christian response emphasizes Romans 13, Jesus' enemy-love commands, and suffering without retaliation. It sets a high threshold for resistance and, in pacifist traditions, rejects lethal resistance altogether.
B. Limited just resistance: Other Christians distinguish private vengeance from authorized protection of the innocent and resistance to a ruler violating the purpose of government. Thomas Kidd discusses how any such case requires stringent moral limits and a strong preference for peaceful remedies. [S19]
C. Disobedience without revolution: Acts 5:29 requires refusing commands that contradict God. That does not automatically authorize an armed uprising. Christians can agree about refusing evil while disagreeing about whether the American Revolution met a defensible standard for war. [S19]
Scripture: Matthew 5:38–48; Romans 12:17–13:7; Acts 5:29; 1 Peter 2:13–23.
Assessment: First Peter 2:18 addresses household servants; it should not alone decide the ethics of every political revolution. America's later success does not prove every founding action was righteous.
25. How old are the earth and the universe, and how should Genesis be read?
Does Genesis describe six ordinary days of creation followed by a seventh day of rest? Longer periods? A literary arrangement conveying theological truths? How do we decide?
Is the earth thousands of years old or billions? What does the biblical text establish, and what conclusions depend on how we interpret it?
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Calendar-day creation: Young-earth creationists understand the numbered days, evenings and mornings, and the Exodus Sabbath pattern as an ordinary creation week. With a relatively continuous genealogical chronology, they infer a recent creation. The precise age is calculated, not a number directly stated in Genesis. [S21]
B. Old-earth creation: Reasons to Believe understands the days as long periods and accepts an ancient universe while affirming intentional divine creation. Its argument draws on the range of the Hebrew word for day and other creation passages. Young-earth interpreters dispute that reading of Genesis 1. [S20]
C. Literary or analogical readings: Other Bible-affirming Christians understand the week as a structured account of God's ordering work or divine workdays analogous to ours. They distinguish what Genesis teaches about God and creation from a modern scientific timetable. These readings do not all entail the same position on biological evolution. [S20]
Scripture: Genesis 1:1–2:3; Exodus 20:8–11; Psalm 104; Hebrews 4:1–11.
Assessment: The age question is not settled simply by affirming biblical authority. Interpretive arguments and scientific claims should be evaluated separately; neither side should be dismissed merely by labeling it unfaithful.
Creation positions are not all the same: some read the days as ordinary days, others as long periods, and others see a literary framework. These models may be held alongside different scientific conclusions. A literary structure alone does not prove that a passage lacks historical claims.
26. Was there a world before Adam?
What, if anything, existed on earth before Adam? When were angels created, and when did Satan’s rebellion occur?
Does Genesis allow for an earlier world or civilization, or are those ideas being read into gaps the text does not explain?
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. An earth before human life: All major creation readings place some creative work before Adam. Old-earth interpretations allow immense prehuman history; young-earth interpretations place that history within the creation week. Neither conclusion establishes pre-Adamic human civilizations or buildings. [S20]
B. The gap or ruin-restoration theory: Some Christians propose an earlier world, its destruction, and a restoration between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. Answers in Genesis rejects this because the alleged catastrophe is not narrated there and because it conflicts with that ministry's reading of death and the Fall. [S21]
C. Angels and limits: Job 38:4–7 associates heavenly beings with rejoicing at earth's foundations; Genesis 3 presents an already hostile tempter. These passages constrain the discussion but do not date angelic creation or narrate a complete pre-Adamic history. [S16]
Scripture: Genesis 1–3; Job 38:4–7; Colossians 1:16.
Assessment: “Formless and empty” can describe an earth not yet ordered and filled. It need not mean no earth existed. Neither deep waters nor that phrase proves an earlier inhabited world or surviving ancient structures.
A pre-human earth, a proposed interval between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, and a pre-Adamic civilization are separate claims. Accepting an old earth does not by itself establish a prior civilization. The ruin-and-restoration gap model requires arguments beyond merely noting the watery deep.
27. How do dinosaurs, animal death, and eating meat fit into the story?
Where do dinosaurs belong in the biblical timeline? Was there animal death before humanity’s fall? Does Scripture distinguish human death from animal death in this discussion?
When did people begin eating animals, and when did God explicitly permit it?
Related Scripture: Genesis 1–3; Genesis 9:1–4.
Source: J. Warner Wallace, “Do Dinosaurs Disprove the Bible?” May 14, 2012. This article presents an interpretation allowing animal death before the Fall.
https://coldcasechristianity.com/2012/do-dinosaurs-disprove-the-bible/
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Young-earth model: Dinosaurs were created within the ordinary creation week; representatives of relevant land-animal kinds survived on the ark. Animal predation and death are normally placed after the Fall in this model. This is an interpretive creation model, not an explicit biblical dinosaur timeline. [S27]
B. Old-earth model: Dinosaurs lived long before humans, with animal death preceding human sin. Proponents distinguish the death that comes to humanity through Adam from all biological mortality. The central disagreement is what “very good” and the Fall imply for nonhuman life. [S20; Romans 5:12]
C. The food texts: Genesis 1:29–30 describes plants given for food. Genesis 9:3 explicitly authorizes meat for Noah and his descendants. That establishes a stated permission; it does not narrate every person's actual pre-Flood diet or explain every development of predation.
Scripture: Genesis 1:20–30; 3:17–19; 9:1–4; Romans 5:12–21; 8:19–23.
Assessment: The Bible does not identify modern dinosaur categories. Job's behemoth and leviathan should not be called dinosaurs without making the interpretive argument.
28. Why did God clothe Adam and Eve with animal skins?
Genesis says God made garments of skin for them. Why skins rather than something that would not involve an animal’s death?
Is this meant to anticipate sacrifice and atonement, or does that interpretation go beyond what the passage explicitly says?
My original notes described this as the first death in Scripture. Is that something the text establishes, or an inference made from the account?
Related Scripture: Genesis 3:21.
Source of the “first fatality” statement: In Touch Ministries, “The Precious Blood of Jesus,” March 5, 2025. An earlier version of the devotional circulated in 2016.
https://www.intouch.org/read/daily-devotions/the-precious-blood-of-jesus
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Provision amid judgment: The clearest narrative point is that God clothes ashamed people whom he is judging. Their own covering does not end the story; he provides durable clothing as they leave the garden. [Genesis 3:7, 21]
B. A possible anticipation of sacrifice: Many Christians see an animal's death and God's provision as an early picture of costly covering, developed more fully in later sacrifice and Christ's work. That is a canonical or typological reading, not something Genesis 3:21 explicitly explains. [S49]
C. Respect the silence: The verse does not narrate the killing, call it an offering, identify the animal, or say this was the first biological death. God could have provided clothing another way; Scripture does not give an exhaustive reason for choosing skins. The earlier “first fatality” statement should remain an attributed inference.
Scripture: Genesis 3:7, 21; Hebrews 9:11–14; 10:1–14.
Assessment: God's merciful provision is explicit. A first-sacrifice interpretation is plausible to many evangelicals, but should not be presented as equally explicit.
Genesis calls the garments skins; many readers infer an animal died, and some see a foreshadowing of sacrifice. The text does not explicitly call it the first death or explain the garments as an atoning sacrifice.
29. Why put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden?
God knew what Adam and Eve would do. Why give them this particular command and opportunity to disobey?
Was the central issue the knowledge itself, distrust of God, the attempt to decide good and evil independently of him, or some combination of these?
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Trust and creaturely limits: The prohibition gives a concrete expression to the difference between receiving life from God and rejecting his authority. The NET notes explain the command as instruction in moral discernment that humanity attempted to seize on its own terms. [S65]
B. A meaningful choice: Free-will accounts understand the command as an opportunity for willing obedience rather than programmed conformity. This explains why a genuine possibility of disobedience could matter, but does not prove that this exact test was the only possible arrangement. [S25]
C. A permitted Fall within redemption: Reformed Christians place the Fall within God's providential plan while denying that God is the author of sin. This emphasizes his final redemptive purpose, but does not identify every reason for the particular tree or command. [S04, chapters III and VI]
Scripture: Genesis 2:15–17; 3:1–7; Romans 5:12–21.
Assessment: Scripture explains the command and the rebellion more clearly than why God chose this precise test despite knowing the outcome.
30. Was knowledge the problem, or the way they sought it?
Joel raised the question of whether knowledge itself is evil or whether the problem is using knowledge in evil ways. If Adam and Eve had not eaten, would they simply have remained ignorant and happy?
Surely knowledge itself is not the enemy. Was their sin seeking something God had forbidden, refusing to trust him, or reaching for a kind of moral independence?
There are things we learn that we cannot unlearn. But is the tree about that kind of lost innocence, or am I importing an analogy that does not fit?
Credit: Joel, personal conversation.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Knowledge is not intrinsically evil: Proverbs urges the pursuit of wisdom, and Adam already understood enough to receive a command and be responsible. The garden account does not portray ignorance itself as God's ideal for human life.
B. Grasping at God's prerogative: One influential reading understands the act as seeking moral wisdom or godlike status independently of God's instruction. The fruit was taken through distrust and disobedience. The NET discussion supports a wisdom-and-authority reading while acknowledging interpretive debate. [S65]
C. Experiencing evil is different from knowing about it: Their ensuing shame and alienation show a changed experience. A person can understand that betrayal is wrong without needing to become a betrayer. This is a helpful theological analogy, not a complete lexical definition of the tree's name.
Scripture: Genesis 2:16–17; 3:4–7, 22; Proverbs 2:1–6; James 3:13–18.
Assessment: Joel's distinction is valuable: the account condemns disobedience and distorted wisdom-seeking, not learning as such. Your original idea that sin is only whatever causes visible harm was too narrow; distrust and disobedience toward God matter too.
31. What if Eve had eaten but Adam had not?
Would the Fall have unfolded differently? What does Scripture’s emphasis on Adam’s role help us understand?
I recognize that this is a hypothetical question the Bible may not answer.
Reading that prompted the question: Douglas Hamp, Corrupting the Image: Angels, Aliens, and the Antichrist Revealed (Defender Publishing, 2011). This identifies my reading context, not a claim that Hamp asks or answers this particular question.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. The actual revelation concerns Adam: Paul explicitly relates humanity's condemnation and death to Adam and contrasts him with Christ. Reformed theology explains this through Adam's representative role. This shows why Adam matters; it does not reveal the outcome of a different history. [S04, VI]
B. Eve's responsibility would still be real: Her act was not morally meaningless before Adam joined her. The narrative portrays her as deceived and transgressing. Whether that would have affected descendants in an alternative scenario is not stated.
