I don’t know about you, but I come up with questions all the time. When I watch the news, I have questions. As I watch people interaction, I have questions. And even when I’m reading my Bible, I have questions.
But the right type of questions are a good thing. They challenge us to dig deeper or discuss with others.
Here are some questions I had recently as I was reading through the book of Leviticus:
- Why were some of the offerings female sheep or goats? I thought the sacrifices were a type of Jesus.
- How will Jews begin the sacrifices again? Why bother? If they let the fire on the alter go out, they’ve already let God down.
- Why don’t people talk more about meat offerings? How do they picture Christ?
- Does someone have all these things written in a recipe book?
- Why did the time for purification after giving birth to a girl differ from the time for having a boy? It does make a girl wonder about those claims of misogynism.
But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain.
Titus 3:9
As this scripture from Paul’s letter to Titus points out, some questions distract from the “main thing.” You know, because in Christianity, we need to keep the main thing the main thing. And too often, we don’t. We let the world distract us with silly questions.
The main thing is that Jesus Christ died for sinners. He wants to buy them back from the penalty of sin, and then have them live their lives after the pattern he set during his life.
We call that the Gospel. And it is indeed the good news the world needs to hear now more than ever.
So if questions distract from the Gospel, they should be shunned and avoided.
This is why most of the questions I listed above don’t need an answer. Because in the scope of the “main thing,” the answers would not glorify God. They would not point people to Jesus.
So, as much as I hate to say it, they don’t really matter.
But it was fun to think about them, right?
Now time to get back to work asking the only question that matters, “If you were to die today, do you know for certain you’d go to Heaven?”
A Pew Perspective 