Do You Know the Why?

 

--Bill Petite

Have you ever made the comment to a nonbeliever that they need Jesus? And then they ask you why and you can’t answer? If this has happened to you, you’re probably not alone. People grow up in churches across the country, leave and go off to college or the work place and can’t answer questions put to them by either skeptics or those sincerely interested in Christianity. Considering the youth in churches, they hear all of the stories and the teachings from the Bible but there are vast numbers of them headed off to college who can’t answer the simple questions of why. Why do I need Jesus? Why did Jesus die on a cross? Why did God flood the world and was it a worldwide flood? Is Jesus really God? And many other inquisitive questions concerning our Christian faith.

When a young person graduates from high school and goes off to college, that person is subject to Atheist professors and students. Many of those professors love to make Christian students look silly by challenging them with questions which the professor knows they can’t answer. Christian youth, in many cases, are not being prepared with the answers within the Bible. Now, not all local churches are guilty of this but far too many are. The Youth Group consists of just about any kind of activity except Bible study. Many lower grade Sunday School classes are taught by unqualified teachers who struggle to make the important point in the lesson. Or, maybe they are using a lesson plan that is weak in its explanation of the Bible lesson.

And, maybe the biggest problem is right at home where the parents are actually depending on Sunday School classes and Youth Group to teach their children what the Bible really says. The Sunday morning church service is a pit stop; it’s a refueling point in our week. That doesn’t mean it’s not important because it is but we don’t simply use that as our main support system in our walk with Jesus. Our Christian life and our walk with Jesus is a daily, and sometimes hourly, process. As parents and individuals, we should be reading the Bible daily and not whenever I have time. Then we should be monitoring our children’s progress in their Christian lives.

Parents should be talking to their children and seeking answers from them concerning their Christianity.

When you leave church on Sunday, it’s not a time to critique the pastor’s message. If you have children, you should be asking them what they learned in class or youth group that morning. You can’t pass your responsibilities as a Christian parent off on a Sunday School class; you are responsible for that.

So, the Christian youth finds himself or herself in a college classroom being lectured to by an Atheist professor or an unbeliever who is a skeptic. He/she is asked how every book in the Bible can be God’s word when it was actually written by men? Will either one be able to explain with a thorough answer? Or will they stumble and finally tell the professor they don’t know. That’s what the professor is trying to accomplish; another self-proclaiming Christian kid who can’t answer simple questions concerning their made-up faith.

Regardless of what the question is, if it is Bible centered, the answer is in the Bible. If it’s not a Biblical based question, then an answer is still required. There was a question which skeptics used to ask some years ago. Did Adam have a belly button? The Bible doesn’t tell us and a medical field specialist, nurse or doctor, could probably really break that down but the question is not important since it does not deal with any Bible doctrine.

Here is the only point that is to be made concerning all of this. Every Christian should read and study the Bible for their own Christian good. This practice is not only to prepare for the skeptic but for our own spiritual growth and wellbeing. Yes, we need to know the why and also the where, the how and the what. If you can’t give an answer as to why we need Jesus, your level of Biblical knowledge is at zero. I was in a church as a newer Christian where the pastor had encouraged us to read the Bible through in a year and proceeded to give us a plan to follow. A few weeks later a woman who was the Sunday School director and had been saved for about 30 years stood in a Wednesday evening service and said she never realized how bloody the Old Testament was. Had she not read any of that in her 30 years of Christianity?

Here is where the problem lies; Christians don’t read the Bible and they don’t know what the Bible says. When they are approached and asked a question concerning our faith, they cannot answer and are made to look ignorant.

I heard the comments directed at those who could not answer. “How can you call yourself a Christian?” or “You’re just like every other Christian. You don’t know anything about your so-called faith.” I was in an auto parts store with a Christian friend of mine who had on a T-Shirt with a verse from Nehemiah. A man came in and saw his shirt and asked him what the verse meant. He had the smell of alcohol on his breath but that didn’t matter; my friend couldn’t give him an answer. The man said nothing but the look on his face said what he was thinking. I advised my friend not to wear shirts with Bible verses on he couldn’t explain.