C. There is no revealed alternate ending: Suggestions that God would replace Eve, redeem her immediately, or create two differently affected family lines are imaginative possibilities rather than three established Christian answers. A faithful answer can stop at that limit.
Scripture: Genesis 3:1–19; Romans 5:12–19; 1 Corinthians 15:21–22; 1 Timothy 2:13–14.
Assessment: Uncertain. Scripture gives theological meaning to what happened, not an exhaustive account of what would have happened otherwise.
Paul gives Adam a central representative role in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15. How that would apply if Eve had sinned alone is not spelled out; federal headship is an influential theological framework rather than an answer to the alternate history.
32. Why was the tree of life there, and what if they had eaten from it first?
Had Adam and Eve already been eating from it before they sinned? Would eating from it have granted permanent immortality, or was continued access involved?
Why did God guard the way to it after the Fall? What does the prospect of living forever in a fallen condition mean?
Related Scripture: Genesis 2:9, 16–17; Genesis 3:22–24.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Continuing dependence: One reading understands the tree as God's means of sustaining human life, with continued access rather than a one-time irreversible change. Since only the other tree was initially forbidden, Adam and Eve may have eaten from it. Genesis does not explicitly say. [S57]
B. Life not yet permanently secured: Another reading treats the guarded tree as an opportunity they had not yet taken, which would confer enduring life. Its advocates reason from the warning in Genesis 3:22. The narrative does not settle how eating it would have operated. [S57]
C. Exclusion and restoration: Whatever the mechanism, access is barred after sin and restored in the final vision. God does not leave fallen humanity's condition as the last word. The contrast between Genesis and Revelation is more secure than either hypothetical about eating first.
Scripture: Genesis 2:9, 16–17; 3:22–24; Revelation 2:7; 22:1–2, 14.
Assessment: The tree's relation to life is explicit; one bite versus continuing access is disputed. Eating it first should not be treated as a proven loophole that would have defeated God's purpose.
33. How tall was Adam, and what language did he speak?
Do we have any basis for knowing Adam’s height or the language God used when speaking with him? Which ideas come from Scripture, and which come from later imagination or tradition?
Credits: The language question was heard on Key Life; the particular broadcast has not been identified.
Source: Got Questions, “How tall was Adam?” The article concludes that Scripture does not establish his height.
https://www.gotquestions.org/how-tall-was-Adam.html
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Height: Scripture supplies no measurement. Theories that Adam was enormous infer too much from long lifespans, giant animals, or later unusually tall people. They cannot establish his height. [S44]
B. Language: Genesis portrays meaningful communication between God and humans, but does not name the language of their first conversations. A Hebrew narrative does not prove its characters originally spoke Hebrew, just as an English translation does not establish English speech.
C. Traditions are not measurements: Later religious traditions make claims about Adam's stature or primordial language. These can be studied historically, but should not be promoted to biblical answers without evidence. No three defensible measurements or language identifications can be ranked from Scripture.
Scripture: Genesis 2:16–20; 3:8–13; 11:1–9.
Assessment: Unknown. The narrative's clear concern is relationship, responsibility, and human vocation, not Adam's dimensions or a recoverable first-language dictionary.
34. Who were the sons of God and the Nephilim in Genesis 6?
Does “sons of God” refer to heavenly beings, human rulers, descendants of Seth, or something else?
If heavenly beings are involved, how should we understand their relationships with human women and the resulting offspring? What relationship, if any, connects these beings with Satan’s rebellion?
Related Scripture: Genesis 6:1–4.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Heavenly beings: This reading connects “sons of God” with Job's heavenly court and reads Jude 6–7 and 2 Peter 2 alongside Genesis. William Cook favors it, while acknowledging problems about how such unions occurred. Ancient support does not settle the biology. [S15]
B. Sethite interpretation: The sons are members of the covenant-associated line of Seth marrying indiscriminately beyond it. This emphasizes the genealogical context and humanity's moral collapse. Its difficulty is explaining the specific expression and the distinction between the groups. Crossway's exposition ultimately favors this reading. [S67]
C. Royal or tyrannical rulers: The sons are rulers claiming divine status and taking women into expanding harems. The emphasis falls on power, illicit appropriation, and violent warrior culture. It is a serious alternative, though the collective phrase and limited political context present difficulties. [S67]
Scripture: Genesis 6:1–4; Job 1:6; 38:7; Jude 6–7; 2 Peter 2:4–5.
Assessment: Real disagreement among conservative Christians. None of the views authorizes treating a modern DNA narrative as an established biblical fact.
In the heavenly-beings interpretation, the ancient term translated “gods” can refer to members of the heavenly assembly without making them equal to the uncreated God. The human-judges interpretation reads the same psalm differently. Neither should be confused with worshiping multiple rival creators.
35. Was the Flood connected to the Nephilim or an attempt to corrupt humanity?
Genesis describes pervasive human wickedness before the Flood. Some writers also propose that supernatural rebellion involved corrupting humanity’s lineage and threatening the line through which Christ would come.
Does Scripture support that additional explanation? Is the language of corrupted DNA warranted, or is it a modern theory placed over an ancient text?
Related Scripture: Genesis 6:1–13.
Source note: The DNA and messianic-line explanation is a theory recorded in my reading notes, not something Genesis explicitly states.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Explicit reason: Genesis repeatedly identifies pervasive wickedness, corrupt conduct, and violence. The moral problem is stated more clearly than any proposed biological problem. Noah's deliverance is associated with grace and righteousness, not an explicit genetic test. [Genesis 6:5–13]
B. Supernatural-rebellion reading: Those who identify heavenly beings in Genesis 6 may understand their transgression as part of the larger pre-Flood corruption. This does not automatically prove that every other family had hybrid DNA or that Jesus could not otherwise be born. [S15]
C. Messianic-line contamination theory: Some writers propose a satanic attempt to frustrate Genesis 3:15 by corrupting humanity's ancestry. Got Questions itself calls this speculation. It should be presented as a proposed motive rather than the revealed primary cause of the Flood. [S26]
Scripture: Genesis 3:15; 6:1–13; 7:1; 2 Peter 2:4–5.
Assessment: The strongest answer begins with violence and wickedness. “Blameless in his generations” should not be converted into a technical statement about Noah's genome without an argument the text does not supply.
36. Why are the Nephilim mentioned after the Flood?
Genesis says they were on earth in those days and also afterward. Later, the spies report seeing Nephilim among the descendants of Anak.
If the Flood destroyed everyone outside the ark, how should those passages fit together? Does “afterward” necessarily mean after the Flood? How much weight should we place on the spies’ report?
If a theory says the Flood’s purpose was to eliminate the Nephilim, does their later mention expose a problem with that theory rather than a failure in God’s action?
Related Scripture: Genesis 6:4; Numbers 13:25–33.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. A later occurrence: On a supernatural reading, some infer another episode of heavenly-human transgression. This makes later Nephilim conceivable within that model, but Scripture does not explicitly narrate the second episode. [S26]
B. Ordinary human continuity or a reused designation: Human-line interpretations can understand later extraordinary warriors without proposing supernatural genetic survival. Others consider whether the name was used of frightening later groups. These are interpretive possibilities, not demonstrated genealogical reconstructions. [S26; S67]
C. Attend to the report and the grammar: Numbers 13 records fearful spies' claims; its comparison with grasshoppers is obviously rhetorical. Genesis 6:4 says “afterward” without explicitly specifying “after the Flood.” Those observations require care before constructing a precise survival theory from both passages.
Scripture: Genesis 6:4; Numbers 13:25–33; Deuteronomy 9:1–3.
Assessment: The texts are real; the mechanism is uncertain. A theory that makes eliminating every Nephilim the Flood's sole purpose may be the problem, rather than a failed act of God.
37. How did Noah’s ark work?
What animals were aboard, and how do biblical “kinds” relate to the species we identify today? How were the animals housed, fed, and cared for?
And why preserve creatures that make life miserable or dangerous—mosquitoes, ticks, venomous snakes, and the like? Were their original roles different, or am I judging their place in creation entirely by their effect on us?
Related Scripture: Genesis 6–9.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Global-Flood logistics: Young-earth researchers distinguish biblical kinds from modern species and propose representatives, often juveniles, with practical feeding and waste-management arrangements. These are feasibility models. Exact passenger totals and reconstructed interior arrangements are not stated in Genesis. [S27]
B. Regional-but-universal Flood: Hugh Ross argues that the Flood destroyed the human world of its time without covering the entire planet. This changes the required animal population. His reading seeks to affirm the biblical event, but global-Flood interpreters strongly dispute his treatment of the universal language. [S64]
C. Preservation, not an ecological inventory: Genesis emphasizes God's keeping of life and covenant. It does not explain why each dangerous species exists or state that every insect was intentionally boarded. Calling a mosquito troublesome to humans is not a complete account of its ecological role.
Scripture: Genesis 6:14–22; 7:1–24; 8:15–22; 9:8–17.
Assessment: Both models include claims beyond the narrative. Do not present a reconstructed ark as archaeological proof of its precise operating system, or assume “two of every species” is the text's wording.
38. What is the divine council?
Who are the heavenly beings depicted around God’s throne? What does Psalm 82 mean when it describes God standing in the divine council and judging among the “gods”?
How should we understand Deuteronomy 32:8–9 and its reference, in some translations, to the “sons of God”? How does this fit with the Bible’s teaching about the one true God?
Related Scripture: Psalm 82; Deuteronomy 32:8–9.
Textual note: The ESV’s “sons of God” in Deuteronomy 32:8 reflects Dead Sea Scroll and Septuagint evidence. The Masoretic Text reads “sons of Israel.”
Credit: Michael S. Heiser, “Divine Council,” in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry & Writings, edited by Tremper Longman III and Peter Enns (IVP Academic / Inter-Varsity Press, 2008), page 112. The quotation and attribution are reproduced on:
https://www.thedivinecouncil.com
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Heavenly council: Heiser understands Psalm 82 and related texts as depicting created heavenly beings under the incomparable God. Calling them elohim does not make them equal creators or rival supreme gods. God's sovereignty, not a democracy of divine peers, governs the council. [S47]
B. Human judges: Another longstanding interpretation reads the “gods” as human authorities judged for injustice, with John 10 part of its argument. It takes the ethical accusations directly as abuses of earthly office. The celestial language and comparison with princes are debated in evaluating it. [Psalm 82; John 10:34–36]
C. Real heavenly hosts, without adopting every reconstruction: Historic Christian teaching affirms created spiritual beings serving God and some rebelling. Eastern Orthodox angelology fits that basic affirmation but should not be described as endorsing all of Heiser's interpretive conclusions. [S16]
Scripture: Psalm 82; 89:5–7; Job 1–2; 1 Kings 22:19–23; Deuteronomy 32:8–9; John 10:34–36.
