00- Preface
All The Questions In The Bible - By Category is not just a conversation starter; it is a book to help us learn from Biblical questions and allow them to challenge us to grow as Christians. My aim is not to provide any answers of my own to any of the Biblical questions highlighted in this work. Rather, my aim is to help you uncover the motive behind each question asked by seeking to understand the mind of the inquirer. As I have studied the questions in the Bible, I have begun to realize that the questions asked cover four main subjects – God, Satan, self or others. Identifying the subject of a question helps us to truly understand the motive of the questioner. Understanding the motive behind a question and the response it elicits in the Biblical context goes a long way to helping us to know how to respond to similar questions when they are directed at us in our everyday lives.
Let’s take the first two questions in the Bible as examples. Most of the fundamental truths in Christian theology hinge on understanding these two questions. The first is being asked by Satan - Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? (Genesis 3:1), and the second is asked by God after the Fall of Man - Where art thou? (Genesis 3:9). We see that Satan asks man a question that causes doubt and ultimately costs the latter his relationship with God. On the other hand, God asks man a question that addresses man’s position in relation to Himself. From this, we understand that Satan’s motive in asking man the first question in the bible was to cause the first man to disobey God. Thus, the wretchedness of man begins with his encounter with Satan in the garden which resulted in man started hiding from his Creator. Man disobeys God and when God came to fellowship with man, he was hiding.
Contrast this with God’s motive. When He asked the man "Where art thou?", He was looking for the lost to restore them to a sacred relationship with Him. Satan instigated man’s rebellion, but God cares for our restoration. He wishes that none should perish or be separated from Him forever.
Satan’s target is to take us from God and God’s focus is to restore us to Him. God’s motive for us is life whilst Satan’s motive is death. How revealing these two seemingly simple questions are! The motives behind Biblical questions still operate in ‘the real world’ today. Satan’s agenda is to create doubt between us and God therefore it should not surprise us that, inspired by him, anyone can ask us questions that have the same goal of driving a wedge between God and us. Any question that will make us doubt God’s provisional power for us is satanic. When a man is passing through troubles, he is inclined to question self and God, forgetting the role of Satan in his doubt. The principles learned from reading these questions are powerful and we need to understand them in order to navigate life as people in the world but not of the world. THE IMPORTANCE OF STUDYING THE QUESTIONS IN THE BIBLE
All The Questions In The Bible - By Category explores how questions highlight many issues and serve many purposes in the Bible and in our personal growth. In the New Testament, we find two incidents where the same angel, Gabriel, delivers messages to the aged Zacharias, telling him that he would father a son called John (later to become John The Baptist), and to Mary telling her that she would give birth to a child who would be called Jesus. Let’s compare the reactions to these surprising pieces of news, Zacharias in Luke 1:18 and Mary in Luke 1:34. They both ask angel Gabriel, similar questions but in very different ways. Zacharias says unto the angel, "Whereby shall I know this? for I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years" and Mary says unto the same angel, "How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?". In response, the angel shares more information with Mary. Zacharias however is rebuked. Why the difference in Gabriel’s response? The answer is motive. Mary responded with belief but needed more information whilst Zacharias was motivated by unbelief. Their different reactions solicited different responses.
Furthermore, we get to understand many doctrines in the Bible better when someone asks for clarity. For instance, the oftenquoted statement by Jesus, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" in John 14:6, is a response to a question Thomas asks Jesus in the previous verse (v.5). “Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?" (John 14:5). This "I am the way, the truth, and the life" statement helps us better understand the doctrine of salvation. It affirms that there is no other way to the Father except through Jesus Christ. This blessed doctrinal statement might not have been made without Thomas questioning Jesus about the way to the father. In another example, “And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” and “But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, and who is my neighbour?” The two questions the lawyer asks the Lord Jesus in Luke 10:25; Luke 10:29 help us understand who our neighbour truly is.
Questions and their answers go a long way to building our faith as Christians and I pray that this book challenges us to grow each day in belief. As mature Christians we should not be afraid of questions but see them as a way to grow in knowledge. If we approach questions in the Bible, questions from other believers and unbelievers, under the counsel of the Holy Spirit, we are sure to grow as Christians. No question is too hard for God.
CATEGORIES
I have listed all the questions in the Bible in categories to help us to learn how God, Satan, angels and others view humanity. There are 18 categories including Satan and Man, Jesus and God, Jesus and Man, Man and God, Man and Jesus, Man and Angel, Man and himself, Man and Man, God and angel, God and Satan, God and Man, Angel and Angel, Angel and Man, Animal and Man, Demon and Man, Demon and Jesus, Wisdom and Questions, and Rhetorical Questions. Studying and analyzing Bible questions according to these 18 categories helps us to uncover the motives of the inquirer.
Each category has its distinctiveness. So, for example, treat the question under the Jesus and God category as different to that of Man and God. The former speaks of the relationship between the ideal Man (Jesus) and His Father (God) while the latter expresses the relationship between man and his Creator.
APPLICATIONS
There are many ways we can enjoy All The Questions In The Bible - By Category. It can be used for personal or group study. As a personal study, we can take a question from any category, and study it in the setting of how it is asked in the Bible, read a few preceding and succeeding verses for contextual understanding. We can ask ourselves the following key questions: who is asking who this particular question? Who is the querier speaking for God, Satan, self or others? Is the question being posed about the past, present, or future? What is the inquirer’s motive for asking the question? Does the question receive any response? Gaining all this background information will help us understand more deeply the topic that the question seeks to address. This helps us to grow to maturity as Christians.
Let us return to the first question in the Bible which is between “Satan and man” Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?Genesis 3:1. Asking our key questions provides us with the following information. Satan is the inquirer, speaking to man on his own behalf. Satan’s question is about the past, based on what God had said to man. The purpose is to bring doubt into man’s current relationship with God, to separate him from God. This is an example of how to use this book of questions for personal study. For group study, the leader can choose a category and share a question from it with each member of the group who can then apply the personal study technique outlined above to it. All the participants can then come together to report on what has been learnt for the benefit of all those present.
Those of us who wish to do further indepth research into the nature of Biblical questions can further categorize them according to whether they are “who" questions of identification, “how" questions about process, “when" questions of time, “where" questions of location, “why" questions of motive, and “what" questions of target. There are over 200 how questions, 250 why questions, 500 what questions, 30 when questions, 70 where questions and 350 who questions. Over 1000 questions were asked for self (this includes God, Satan, Man, etc.), 700 for others, 100 for God, and 10 for Satan. No doubt there are many more things the reader will uncover in analyzing Biblical questions. I pray that your journey through the many questions in the Bible will be fun, inspiring and revealing providing direction for your study and growth.
STATISTICS This is a brief statistic of the KJV Bible questions. The complete list of questions in the KJV Bible version, from Genesis to revelation, is 3298 The Old Testament is 2274 and the New Testament is 1024.
According to the division of the books in the Old Testament.
Pentateuch (from Genesis to Deuteronomy) has 302 questions.
Historical (Joshua to Esther) has 715 questions.
Poetic (Job to the Song of Solomon) has 588 questions.
Major prophets (Isaiah to Daniel) have 494 questions.
Minor prophets (Hosea to Malachi) have 175 questions.
According to the division of the books in the New Testament.
Gospel (Matthew to John) has 630 questions.
Acts of the Apostles has 75 questions.
Epistles (Roman to Jude) has 310 questions.
Apocalypse has 9 questions.