Our churches should be teaching the whys and all the background information concerning the teachings in the Bible. Children and youth need to be taught that Jesus had to die on a cross because He was the only sinless sacrifice who could. They need to know that the Bible teaches that sin entered the world when Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command and all that entails. They need to know that every person born following that is born with a sin nature except Jesus. They need to know that Romans chapter 3 tells us the following:

“No one is righteous—
not even one.
No one is truly wise;
no one is seeking God.
All have turned away;
all have become useless.
No one does good,
not a single one.”    Romans 3:10-12

We need Jesus because in our sin, we never seek after Him. We will continue to live in our sin satisfying the sin nature within us. The passage in Romans 3 continues:

For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.  Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.  For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood.     Romans 3:23-25

The answers are in the Bible. When you are asked why, there’s the answer. It’s the answer to why do we need Jesus. If local churches are not teaching the why and just the basic stories, they are cheating these students and adults. Feel good sermonettes might satisfy some who are in a hurry to get to lunch but they do nothing to feed the spirit and soul.

Every now and then, I read a few posts from an online Christian magazine. The magazine itself is not what I would classify as a really good Christian publication but I check it to see what the content is on any given day. After I read a post or article which is related to Christianity, I read the comments and they are, at times, more interesting than the main document which they are commenting on. The point here is that some of these comments made by Christians tell me that these people have not been or maybe never have, been reading the Bible or studying it. When I read a comment about Jesus appearing to them in a vision and giving them a message, that’s not happening. I don’t know who was appearing to this person (I have a good idea) but it wasn’t Jesus. Jesus told His disciples He was going to ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit and He did. We have the Holy Spirit with us to teach us, guide us and to even speak to us in our own private way.

I could probably continue to write pages on why we need to read and study the Bible and prepare our children to meet the unbelieving world around us. I have been in ministry in local churches which teach the why and the what and the who and every other part of context not just to the children but to the adults also. It’s called expositional Bible teaching and the process of expounding on every scripture in the Bible in the process of teaching through the Bible. Cute and feel-good sermons don’t do that. This method can be taught at every level in the church in a way that each level can understand it. And don’t ever use AI to prepare your lesson or teaching. It is something which has been happening in recent years. When a pastor or teacher at any level uses AI to prepare for them, it’s strictly a sign of laziness and apathy toward their service for Jesus.

I would suggest that if you are in a church that doesn’t teach the answers to the questions, find one that does. I’m not one to promote church hopping but I do advise when the local church is cheating the people out of good solid Bible teaching, move on. Remember, this doesn’t just apply to youth and children.

It applies to every Christian at every age level. We should all be able to give an answer as to why we are a Christian who follows Jesus.

Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it. But do this in a gentle and respectful way.    1 Peter 3:15-16

Don’t get caught not knowing the answer and also be able to detect when it’s not Biblical but some skeptical nonsense. And if you don’t know, then that’s your answer along with, “I will get the answer and let you know.” One last item to help explain the importance of this. I was doing an outreach on a city street which was the site of a craft fair. A friend and myself had set up a makeshift booth and were handing out the wordless gospel in the form of a keychain. I would ask if they wanted a keychain and when they accepted one, I would then take the opportunity to explain the different colored beads on the keychain. Of course, the different colors explained the gospel. One young man wanted to know if he could talk to me and I told he could. We sat down and he asked me why God would allow those planes to fly into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and a field in PA. I thought for a few seconds thinking of the words to use so he would understand. In so many words I explained that God is sovereign and He always has a purpose for everything He does. At the time, we don’t know exactly what His reason was but by faith, we accept it all happened because He allowed it to happen and maybe someday, we will know why.

I didn’t want to go too deep into God’s sovereignty and providence and basically confuse him without giving him the opportunity to grasp what I was saying and not lose him in a grand theological explanation. When I finished, he smiled and said, “Ok, I just wanted to see if you really knew what you were talking about.”

Be ready. This young man wasn’t being argumentative and actually seemed to be curious about what my answer would be. But you never know what the motive of the questioner really is. He actually did catch me by surprise but the Lord by His Holy Spirit kept me calm with the ability to give him his answer. Be ready and allow the Holy Spirit to bring back to your mind what you have learned by reading and studying the Bible.