Assessment: The council imagery does not imply that God lacks knowledge or needs advice to compensate for a deficiency. Heavenly council and human-judge readings require an actual textual comparison.
The seven spirits have been understood as the Holy Spirit in fullness or as seven heavenly beings. Isaiah 11:2 is often connected with a sevenfold description, though the way seven attributes are counted differs between textual traditions. Revelation does not provide a simple explanatory glossary.
39. Why does Scripture describe God sending a harmful or lying spirit?
How should I understand the spirit that volunteers to deceive Ahab’s prophets, or the harmful spirit described as coming from God upon Saul?
Is God commissioning judgment, permitting an evil being to act, withdrawing protection, or doing something else? How does this fit with his truthfulness and goodness?
Related Scripture: 1 Kings 22:19–23; 1 Samuel 16:14; 18:10; 19:9; Judges 9:23.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Judicial permission: The common evangelical explanation is that God permits a wicked spirit to act as an instrument of judgment. The spirit's lying intention remains evil; God's authority over it does not make lying part of his moral character. [S14]
B. Rejection of truth precedes the judgment: Ahab repeatedly rejects correction, and Micaiah actually exposes the deception before the battle. The king is not denied every opportunity to hear the truth. The scene depicts judgment upon persistent refusal, not God randomly tricking an innocent seeker. [S14]
C. Sovereignty with unresolved mechanics: Job and the Saul narratives likewise depict harmful agents subject to divine limits. “From God” expresses ultimate authority, but whether the author emphasizes permission, commission, or affliction needs attention to each passage. Ahab's spirit is not expressly identified by name or rank. [S10; S16]
Scripture: 1 Kings 22:1–38; 1 Samuel 16:14; 18:10; Job 1–2; James 1:13; Titus 1:2.
Assessment: These passages are difficult. They do not authorize diagnosing a person's present illness or distress as a demon sent to punish them.
40. Why did God create Satan, knowing what would follow?
Why create a being who would rebel and bring so much destruction? When did that rebellion occur?
What biblical basis is there for the familiar account that Satan took one-third of the angels with him? Which parts of that account are explicit, and which depend on connecting different passages?
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Created goodness, subsequent rebellion: Historic Christianity understands Satan as a created spiritual being who became evil, not an evil counterpart eternally alongside God. God's creating a good creature must be distinguished from that creature's rebellion. [S16]
B. Freedom and permitted rebellion: Free-response accounts see a real possibility of rebellion within created spiritual agency. Reformed accounts place even that rebellion within providence without making God morally sinful. Both distinguish God's final purpose from Satan's destructive intention. [S25; S04, chapter V]
C. The timing is not fully revealed: Scripture speaks of Satan's fall and the dragon's stars, but does not provide a single continuous account dating every stage. Reading Revelation 12's one-third imagery as the exact proportion lost in an original prehuman rebellion requires interpretive steps.
Scripture: Luke 10:18; John 8:44; Colossians 1:16; 1 Timothy 3:6; Revelation 12:3–9.
Assessment: Why permit that particular creature's existence remains part of the problem of evil. Freedom is a possible framework, not a disclosed account of every divine reason.
41. Why did Michael dispute with the devil over Moses’ body?
Why did Moses’ body matter to either of them? What was the dispute about, and why does Jude mention it without explaining more?
What should we learn from Michael’s refusal to pronounce his own condemnation and his appeal to the Lord’s rebuke?
Related Scripture: Jude 9.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. What Jude emphasizes: Even Michael appeals to the Lord's rebuke rather than relying on presumptuous condemnation. Jude contrasts that restraint with arrogant false teachers. That ethical and theological point is clearer than the dispute's circumstances. [S22]
B. Accusation or custody: Suggestions include Satan accusing Moses because of his sins or contesting what should happen to the body. An idolatry-prevention explanation is also conceivable in light of the unknown grave. None is identified as the reason by Jude. [S22; Deuteronomy 34:6]
C. A known tradition, incompletely preserved: Early Christian testimony associates the story with a Moses tradition often called the Assumption of Moses. Jude can endorse a particular event without canonizing every part of an outside work. We lack the relevant full narrative and should not invent it. [S22]
Scripture: Jude 8–10; Deuteronomy 34:5–6; Zechariah 3:1–2.
Assessment: There are not three revealed explanations. The event is affirmed, while its exact nature and reason remain unknown.
Jude’s emphasis falls on Michael’s restraint and appeal to the Lord. A connection with a Moses tradition is often proposed, but the surviving text commonly called the Assumption of Moses does not preserve the disputed scene; its precise literary source cannot be established from Jude alone.
42. What are the seven spirits of God?
Does Revelation describe the fullness of the Holy Spirit, seven heavenly beings, or something else?
How do the seven spirits relate to the seven torches, the seven stars, and the Lamb’s seven eyes?
Related Scripture: Revelation 1:4; 3:1; 4:5–6; 5:6.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. The one Spirit in fullness: A common evangelical reading sees seven as completeness. The greeting in Revelation 1:4–5 and the Spirit's connection with the Lamb support understanding one Holy Spirit presented through symbolic sevenfold imagery. [S23]
B. Sevenfold gifts or activity: Some connect the expression with Isaiah 11's description of the Spirit's wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, and fear of the Lord, or with Zechariah's lamps and eyes. This complements the first reading rather than requiring seven divine persons. [S23]
C. Heavenly attendants: Another interpretive possibility takes the expression as seven angelic spirits before the throne, comparing Revelation's seven angels. Its difficulty is the placement of the spirits within the greeting and their relationship to the Lamb. The text does not explicitly identify them as angels.
Scripture: Revelation 1:4–5; 3:1; 4:5; 5:6; 8:2; Isaiah 11:2; Zechariah 4.
Assessment: The sevenfold fullness of the Holy Spirit is the strongest common evangelical starting point. These visions should not be used to expand the Trinity into additional divine persons.
43. Does extraterrestrial life exist?
Could God have created life elsewhere in the universe? If intelligent beings exist, what questions would that raise about creation, sin, and redemption?
What does Scripture actually address, and where are we simply curious about something it does not discuss?
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Open possibility: Craig argues that Christianity does not rule out God's creating life elsewhere. Scripture addresses God's relation to humanity without providing a census of all possible biological life. Discovery elsewhere would therefore not automatically refute the faith. [S63]
B. Theological caution: Humanity's role and Christ's incarnation raise questions about hypothetical rational, fallen extraterrestrials. Christians differ over how those possibilities would fit. The silence of Scripture should prevent both certainty that such beings exist and certainty about how they would be redeemed.
C. Distinguish the claims: Microbial life, intelligent civilizations, unidentified aerial observations, and demons are four different subjects. An unidentified observation is not proof of alien visitors, and biblical angels are not established as biological inhabitants of another planet. [S63; S16]
Scripture: Genesis 1; John 1:1–3; Colossians 1:16–20.
Assessment: No biblical answer identifies actual extraterrestrial organisms. Claims about observed life belong to scientific investigation; speculative theological compatibility is not evidence of discovery.
44. Is there a biblical basis for connecting aliens, the Nephilim, and end-times deception?
Some writers suggest that a future deception could involve beings presenting themselves as extraterrestrials, perhaps connected with fallen heavenly beings or the Antichrist.
Is there a defensible biblical argument for that connection, or is it an intriguing speculative story? How do I explore the possibility without treating it as prophecy?
Related reading: Douglas Hamp, Corrupting the Image: Angels, Aliens, and the Antichrist Revealed (Defender Publishing, 2011). Particular claims and page references require checking against the book.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. The secure warning is deception: Jesus and Paul warn about false messiahs, deceptive signs, and allegiance opposed to God. A Christian should test a message by its truth and its relation to Christ, not be persuaded merely by impressive phenomena.
B. A proposed alien scenario remains speculation: An extraterrestrial disguise can be imagined as a vehicle for deception, but the relevant passages do not identify aliens or explain the Antichrist in those terms. A scenario's dramatic plausibility does not make it prophecy.
C. Heiser's explicit correction: Although associated with supernatural readings of Genesis 6, Heiser rejects interpreting Matthew 24's days of Noah as a prediction of returning Nephilim or UFOs. He emphasizes ordinary life continuing in unawareness before sudden judgment. [S36]
Scripture: Matthew 24:23–39; 2 Thessalonians 2:1–12; 1 John 4:1–3.
Assessment: Teach the biblical warning confidently; label the alien framework as conjecture. Supporting a heavenly-beings reading of Genesis 6 does not require accepting this end-times theory.
Heiser explicitly rejected using Matthew 24’s “days of Noah” to predict a return of Nephilim or aliens. He argues that the passage stresses ordinary life and unawareness before judgment. That is a specific exegetical argument, not a claim to have resolved every question about Genesis 6. [S36]
45. What does it mean for God to be outside time?
Does God experience all history as one eternal present? Or is that a philosophical model rather than something Scripture explains directly?
If all moments are present to God, does that mean every event is still happening, or am I confusing his knowledge of an event with the event itself? Are creation, the crucifixion, and every human tragedy eternally occurring—or eternally known?
My mind starts tying itself in knots here.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Classical timelessness: Boa describes God as transcending the succession that limits creatures. God knows the whole of history without waiting for information. His eternal knowledge need not mean that a crucifixion or atrocity is continually being reenacted for the people involved. [S01]
B. Temporal relationship with creation: Craig argues that God is timeless without creation but temporal in relation to the created universe. He regards temporal becoming as real and thinks this best accounts for divine interaction. This is a Christian philosophical alternative to strict timelessness. [S34]
C. Start with the shared affirmations: God is uncreated, everlasting, and not limited by our ignorance or lifespan. Biblical descriptions of his actions in history are meaningful. Those claims do not require us to resolve every dispute about the philosophy of time before trusting him. [S56]
Scripture: Psalm 90:1–4; Isaiah 46:9–10; John 8:58; 2 Peter 3:8.
Assessment: “Everything is happening right now” is an overly simple model. Divine knowledge, the reality of an event, and its ongoing occurrence are different questions.
The claim that God is eternal is central Christian teaching. Whether God experiences no succession whatsoever or is timeless without creation and temporally related to it is a philosophical and theological debate. Knowing an event eternally is not obviously the same thing as that event endlessly happening again. [S01; S34]
46. Why does an all-knowing God sometimes appear to investigate or learn?
Why does God say he will go down to see what is happening in Sodom? Why does he tell Abraham, after the test involving Isaac, that he now knows Abraham fears him?
