A camp pastor affirms a group of curious and insightful girls for asking questions about God and the Bible.

The girls’ questions flew at me through the muggy air. “How can God and Jesus be the same person? Who wrote the Bible? Is God ever lonely? Do animals go to heaven? What did everything look like before it was made?”

“These are great questions, girls,” I said, awed at how the 10- and 11-year-olds articulated concepts so simultaneously basic and profound. As the camp pastor that week, I had worked to encourage the girls’ burgeoning questions through my messages and my individual interactions with them. To start the conversation with this cabin, I had had the girls each write down a question and pass it in. I unwrapped the final, crinkled paper from the group. “If you were God, what would you say?” I read with a smile.

I looked over the group of eager, sweaty faces, eyeing the girl whose thin arms stuck out from a tiny tank top, the girl with two long braids down her back. “I would tell you to keep asking these questions,” I said, feeling my voice catch in my throat. “Don’t ever let anyone stop you from asking questions.”

Although I don’t think I have ever heard a sermon on it, Genesis 18:16-33 is one of those texts that grips my mind and refuses to let go. It tells the story of Abraham’s intimate conversation with God over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, whose grave sin Yhwh has decided to investigate and punish.

Abraham, who has relatives in those cities, approaches God and says: “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are 50 righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the 50 righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing. … Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” (vv. 23-25).

What audacity! Abraham walks right up to God and asks four pointed questions, calling into question Yhwh’s very character. The story continues in a comically repetitive pattern with Abraham bargaining God down to saving the city for only 10 righteous people.

Abraham is often portrayed as an ultimate example of trust in God. But Abraham did not always believe God without asking questions first.

God’s promises are first pronounced to Abram in Genesis 12, prompting him to leave his home—without question, I should point out. But by the time Yhwh again appears to Abram in Genesis 15, one gets the sense that Abram is more than ready for God’s great promises to get started. His first response to God is this desperate question: “O Lord God, what can you give me, for I continue childless?” (v. 2). God answers by repeating the promises, including the promise of land. Abram’s response is another question: “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” (v. 8).

Of course, there are stories where Abraham does not question God, but those are the passages we hear so often in church sanctuaries or Sunday school classrooms.

Abraham’s ready obedience may be an important aspect of his relationship with God, but so, I think, are his questions.

Abraham is certainly not the only faithful-yet-questioning biblical character in the First Testament. Moses’ relationship with God is characterized by questions from its start.
When Elohim appears to Moses in the burning bush and commissions him to bring the people out of Egypt (Exodus 3-4), Moses asks three questions that drive the continuing conversation. God remains apparently patient and accepting of these concerns of Moses, even giving Moses two signs to perform, until Moses’ questions turn into a desperate plea to get out of the job; then we finally hear of Yhwh’s anger burning at Moses’s reluctance.

Moses becomes a revered leader of the Israelites and a personal liaison between them and God. In Exodus 32 we read the often-told story of the golden calf, which contains a less-often-told section reminiscent of Abraham’s negotiating with Yhwh for the lives of the people in Sodom and Gomorrah. God, noting the idolatry of the people, tells Moses, “Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation” (v. 10).

But Moses inquires, “Why does your wrath burn hot against your people? … Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out?’ ” (vv. 11-12). Moses tells God to relent and remember Yhwh’s own covenant. So, the narrator tells us, “The Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people” (v. 14).

Of course, not every biblical character’s questions are rewarded with transformative consideration from God. One can ask God questions in good faith or for selfish reasons. In the prophecy of Malachi the people are reproved for questioning God’s love and command to return to faithfulness (1:2, 3:7-15) instead of simply living in that love and acting faithfully.

Even so, it seems that the vast majority of questioners in the Bible are kindly tolerated or even encouraged. Questions are, after all, the best of way of learning. God says the children of the Israelites will ask about the observance of Passover (Exodus 12:26), the decrees of the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:20) and memorials of stone, such as the one made after the twelve tribes crossed the Jordan River (Joshua 4). Such practices and commandments, sure to elicit questions from those unfamiliar with them, serve as teaching tools.

And no discussion of the rich legacy of questioning in the biblical tradition would be complete without mentioning Job. The book of Job erupts with angry, sarcastic and sometimes shocking questions directed toward God. While Job’s friends condemn his questioning, God never does, at least in my reading of this complex and ambiguous text. Yhwh tells Eliphaz, “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has” (42:7).

While his friends spoke platitudes, sometimes straight from the book of Proverbs, apparently Job’s questions constituted “right” speech about God.

While the First Testament contains the most striking examples of people questioning God (and getting away with it), the Second Testament is not without its own stories in this vein. Since God interacts with the people mostly through the person of Jesus, identifying stories where people truly question God can be a bit more complicated.

People constantly question Jesus as a man, but there are also examples of people challenging Jesus while clearly seeing him as an agent of God. I must here mention the Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:21-27), or the Syrophoenician woman, as she is known in Mark (7:34-40). Technically this woman does not ask Jesus a question; she presents a demand and then gives a witty retort. But she is definitely asking Jesus, as God’s representative, to pay attention to her concern.

The story of the Canaanite woman, where Jesus uses surprisingly harsh language, comparing the woman to a dog, can be interpreted in many ways. But it seems to me this woman’s questioning presence pushes Jesus into a new phase in his ministry. She helps Jesus understand something new or at least realize it is time to start something he has not yet acted upon—salvation for the Gentiles.

Most of the stories I have mentioned are not traditional Sunday school or sermon material. But I wish they were. How else can we show our children the power and potential for blessing that comes from daring to engage God with our concerns?

Orthodox Christianity tends to see God as untouchable and unchangeable, but that is not the full picture given to us by the Bible. I am also not sure that an omnipotent, immutable God is a helpful concept for people growing up in today’s postmodern world, a world where we need a theology that enables us to claim the power and responsibility we have for shaping the world in positive ways.

I want the girls I met at camp to know what strong biblical precedent they are following in their heartfelt questions. I want their young voices to never be cut off or shut down by the those who claim to speak for God. Blessed are those who question, I want to say to them. Blessed are you.