Is this language describing God’s actions in terms people can understand, something being demonstrated within history, or something else?
Related Scripture: Genesis 18:20–21; Genesis 22:12.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Accommodated language: God communicates his actions in ways creatures can understand. The Sodom investigation portrays deliberate, well-grounded judgment rather than a lack of previous information. David Guzik emphasizes the integrity and thoroughness of that judgment. [S59]
B. Knowledge enacted in relationship: Abraham's test makes his trust actual and manifest within history. “Now I know” can be understood as acknowledging demonstrated fidelity, not correcting a mistaken prediction. Hebrews interprets the event as a real test of faith. [Genesis 22:12; Hebrews 11:17–19]
C. Do not conflate the incarnate Son's humanity with a defect in God: Jesus' human acts of inquiry belong within his genuinely human life. Historic two-natures theology allows human development without denying the Son's divine nature. The fig-tree scene also has a prophetic purpose. [S24; S55]
Scripture: Genesis 18:20–21; 22:1–12; Mark 11:12–21; Hebrews 4:13.
Assessment: These are complementary explanations. The text should not be flattened into either meaningless playacting or a denial of divine omniscience.
47. Why does God regret or repent in some biblical passages?
How can God grieve over making humanity or regret appointing Saul if he already knew what would happen?
Does the language describe genuine sorrow without implying surprise or error? How do those passages fit with statements about God’s constancy?
Related Scripture: Genesis 6:5–7; 1 Samuel 15.
Source: John Piper, “Why Does God Regret and Repent in the Bible?” Ask Pastor John, episode 954, October 24, 2016.
https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/why-does-god-regret-and-repent-in-the-bible
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Grief is not surprise: Piper explains divine regret as genuine sorrow over evil's outcome without implying that God lacked foreknowledge or would necessarily reverse his whole purpose. He reads 1 Samuel 15:11 alongside verse 29, which denies a humanlike changeability in God. [S43]
B. Relenting in response to repentance: Prophetic warnings can be conditional. When people turn, God can withhold threatened judgment consistently with his declared intention. The change in treatment reflects a changed human relationship rather than a newly good or newly just divine character. [Jeremiah 18:7–10; Jonah 3:10]
C. Strong language should retain its force: God's grief is not reduced to indifference simply because we affirm constancy. Christians differ about precisely how divine emotions relate to an unchanging nature; Scripture invites us to take both his faithfulness and his opposition to evil seriously. [S56]
Scripture: Genesis 6:5–7; 1 Samuel 15:11, 29, 35; Numbers 23:19; Jeremiah 18:7–10.
Assessment: “Repent” in these contexts does not mean God confesses having committed a moral sin. Translational context matters.
48. Who hardened Pharaoh’s heart?
Exodus sometimes says Pharaoh hardened his heart and sometimes says God hardened it.
Are these contradictory claims, or descriptions of different actions, stages, or levels of responsibility? If both are true, how does divine judgment relate to Pharaoh’s own choices?
Related Scripture: Exodus 7–14.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Both, at different levels: Exodus attributes hardening to Pharaoh and to God. The law of noncontradiction does not forbid two agents acting in relation to one event; it forbids affirming and denying the same claim in the same respect. “Both acted” is not “neither acted.” [S13]
B. Judicial hardening: Many interpreters emphasize God confirming a ruler in the resistance he already embraces. Pharaoh is an oppressor, not an innocent person trying to obey. This explanation should not erase God's announced intention before some of Pharaoh's recorded refusals. [S13]
C. Different accounts of agency: Reformed theology affirms effective divine determination and voluntary human guilt. Arminian theology emphasizes permitted resistance and judicial abandonment or strengthening. Both must account for Exodus's active language about God as well as Pharaoh's responsibility. [S04; S25]
Scripture: Exodus 4:21; 7:3; 8:15, 32; 9:12, 34; Romans 9:17–18.
Assessment: The joint attribution is clear. How divine hardening and culpable human choice fit together belongs to the larger sovereignty debate.
Exodus reports both Pharaoh’s hardening and God’s hardening. God announces hardening before the plagues, while the narrative also describes Pharaoh hardening himself; the text does not support a simplistic rule that God’s involvement appears only after all human choices are complete. How the two kinds of agency fit remains debated.
49. Why did Jesus come at that particular point in history?
Why during the Roman Empire, in that place, among those people? What does Scripture mean by the “fullness of time”?
How much can we responsibly say about language, roads, political conditions, and the spread of the gospel—and how much is explanation supplied after the fact?
Related Scripture: Galatians 4:4–5.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Fulfillment of God's covenant story: Paul's “fullness of time” occurs in an argument about promise, law, sonship, and redemption. Jesus comes as Israel's Messiah after the history that prepares for and explains his work. This is stronger biblical ground than guessing that a later century would be technologically unsuitable. [S39]
B. Providential historical conditions: Common Greek, travel networks, Jewish dispersion, and relative imperial stability helped the gospel spread. Christians reasonably recognize providence in these circumstances. They do not prove that those practical advantages were God's exhaustive reasons or that the Roman world was uniformly peaceful. [S39]
C. The mystery of a particular incarnation: Christianity claims an actual human life in a particular place and time, not an abstract message detached from history. Eastern Orthodox teaching emphasizes Christ's fulfillment of Israel's expectations and the renewal of human life. The choice of every historical detail remains God's. [S24]
Scripture: Galatians 3:23–4:7; Mark 1:14–15; Hebrews 1:1–3.
Assessment: The fulfillment is explicit; most explanations of why that exact geopolitical moment was optimal are reasoned observations rather than revealed necessities.
Roman roads, Greek language, and imperial connections are plausible historical factors that assisted the spread of the gospel. Greek was widespread, not universally adopted, and Scripture does not specify an exhaustive list of reasons God chose that date.
50. How did Jesus’ divine knowledge and human understanding relate?
Joel asked how intelligent Jesus was as a man. Did he learn in the ordinary human way? How does that relate to his divine knowledge?
Why did he approach the fig tree to see whether it had fruit? And why curse it when Mark says it was not the season for figs? What is the action meant to communicate?
Credit: Joel, personal conversation, for the question about Jesus’ intelligence.
Related Scripture: Luke 2:52; Mark 11:12–21; Mark 13:32.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. One person, two natures: Historic Christology confesses the Son as fully divine and fully human. His genuine human development does not require surrendering his divine nature. The human mind is not simply turned into an infinite divine database. [S24; S55]
B. Real learning and unique knowledge: Luke says Jesus grew in wisdom; the Gospels also portray knowledge beyond ordinary human access. Christians explain that relation in different ways within the two-natures framework. Assigning Jesus an IQ is neither possible from Scripture nor an adequate account of who he is. [S55]
C. The fig tree is an enacted warning: Mark surrounds the temple episode with the fig-tree events. A leading reading sees judgment on impressive outward religion without its intended fruit. Early fruit associated with leaves can explain the expectation before the main harvest season. The prophetic symbolism is more secure than a detailed horticultural reconstruction. [S54]
Scripture: Luke 2:52; Mark 11:12–25; 13:32; John 4:16–19.
Assessment: We can affirm genuine humanity and divinity without pretending to reconstruct Jesus' moment-to-moment consciousness.
Christians confess one person, fully divine and fully human. Luke describes Jesus growing in wisdom and Mark records that the Son did not know the hour; theologians differ on how to describe the relationship of divine knowledge and human consciousness. The fig tree is often read as a prophetic sign connected to judgment, but that does not establish every detail of what Jesus knew at each moment.
51. What can we know about Jesus’ physical humanity?
Given the virgin birth, what can we responsibly say about Jesus’ genetic inheritance? What would his DNA have looked like? Do we have any basis for identifying his blood type?
Where does legitimate curiosity end and unsupported speculation begin?
Credit: Joel, personal conversation.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. A real human body: The incarnation includes genuine human flesh, ancestry, growth, suffering, and death. Jesus is not a divine appearance wearing a temporary disguise. His humanity comes through Mary by the Holy Spirit's miraculous action. [S24]
B. Genetics are not disclosed: The virgin birth is affirmed, but Scripture does not describe how a complete human genome was constituted. Inferring a normal biological father, a divine physical chromosome, or a special chromosome count goes beyond the texts.
C. Blood type is unknown from Scripture: No biblical passage identifies it. Claims made from relics or alleged recovered blood would need independent historical and scientific authentication; even a sample's typing would not by itself establish that it belonged to Jesus.
Scripture: Matthew 1:18–25; Luke 1:26–35; John 1:14; Hebrews 2:14–18.
Assessment: There are not three evidence-based genetic reconstructions to rank. The theological affirmation is strong; the biological mechanism and blood group remain unknown.
52. What does it mean that Jesus prayed to the Father?
I know the Christian explanation distinguishes the Father and the Son. Still, what is happening when Jesus, who is God, prays to God?
How does his prayer express both his relationship with the Father and his genuinely human life?
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Distinct persons: Trinitarian Christianity does not identify the Son as the Father. Jesus' prayer is the Son addressing the Father, not one person pretending to speak to another. Unity of divine being does not erase personal distinction. [S04, II.3]
B. Genuine humanity: The incarnate Son lives a truly human life of dependence, obedience, worship, and trust. Human prayer is appropriate to that life; otherwise his humanity would be an appearance rather than our life actually assumed. [S24]
C. Mediatorial work: Jesus also prays for his people as their representative and intercessor. His prayer expresses the saving mission rather than a deficiency in divine power or information. His intercession continues to ground Christian confidence. [S60]
Scripture: John 17; Luke 22:39–46; Hebrews 5:7–9; 7:25.
Assessment: These three points work together. “God praying to himself” is misleading if it means the Father and Son are the same person; Christianity confesses one God in three persons.
53. Why did Peter deny Jesus after Jesus prayed for him?
Jesus told Peter that he had prayed that Peter’s faith would not fail. Peter then denied knowing him.
Does that mean the prayer failed, or that I have misunderstood what Jesus asked? Is Peter’s eventual return and ability to strengthen others part of the answer?
Jesus knew the denial was coming and continued loving Peter through it. What does that tell us about failure, intercession, and restoration?
Related Scripture: Luke 22:31–34. The quotation in my original notes was from the New American Standard Bible, 1995 Update (The Lockman Foundation, 1995).
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Jesus did not promise no lapse: Luke 22 predicts Peter's denial while also anticipating his return. The prayer that his faith not fail need not mean Peter would never commit a terrible act; the narrative distinguishes collapse under fear from final abandonment.
B. Restoration displays the answer: Jesus commissions Peter after the resurrection, and Acts depicts him strengthening others. Reformed interpreters connect Christ's effective intercession with preservation through failure, rather than preservation from every failure. [S60]
C. Failure remains morally serious: Grace does not make Peter's denial harmless. His bitter weeping and subsequent restoration show repentance rather than mere technical exemption. Christian accounts differ about perseverance, but none needs to call this prayer partially successful simply because a predicted sin occurred. [S25; S04, XVII]
Scripture: Luke 22:31–34, 54–62; John 21:15–19; Acts 2.
Assessment: Read the content of the prayer together with the promised return. The text gives a stronger basis for answered intercession than for failed divine prayer.
54. Why did Jesus need to leave for the Holy Spirit to come?
If the Son and the Holy Spirit are both divine, why does Jesus say the Advocate will not come unless he goes away?
It cannot simply be that they are unable to be present together. What relationship is there between Jesus’ departure, his completed work, and the Spirit’s coming?
Related Scripture: John 16:7–15.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. A sequence in salvation, not a space limitation: The Spirit was already active in creation, Israel, and Jesus' ministry. Father, Son, and Spirit are present together at Jesus' baptism. John 16 therefore cannot mean the Son and Spirit are incapable of being present at the same time.
B. Completed work to be applied: Piper explains the promised coming in terms of the Spirit glorifying and applying the benefits of Christ's death, resurrection, and exaltation. This ministry presupposes the events it announces and applies. [S38]
C. Pentecost inaugurates the new-covenant mission: Orthodox teaching likewise connects the Spirit's outpouring with Christ's completed mission and the church's life. The disciples receive power to witness; the distinction concerns the manner and stage of God's work, not inferior divinity in the Spirit. [S53]
Scripture: Genesis 1:2; Matthew 3:16–17; John 7:37–39; 16:7–15; Acts 2:32–33.
Assessment: God chose this redemptive order. Scripture explains its purpose without suggesting that two divine persons cannot coexist.
55. Why did Jesus speak of preparing a place if God is outside time?
When Jesus says he is going to prepare a place for his followers, does that describe a work unfolding in time, the significance of his death and resurrection, language suited to our understanding, or something else?
Am I creating a difficulty by assuming that God’s relationship to time means nothing can genuinely happen in sequence?
Related Scripture: John 14:1–3.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Preparation includes securing access: The immediate story concerns Jesus' departure through death, resurrection, and return to the Father. A strong evangelical explanation connects preparing a place with opening the way for his people through his finished work, rather than prolonged celestial construction. [S40]
B. Eternal purpose is accomplished in history: God can eternally intend something that is genuinely accomplished at a particular point in created time. Timeless knowledge does not mean the cross, resurrection, or disciples' arrival need not occur. [S01]
C. The promise concerns belonging: The Father's house, sufficient dwelling places, Jesus' return, and being with him reassure troubled disciples. The passage does not teach a building schedule or require us to imagine God awaiting delivery of materials. Its central assurance survives different Christian accounts of time. [S40]
Scripture: John 14:1–6; Hebrews 6:19–20; 9:24.
Assessment: Your difficulty largely arises if “preparing” is restricted to making a physical room that an omnipotent God could instantly create.
Some interpret Jesus preparing a place as securing access to the Father through his death, resurrection, and ascension; others emphasize his continuing heavenly work or the promise of welcome. John 14 gives assurance of belonging with him without a detailed construction timetable.
56. If Jesus paid for my sins completely, why do I still have to die?
This question kept returning in both versions of my notes.
If death entered through sin, and Christ has fully dealt with my guilt, why do I still experience physical death? Why does a consequence of the Fall remain after forgiveness?
I do not mean that Jesus’ work was insufficient. I am asking how complete forgiveness relates to consequences that remain, and how resurrection completes the picture.
Related Scripture: Romans 5–8; 1 Corinthians 15.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Death is not a second payment: The Heidelberg Catechism directly asks this question in Q42 and answers that the believer's death does not repay sin's debt. It describes death as ending our sinning and bringing us into eternal life. Christ's sufficiency is not reduced. [S50]
B. Salvation has an already-and-not-yet shape: Forgiveness and reconciliation are present realities, while believers still await bodily redemption. Paul's resurrection argument identifies the final destruction of death as future. A remaining consequence does not mean the verdict of forgiveness was incomplete. [Romans 8:1, 23; 1 Corinthians 15:20–26]
C. Death is transformed through Christ: Orthodox teaching emphasizes Christ's entering and conquering humanity's death. Believers still pass through it, but it no longer has the final word. Salvation includes resurrection and communion with God, not only a changed legal standing. [S49]
Scripture: John 11:25–26; Romans 8:1–23; 1 Corinthians 15; Philippians 1:21–23.
Assessment: The strongest common answer is forgiveness now, resurrection to come—not that believers must finish paying what Jesus left unpaid. Those alive at his return are described as transformed rather than all dying first (1 Corinthians 15:51–52).
The Heidelberg Catechism’s question 42 makes a useful distinction: the believer’s death is not payment for sins already paid for by Christ. Christians explain the relationship between present forgiveness and future bodily resurrection through the “already and not yet”: redemption has begun, while its completion is still awaited. [S50]
57. If being with Christ is better, why do we work so hard to postpone death?
If heaven is as good as we believe, why are we so reluctant to leave this life?
How do we distinguish the natural desire to live, love our families, and fulfill our responsibilities from fear or an overly narrow attachment to this world? How do we hold together the goodness of life and the hope of being with Christ?
Related Scripture: Philippians 1:20–26.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Paul holds both desires: Philippians 1 describes being with Christ as better while remaining alive as fruitful service for others. Wanting more years with your family or more opportunity to serve need not indicate disbelief in heaven.
B. Life and embodied relationship are good: Death remains an enemy in 1 Corinthians 15, even after its defeat is assured. Seeking healing, protecting life, and grieving separation are consistent with Christian hope. Jesus wept at a grave rather than treating death as trivial. [John 11:33–36]
C. Hope changes fear, not responsibility: The catechism's comfort about death is meant to free believers to live faithfully. Christian hope does not make bringing death nearer a duty or make medical care a failure of faith. Readiness to die and a healthy desire to live can coexist. [S50]
Scripture: Philippians 1:20–26; John 11:33–36; 1 Corinthians 15:26; Hebrews 2:14–15.
Assessment: Heaven's goodness does not make earthly life worthless or make grief spiritually suspect.
Wanting more years with Irene, your sons, and future grandchildren is a natural expression of love. Paul’s longing to be with Christ existed alongside his desire to remain and serve others. Grieving death does not make the hope of resurrection less real.
58. What do we mean when we say “heaven”?
Are we talking about being with Christ after death, our future resurrection, the new heaven and new earth, or all of these without distinguishing them?
What will our final life with God actually be like?
Related Scripture: 1 Corinthians 15; Revelation 21–22.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Being with Christ after death: Many evangelicals use heaven for the believer's conscious presence with the Lord while awaiting resurrection. This intermediate state is not the whole of the final Christian hope. [Philippians 1:23; 2 Corinthians 5:8]
B. Resurrection and renewed creation: Revelation's final vision is of God dwelling with his people in a new heaven and new earth. Eastern Orthodox teaching strongly emphasizes the restoration and glorification of embodied creation rather than permanent escape from it. [S28]
C. Communion with God: Heaven is fundamentally life in God's presence, not merely desirable scenery. Hopko stresses the fulfillment of loving communion with God. Christian authors differ over the relation between “place” and “state,” but not over the importance of being with Christ. [S02]
Scripture: Luke 23:43; Philippians 1:23; 1 Corinthians 15; Revelation 21–22.
Assessment: Distinguishing present heaven from final resurrection resolves several confusions. Avoid treating every detail inferred about one as explicitly revealed about the other.
59. What will we do for eternity?
Will there be work, learning, creativity, exploration, relationships, and responsibilities? What might embodied life in a renewed creation involve?
How much of my picture comes from Scripture, and how much comes from songs, paintings, and familiar church language?
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Worship, service, and reign: Revelation depicts God's servants serving him, seeing his face, and reigning. Worship need not mean one unending version of a present church service. Service and responsibility belong to the biblical picture. [Revelation 22:3–5]
B. Meaningful embodied life: Renewal rather than abandonment of creation supports expectation of activity, community, and purposeful life. Many Christians reasonably infer creativity and learning. Specific claims about occupations, travel, pets, or technologies should be labeled as deductions rather than promises. [S28]
C. Delight without emptiness: Alcorn argues that boredom results from impoverished desire and dissatisfaction, not from goodness itself. An infinitely good Creator and healed capacities for enjoyment provide a Christian reason to expect fulfillment without needing sin for entertainment. [S31]
Scripture: Genesis 2:15; Matthew 25:21; 1 Corinthians 15:42–58; Revelation 21:24–26; 22:3–5.
Assessment: Service, communion, and joy are better grounded than any detailed eternal itinerary. Scripture gives a destination and character of life, not a complete activity schedule.
Revelation depicts worship, service, and reigning with God. Learning, art, exploration, and many familiar activities are plausible possibilities for embodied life, but they are not each specifically promised in the text. We can hope without presenting our imagination as a timetable.
60. How can we be happy in heaven if we know someone we love is in hell?
Paul writes, “then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12, ESV). If our understanding will be clearer then, wouldn’t we recognize that someone we love is missing?
What happens when I look around and realize my brother, mother, sister, wife, child, or dear friend is not there? If that means the person is in hell—and if hell means everlasting conscious torment—how could I be completely happy knowing someone I love is suffering, not temporarily, but forever?
The difficulty is more than missing their company. It is knowing what they are experiencing. Wouldn’t that knowledge itself give me reason to grieve for eternity?
Will God change our understanding so completely that we can comprehend his justice without sorrow? If so, how does that happen without our becoming less loving toward the people we once cherished? The suggestion that God simply erases our memories troubles me too. Would I still be recognizably myself if those relationships were removed from my memory?
I believe God’s promise that mourning and pain will end. I do not understand how that promise fits with remembering someone I love who remains eternally lost.
Related Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:8–13; Revelation 21:4.
Interpretive note: First Corinthians 13:12 does not explicitly promise that believers become all-knowing or explain what they will know about particular people’s final destinies. That remains part of the question.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Perfected understanding of justice: A common evangelical answer is that redeemed people will understand God's judgment truthfully and share his judgment without the distortion of sin. Alcorn, drawing on J. I. Packer, argues this way. It does not require us to enjoy another person's suffering now. It also does not fully explain the emotional mechanism. [S29]
B. Fulfilled joy without a demonstrated memory wipe: Revelation promises the end of mourning, and Christian hope trusts God to fulfill that promise while preserving real personal identity. There is no clear biblical teaching that God erases every absent relative from memory. How truthful remembrance, love, and final joy coexist is not explicitly explained. [S30; Revelation 21:4]
C. Reconsider the endless-torment premise: Evangelical conditionalists understand final judgment as irreversible death rather than unending conscious misery. That changes the continuing-torment aspect of the question, though permanent loss remains. It is a minority interpretation to examine biblically, not a position established merely because it would be emotionally easier. [S06]
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:8–13; Revelation 6:9–11; 19:1–2; 21:4; Matthew 25:46.
Assessment: Your question remains difficult under the traditional view. First Corinthians 13:12 promises fuller knowing, not explicit human omniscience or a catalog of everyone's destiny. Alcorn also speculates that our love for the finally lost will change because their lovable qualities are gone; he explicitly admits he cannot prove that biblically. It should not be taught as established doctrine. Orthodox explanations of hell as the rejected presence of God's love also do not, by themselves, solve your question. We should distinguish confidence in the promise from knowledge of how God fulfills it.
The conditionalist alternative removes the premise of never-ending conscious torment, but it does not erase the grief of permanent loss. Likewise, saying that our understanding will be perfected does not explain how love and memory are transformed without sorrow. Scripture promises God’s comfort; it does not supply the psychological mechanics.
61. What will we remember, and what will we know about life on earth?
Will we remember our sins without experiencing shame or grief? Will we know what our loved ones are doing on earth, including their suffering or rejection of God?
How can truthful memory coexist with the promise that mourning and pain will end?
Related Scripture: Revelation 21:4.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Continuity of identity and memory: Revelation's martyrs remember their deaths and ask about justice. That supports meaningful memory rather than a completely erased personal history. EPM argues that personal identity and continued love fit continuity better than a total reset. [S30]
B. Some awareness does not mean omniscience: Heavenly figures in Scripture know some earthly events, but the texts do not establish that every departed believer watches every action of every relative. A nonstop, unrestricted heavenly livestream is not a biblical promise.
C. Distinguish stages and kinds of sorrow: The martyrs' cry in Revelation 6 precedes the final removal of mourning in Revelation 21. Longing for justice in the present heavenly state need not contradict perfected joy in the final state. How every painful memory is healed remains unspecified. [S28]
Scripture: Revelation 6:9–11; 19:1–2; 21:4; Luke 9:28–31.
Assessment: Memory is better supported than a wholesale wipe. Detailed knowledge of living relatives and the subjective experience of remembering past sins remain uncertain.
Revelation 6 depicts martyrs remembering their deaths before the final renewal of Revelation 21. That supports some continuity of memory but does not prove that every memory persists unchanged, or that those with Christ have unrestricted knowledge of everything happening on earth.
62. Can perfect happiness remain meaningful without sadness as a contrast?
Here, relief feels good partly because pain preceded it. Success feels satisfying partly because failure was possible.
In eternity, will joy deepen? Will we keep discovering more of God’s goodness? Can happiness remain fully satisfying without sorrow to contrast it with?
I trust God has this worked out. I still find it fascinating—and difficult—to imagine.
Credit: This question occurred to me while listening to R. C. Sproul. The particular message has not been identified, and these reflections should not be attributed to him as his teaching.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Goodness need not depend on evil: Christianity regards God as blessed before any creature sinned. Love, beauty, discovery, and enjoyment can have positive value without requiring fresh pain to make them worthwhile. Contrast sometimes intensifies present relief; that does not prove it is necessary for all joy.
B. Healed desires: Alcorn argues that boredom and dissatisfaction reflect frustrated or distorted capacities rather than an inherent defect in goodness. A healed person in God's presence need not become tired of fulfillment simply because current pleasures sometimes fade. [S31]
C. Inexhaustible knowledge and communion: Christian teaching distinguishes truly knowing God from exhausting his infinite goodness. That gives a basis for expecting depth without monotony. It does not supply a mathematical schedule in which happiness doubles each day or settle every question about heavenly time. [S56]
Scripture: Psalm 16:11; John 17:24–26; Ephesians 2:7; Revelation 22:3–5.
Assessment: The argument that joy requires sorrow is not established. The exact experience of eternal joy is promised more clearly than it is described.
63. How do heavenly rewards fit with salvation by grace?
If salvation is entirely a gift, what are believers rewarded for? Faithfulness, motives, service, endurance, stewardship—or all of these?
How can one person receive more than another without envy or a sense of deprivation? What does it mean to suffer loss while still being saved?
And how does Luke 16:9 connect our use of money now with eternal dwellings?
Related Scripture: Luke 16:9; 1 Corinthians 3:11–15; 2 Corinthians 5:10; Matthew 10:40–42; Matthew 16:27; Revelation 22:12–13. Also relevant to the broader subject of reward: 1 Samuel 26:23.
Source: J. Warner Wallace, “Are There Different Degrees of Reward in Heaven?” The current page’s publication metadata is dated September 16, 2022, although its URL contains 2012.
https://coldcasechristianity.com/2012/are-there-different-degrees-of-reward-in-heaven/
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Gift and evaluation differ: Evangelicals commonly distinguish Christ's work securing salvation from God's evaluation of a believer's faithfulness. First Corinthians 3 explicitly combines loss of work with the person's being saved. Alcorn develops this distinction. [S51]
B. Reward is grace-enabled: God rewards faithfulness he has enabled, not independent merit that obligates him to admit someone to heaven. Traditions that speak more strongly of cooperation still understand God as the giver of saving life. These accounts should not be conflated with earning salvation unaided. [S03; Philippians 2:12–13]
C. Rewards need not generate envy: A perfected community can rejoice in another person's honor. Scripture depicts responsibility and commendation, but does not give a complete ranking system or describe everyone's comparative emotional experience. Different capacities for enjoyment are a proposal, not an explicit biblical mechanism.
Scripture: Matthew 10:40–42; 25:14–30; Luke 16:9; 1 Corinthians 3:5–15; 2 Corinthians 5:10.
Assessment: Accountability and divine generosity are clear. Exact reward categories are less clear. Luke 16:9 concerns faithful use of wealth, not purchasing salvation or heavenly friends through corruption.
The gracious gift of salvation and biblical language of reward belong together. Christians differ over the exact nature of those rewards, and Paul’s image of loss in 1 Corinthians 3 should not be turned into a detailed map of eternal rank or privilege.
64. Will there be a separate rapture and second coming?
Do the passages about believers being gathered to Christ describe a separate event before a period of tribulation, or different aspects of one return?
How do the major interpretations account for the relevant passages? Which conclusions are explicit, and which depend on a broader prophetic framework?
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Pretribulation dispensational view: Christ gathers the church before a future tribulation and subsequently appears publicly to establish his earthly kingdom. Its advocates distinguish passages about gathering believers from passages about public judgment. The synthesis is argued across texts rather than stated in one uninterrupted timeline. [S37]
B. Posttribulation premillennial view: The church meets Christ at his public return after tribulation; the gathering and descent belong to one coming. A future earthly millennium follows. Thus, believing in a millennium does not require a pretribulation rapture. [S37; S32]
C. Amillennial and related one-coming views: Christ's return brings resurrection and judgment, followed by the final state; the thousand years describes his present reign rather than a later earthly interval. Eastern Orthodox teaching likewise centers its account on Christ's glorious return, resurrection, and judgment, not a secret preliminary removal of the church. [S32; S68]
Scripture: Matthew 24:29–31; John 14:1–3; 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18; 1 Corinthians 15:50–54; Revelation 20.
Assessment: The promised gathering is clear; its timing relative to other events is disputed. “Rapture” itself is not synonymous with the whole pretribulation system.
The pretribulation view distinguishes a gathering before tribulation from Christ’s later public appearing; posttribulation premillennial views generally join the gathering to his visible return; amillennial views generally expect one public return and final judgment. Not every proponent describes the first event as secret, and other positions also exist.
65. What is the sign of the Son of Man?
What does Jesus mean by the sign appearing in heaven in Matthew 24:30? Is the sign distinct from his appearing, or is his appearing itself the sign?
How does this relate to his description of a coming as unmistakable as lightning across the sky?
Related Scripture: Matthew 24:23–31; Luke 17:22–37.
Sources: Got Questions, “What is the sign of the Son of Man in Matthew 24:30?”
https://www.gotquestions.org/sign-of-the-Son-of-Man.html
Marius Nel, “What is ‘the sign of the Son of man in heaven’ (Mt 24:30)?” In die Skriflig 49(1), 2015, pages 1–9. DOI: 10.4102/ids.v49i1.1876.
https://scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2305-08532015000100010
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. The Son's appearing is the sign: One reading understands the phrase as the sign consisting of the Son of Man himself appearing in power. The verse then identifies rather than adds a separate celestial object. Nel surveys this appositional reading. [S46]
B. A manifestation announcing him: Other readings distinguish the sign from the person and identify it with heavenly glory, a banner, or the cross. The cross has a history in Christian interpretation, but Matthew does not explicitly name it. These should remain possibilities, not confident predictions of a particular sky formation. [S46]
C. Vindication in the judgment context: Some interpreters emphasize Daniel 7, the Son's heavenly authority, and the judgment on Jerusalem discussed in Matthew 24. They understand at least part of the discourse in relation to first-century vindication rather than a modern astronomical sign. How that relates to the final return is debated. [S46]
Scripture: Daniel 7:13–14; Matthew 24:1–31; 26:64.
Assessment: Matthew gives no explicit definition of the sign. A single article's preferred identification should not be presented as unanimous Christian teaching.
66. In the passages about one person being taken and another left, who is taken—and where?
Does being taken mean rescue, judgment, or something else? How do the comparisons with Noah and Lot affect the interpretation?
What does Jesus’ final statement about the corpse and the vultures mean?
Related Scripture: Luke 17:26–37; Matthew 24:36–44.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Taken in judgment: Noah's contemporaries are swept away, and Luke ends with a corpse-and-vultures saying. Those features support taking the removed people as judged. Got Questions favors this reading even while affirming a rapture elsewhere. [S69]
B. Gathered for rescue: Other Christians relate the language to the elect's gathering and the meeting with Christ in 1 Thessalonians 4. This reading has to explain the Noah/Lot context and the final ominous saying rather than assume “taken” must always mean saved. [S69]
C. The shared warning: Sudden separation, ordinary life, and readiness are central whichever identification one adopts. A future-events chart should not obscure Jesus' call to faithfulness. Different passages using removal imagery need not describe the same event.
Scripture: Luke 17:22–37; Matthew 24:36–44; 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18.
Assessment: Taken-in-judgment has a strong contextual argument, particularly in Luke. The passage should not be used as an unquestioned proof of a pretribulation rapture.
The judgment reading finds a strong parallel in the flood sweeping people away; the rescue reading argues that the later “taken” language may work differently and stresses wider prophetic context. The Got Questions article advocates the judgment reading, not the rescue reading. [S69]
67. Why is Satan released after the thousand years?
Revelation describes Satan being released and gathering people for another rebellion. Why permit that after such a long restraint?
What does the event reveal about human rebellion, Satan’s deception, and God’s judgment? Is there any basis for treating it as another chance for Satan, or does that idea come from my own attempt to explain it?
How does the answer depend on how we understand the thousand years?
Related Scripture: Revelation 20:1–10.
Source: Got Questions, “Why is God going to release Satan after the 1,000 years?” The article’s suggested explanations assume a particular premillennial interpretation.
https://www.gotquestions.org/release-Satan.html
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Premillennial explanation: The final rebellion exposes the difference between living under Christ's righteous government and freely loving him. A common account identifies the rebels as unconverted descendants born during that reign. Revelation describes the rebellion; the births and inner history are inferred from a wider prophetic system. [S45]
B. Final public defeat: The release leads to a final gathering of opposition, its destruction, and Satan's irreversible judgment. The narrative presents the decisive end of this enemy, not an experiment God needs in order to discover what Satan will do. The text does not call it an offer of rehabilitation. [Revelation 20:7–10]
C. Amillennial interpretation: The release is a final outbreak of deception and persecution after the period in which Satan is restrained from preventing the gospel's spread to the nations. It is not a rebellion following a future utopian earthly reign in that reading. [S32]
Scripture: Revelation 20:1–10; compare 19:11–21 and 21:1–4.
Assessment: The stated events are clearer than God's complete reasons. Under premillennialism, many rebels have experienced Christ's rule without all being saved. That kingdom is not yet the final state free of all death and sorrow. Do not describe the inferred population details as explicit verses in Revelation 20.
Revelation 20 explicitly describes Satan’s release, deception, rebellion, and defeat. The idea that the rebels are descendants of mortal people born during a future earthly kingdom is a common premillennial inference developed from a wider framework; the chapter does not explicitly describe those births or say when each rebel became unbelieving. Nor does it give a complete explanation of God’s reasons. [S45]
68. Can modern nations be confidently identified in end-times prophecy?
People identify Russia, China, Israel, and surrounding nations in prophetic passages. How secure are those identifications?
Is the United States mentioned? If not, does its absence tell us anything about its future—or are we asking ancient texts to supply a modern geopolitical map they were not intended to provide?
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. The United States is not explicitly named: Identifications with an eagle, Babylon, Tarshish's offspring, or another symbol depend on arguments rather than direct naming. Its absence does not prove America has already collapsed. [S52]
B. Start with the ancient referents: Biblical nations and place names had meanings for their original readers. Identifying ancient peoples directly with Russia or China requires historical and interpretive evidence. A current headline or a similar-sounding word cannot do that work by itself.
C. Global judgment does include nations: Christians can affirm that all peoples are accountable to God without constructing a complete list of modern states. Premillennial, amillennial, and postmillennial readers differ on how particular prophetic names function. [S32]
Scripture: Ezekiel 38–39; Revelation 16:12–16; 19:15; 20:7–9.
Assessment: Some Christian prophecy resources express more confidence about modern identifications than the text warrants. The guide uses S52 for its caution about America's identification, not as endorsement of every geopolitical conclusion in that article.
69. What is information, and does it require a physical carrier?
Information can be communicated through light and stored in brains, books, or computers. Is information itself physical, or is the physical thing its carrier?
Does information require matter, or could it exist in a mind that is not material? What would that mean when speaking about God’s knowledge?
I also need to distinguish questions about information from questions about light, energy, and mass rather than assuming they are all the same problem.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Physical communication: A signal requires a physical realization, but physical does not mean it must have rest mass. NASA explains that photons are massless, carry momentum, and travel at light speed. Therefore the premise that information must always be carried by a massive object needs correction. [S62]
B. Meaning is not identical to one medium: The same message can be written, spoken, or digitally encoded. That supports distinguishing meaning from its particular carrier, but does not by itself prove an independently existing immaterial substance called information. Philosophers disagree about that further step.
C. God is not a physical computer: Classical Christian theology understands divine knowledge as a property of the uncreated God, not data held in a brain, disk, or finite storage device. Craig describes a traditional account of God's knowing as a unified apprehension rather than a sequence of stored sentences. [S35]
Scripture: John 4:24; Psalm 147:5; John 1:1–3.
Assessment: This question spans physics and metaphysics. A physical experiment about human communication cannot, by itself, settle whether an uncreated immaterial knower exists. Jesus' real human body should not be confused with the claim that the divine nature has bodily mass.
A message can be represented in ink, sound, or light; this shows that a particular physical medium is not essential to that message. It does not by itself prove that information can exist without any physical carrier. A photon carries physical signals while having zero rest mass. Whether an immaterial mind can know is a further philosophical and theological question. [S62]
70. What does it mean for God to know everything?
If numbers have no end, and descriptions can always be expanded, does omniscience mean knowing an infinite collection of facts? Or am I imagining divine knowledge as an enormously enlarged version of a human database?
Does God’s knowledge require storage, change, or sequence? Are those even appropriate categories?
And when we die, what happens to the knowledge and memories bound up with our present brains?
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Omniscience concerns truth: A common philosophical definition is knowing every truth and holding no false beliefs. It does not require learning successive facts by searching, guessing, or adding memory. It includes complete knowledge of creatures without making him one more creature among them. [S35]
B. Infinite descriptions are not a storage crisis: Adding adjectives can repeat information, describe possibilities, or introduce falsehoods rather than create new facts about reality. Counting sentences is not the same as measuring what God knows. Craig distinguishes the extent of knowledge from its mode. [S35]
C. Human knowledge remains creaturely: First Corinthians 13 promises fuller understanding, not equality with God's exhaustive knowledge. Christian hope expects continuity of the person through death and resurrection; it does not explain that continuity as copying a computer file to a heavenly server. [S56; S30]
Scripture: Psalm 139:1–6; 147:5; Hebrews 4:13; 1 Corinthians 13:8–13.
Assessment: Unlimited knowledge need not be pictured as an infinitely expanding hard drive. The precise philosophical account remains disputed, while Scripture consistently affirms that nothing is hidden from God.
Some classical theologians describe God’s knowledge as a single eternal act; others who affirm God’s exhaustive knowledge describe his relationship to time differently. First Corinthians 13:12 promises fuller knowledge, not that we become omniscient or that every detail of future learning is revealed.
71. How do I live faithfully with questions that remain unanswered?
How do I distinguish a mystery I should humbly accept from a difficulty I should keep investigating? When does “we cannot know” express wisdom, and when does it become a way to avoid a hard question?
I do not want to manufacture certainty. I also do not want endless questions to keep me from trusting and obeying what I do understand.
Can I say, honestly, “I believe you are good, and I still do not understand this”?
Related Scripture: Deuteronomy 29:29; Romans 11:33–36.
CHRISTIAN ANSWERS AND CONSIDERATIONS
A. Distinguish mystery from contradiction: A mystery concerns something not fully explained; a contradiction affirms and denies the same thing in the same respect. Investigating apparent contradictions is appropriate. God's incomprehensibility means our knowledge is limited, not that words lose meaning or any inconsistency becomes acceptable. [S56]
B. Practice what is clear: Boa's treatment of Job emphasizes trusting God's character without possessing the whole explanation. Prayer, repentance, worship, love, and service can continue while an intellectual difficulty remains unresolved. Faith does not require pretending the question has disappeared. [S10]
C. Seek understanding in community: Compare Scripture in context, learn from more than one faithful tradition, and let pastors or mature believers help distinguish central doctrines from speculative systems. A theory about Nephilim DNA should not carry the same weight as Christ's resurrection or the Trinity. [S68; S24]
Scripture: Deuteronomy 29:29; Psalm 13; Mark 9:24; John 20:24–31; Romans 11:33–36.
Assessment: Honest inquiry can coexist with faith. The responsible Christian answer sometimes ends with “we do not know,” but should identify what we do know and why it is reasonable to trust it.
FINAL READING NOTES
The strongest shared convictions across these sources are God's goodness and holiness, the reality of human responsibility, Christ's genuine divinity and humanity, salvation through him, bodily resurrection, final judgment, and God's ultimate victory over evil. That shared ground should remain more prominent than speculative reconstructions.
The major disagreements in this guide concern election and freedom; the nature of final punishment; creation's chronology and animal death; the identity of Genesis 6's sons of God; divine timelessness; the relation of rapture and second coming; and the millennium. Those are not all disagreements of equal doctrinal weight.
Several questions have important unknowns: Adam's height and language; Jesus' blood group and the genetic mechanism of the virgin birth; an alternative history in which Eve sinned alone; the precise dispute over Moses' body; the identity of the sign of the Son of Man; and the exact reconciliation of heavenly joy with knowledge of a loved one's final loss.
For a book, this guide is a research foundation, not finished manuscript prose or a substitute for edition-specific checking of any quotations later added. The responses are original summaries. They do not claim that a source's every assertion is reliable, nor that a proposed explanation reveals God's secret reasons.
72. What is the intermediate state, and what happens immediately at death?
A. Conscious presence with Christ: Many Christians understand Philippians 1:23 and 2 Corinthians 5:8 to teach that believers who die are consciously with Christ before the final resurrection. Luke 23:43 is another commonly cited passage. [S28]
B. Awaiting bodily resurrection: This is not the final destination in that interpretation. Christian hope looks toward the resurrection of the body and renewed creation (1 Corinthians 15; Revelation 21–22).
C. A minority alternative: Some Bible-affirming Christians hold that the dead are unconscious until resurrection, often called “soul sleep.” The relevant passages and the nature of the intermediate state are debated. Do not confuse that position with denial of the resurrection.
Assessment: Being with Christ and resurrection are central sources of hope. Scripture provides less detail about the experience between death and resurrection than many popular accounts assume. See also questions 57–58 and 61.
73. How do we reconcile divine justice and divine mercy?
A. The cross: Romans 3:21–26 presents God as just and as the one who justifies believers in Jesus. Many evangelicals describe Christ bearing the penalty of sin in our place. [S50]
B. Other complementary emphases: Orthodox teaching often stresses Christ’s victory over sin and death, healing, and union with him. Christians differ on how these images relate; a single explanatory model should not be made to exhaust the cross. [S49]
C. Mercy is a gift: Christians affirm that reconciliation depends on God’s grace, not our ability to make ourselves deserving. Different traditions explain judgment, atonement, and human response in different ways.
Assessment: Justice and mercy meet in God’s saving work in Christ; the details of atonement are the subject of longstanding discussion. Read Romans 3:21–26 and Ephesians 2:1–10.
74. What is the role of human effort in the Christian life?
A. Grace comes first: Ephesians 2:8–10 presents salvation as God’s gift and believers as created for good works. In Philippians 2:12–13, Christians work out their salvation while God works in them.
B. Reformed and other evangelical emphases: Good works do not earn justification; they are the fruit of faith and God’s transforming grace. Accounts differ on how to describe perseverance and the believer’s cooperation. [S04; S25]
C. Orthodox emphasis: Synergy means a grace-enabled human response and cooperation with God, not the idea that people save themselves independently. Orthodox, Arminian, and Reformed accounts should each be explained in their own terms. [S03]
Assessment: Prayer, repentance, service, and obedience matter, while Christians disagree about precisely how grace and human response relate. See also question 2.
75. What is the ultimate goal of all human history?
A. God’s purpose in Christ: Ephesians 1:9–10 speaks of God’s purpose to bring all things together in Christ. Christians differ over the implications of “all things”; this passage alone should not be used to settle every question about final judgment.
B. Resurrection and renewal: The biblical story points to resurrection, judgment, the defeat of evil, and the new heaven and new earth (1 Corinthians 15; Revelation 21–22). [S28]
C. God dwelling with his people: Revelation 21:3 describes God dwelling with humanity. Christian hope looks toward communion with God and a renewed creation, giving life, love, and faithful service significance now.
Assessment: The final hope is centered on God’s victory and presence, not merely an escape from the material world. See also questions 58–59.
ORIGINAL QUESTION SOURCE NOTES
In Touch Ministries, “God Inspires Our Trust,” June 13, 2023. This is the source of the parenting analogy and devotional paragraphs copied into my original notes. It relates particularly to questions 12–14 and 20.
https://www.intouch.org/read/daily-devotions/god-inspires-our-trust
Mina Nakatani, “The Most Disturbing Prophecies in the Bible,” Grunge, June 6, 2024. Retained as a reading prompt rather than an authority establishing the meaning of Scripture.
https://www.grunge.com/1595390/most-disturbing-bible-prophecies/
Wikipedia, “Patmos.” This supplied geographical background in the original notes. It does not establish the separate claim that John was sent there to die.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patmos
The original Goodreads quotation attributed to C. S. Lewis should not be used as a verified, verbatim book quotation. The free-will discussion above instead identifies the documented passage in Mere Christianity.
ANSWER SOURCE DIRECTORY — 69 SOURCES
Sources were retrieved during this research or verified in the preceding source audit. These links document the positions discussed; inclusion does not endorse every claim made by a source.
[S01] Ken Boa, Time: Part 4—Time & God
https://kenboa.org/time-part-4/
[S02] Thomas Hopko, Heaven and Hell (OCA)
https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/spirituality/the-kingdom-of-heaven/heaven-and-hell
[S03] Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, How Are We Saved?
https://www.goarch.org/-/how-are-we-saved-
[S04] Westminster Confession of Faith
https://thewestminsterstandard.org/the-westminster-confession/
[S05] William Lane Craig, God's Middle Knowledge
[S06] Rethinking Hell, Statement on Evangelical Conditionalism
https://rethinkinghell.com/statement/
[S07] William Lane Craig, Why Would God Create People He Knew Would Go to Hell?
[S08] Thomas Hopko, Suffering (OCA)
https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/spirituality/sickness-suffering-and-death/suffering
[S09] Ken Boa, Purpose in Our Pain
https://kenboa.org/purpose-in-our-pain/
[S10] Ken Boa, Trusting God in Suffering
https://kenboa.org/trusting-god-in-suffering/
[S11] Stephen Wellum, The Law of God (TGC)
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/the-law-of-god/
[S12] Got Questions, God's protection
https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-protection.html
[S13] Got Questions, Pharaoh's heart
https://www.gotquestions.org/God-harden-Pharaoh-heart.html
[S14] Got Questions, Ahab's lying spirit
https://www.gotquestions.org/lying-spirit.html
[S15] TGC, Who Are the Sons of God in Genesis 6?
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/who-are-sons-of-god-genesis-6/
[S16] OCA, Angels and Evil Spirits
[S17] Ken Boa, Desirable Prayer Habits
https://kenboa.org/desirable-prayer-habits/
[S18] OCA, Unceasing Prayer
[S19] Thomas Kidd, Is Violent Resistance Ever an Option for Christians?
[S20] Reasons to Believe, What Are the Days of Creation?
https://reasons.org/creation/universe/days-creation
[S21] Answers in Genesis, Gap Theory
https://answersingenesis.org/genesis/gap-theory/
[S22] Got Questions, Michael and Moses
https://www.gotquestions.org/Michael-Satan-Moses.html
[S23] Got Questions, Seven Spirits of God
https://www.gotquestions.org/seven-spirits-God.html
[S24] OCA, Incarnation
https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/doctrine-scripture/the-symbol-of-faith/incarnation
[S25] Society of Evangelical Arminians, Statement of Faith
https://evangelicalarminians.org/statement-of-faith/
[S26] Got Questions, Nephilim
https://www.gotquestions.org/Nephilim.html
[S27] Answers in Genesis, How Could Noah Fit the Animals on the Ark and Care for Them?
https://answersingenesis.org/noahs-ark/how-could-noah-fit-the-animals-on-the-ark-and-care-for-them/
[S28] OCA, Eternal Life
https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/doctrine-scripture/the-symbol-of-faith/eternal-life
[S29] Randy Alcorn / EPM, Enjoy Heaven If Loved Ones Are in Hell?
https://www.epm.org/resources/2021/Mar/15/loved-ones-hell/
[S30] EPM, Do Those in Heaven Still Think and Care about Their Loved Ones?
https://www.epm.org/resources/2023/Aug/5/heaven-still-think-care/
[S31] Randy Alcorn, Heaven Could Never Be Boring
https://www.epm.org/resources/2016/Dec/2/heaven-could-never-be-boring/
[S32] TGC, Views of the Millennium
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/views-of-the-millennium/
[S33] William Lane Craig, Not Enough Evidence to Believe
https://www.reasonablefaith.org/question-answer/P710/not-enough-evidence-to-believe
[S34] William Lane Craig, God, Time and Creation
https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/god-time-and-creation/
[S35] William Lane Craig, Is God Actually Infinite?
https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/is-god-actually-infinite
[S36] Michael Heiser, Matthew 24 and the Days of Noah Once Again
https://drmsh.com/matthew-24-and-the-days-of-noah-once-again/
[S37] TGC, The Rapture Question
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/the-rapture-question/
[S38] John Piper, Why Is It Better That Christ Went Away?
https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/why-is-it-better-that-christ-went-away-john-16-7
[S39] Got Questions, Fullness of Time
https://www.gotquestions.org/fullness-of-time.html
[S40] Got Questions, I Go to Prepare a Place for You
https://www.gotquestions.org/I-go-to-prepare-a-place-for-you.html
[S41] Christopher R. Smith, Was it a sin for David to have many wives?
https://goodquestionblog.com/2021/02/13/was-it-a-sin-for-david-to-have-many-wives/
[S42] Christopher R. Smith, What does allowing polygamy say about God's character?
https://goodquestionblog.com/2020/09/29/what-does-allowing-polygamy-say-about-the-character-of-god/
[S43] John Piper, Why Does God Regret and Repent in the Bible?
https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/why-does-god-regret-and-repent-in-the-bible
[S44] Got Questions, How tall was Adam?
https://www.gotquestions.org/how-tall-was-Adam.html
[S45] Got Questions, Why release Satan after 1,000 years?
https://www.gotquestions.org/release-Satan.html
[S46] Marius Nel, What is the sign of the Son of Man in heaven?
https://scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2305-08532015000100010
[S47] Michael S. Heiser, Divine Council
https://www.thedivinecouncil.com
[S48] In Touch Ministries, Discerning God's Goodness
https://www.intouchuk.org/read/daily-devotions/discerning-god-s-goodness
[S49] OCA, Redemption
https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/doctrine-scripture/the-symbol-of-faith/redemption
[S50] Heidelberg Catechism, Q42
https://www.rca.org/about/theology/creeds-and-confessions/the-heidelberg-catechism/
[S51] EPM, Working for Salvation and Working for Rewards
https://www.epm.org/resources/2010/Feb/8/what-difference-between-working-your-salvation-and/
[S52] Got Questions, United States in Bible prophecy
https://www.gotquestions.org/united-states-Bible.html
[S53] OCA, Pentecost: The Descent of the Holy Spirit
[S54] TGC, Why Did Jesus Curse the Fig Tree?
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/jesus-curse-fig-tree/
[S55] TGC, Jesus, Did You Know?
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/jesus-know/
[S56] TGC, Divine Incomprehensibility and the Knowledge of God
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/divine-incomprehensibility-and-the-knowledge-of-god/
[S57] Got Questions, Adam and Eve and the Tree of Life Before the Fall
https://www.gotquestions.org/Adam-Eve-tree-of-life-before-fall.html
[S58] Got Questions, Lead Us Not into Temptation
https://www.gotquestions.org/lead-us-not-into-temptation.html
[S59] Enduring Word, Genesis 18
https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/genesis-18/
[S60] Ligonier, Jesus Prayed for Peter
https://learn.ligonier.org/qas/jesus-said-he-prayed-for-peter-what-do-we-learn-from-this-encounter
[S61] Ken Boa, Who Does God Say I Am?
https://kenboa.org/who-does-god-say-i-am/
[S62] NASA, Anatomy of an Electromagnetic Wave
https://science.nasa.gov/ems/02_anatomy/
[S63] William Lane Craig, UFOs
https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/ufos/
[S64] Hugh Ross, Does the Bible Say Noah's Flood Was Global or Universal?
https://reasons.org/christianity/bible/does-the-bible-say-noah-s-flood-was-global-or-universal
[S65] NET Bible, Genesis 2:7–17 with translation notes
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%202%3A7-17&version=NET
[S66] Got Questions, Incest in the Bible
https://www.gotquestions.org/incest-in-the-Bible.html
[S67] Crossway, Who Were the Nephilim and the Sons of God?
[S68] OCA, The Symbol of Faith: Judgment
https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/doctrine-scripture/the-symbol-of-faith/judgment
[S69] Got Questions, One Taken and the Other Left
https://www.gotquestions.org/one-taken-and-the-other-left.html
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