Marriage, A Gift from God

Do animals also enjoy the gift of marriage or is the gift restricted to humans?

Lo Tov (Not Good)

1. Why do you think God did not create Eve at the same time as Adam, like He did for the animals?
2. Are those who remain single for life not fulfilling God's purpose?
3. Why did God have Adam name the animals? Is there any significance in Adam naming Eve?

A Companion for Adam

1. Was there any difference in Adam before the rib was removed and after?  Was the rib literal or symbolic or both?
2. What is it that attracts one male to a particular female more than to others?

Ideal Marriage

1. Why are so many marriages failing?  What are the most important factors that keep a couple together?  Is it Christianity?
2. If a spouse is not getting along with the parents-in-law, who comes first and why?
3. Why does the Bible have a poem on the ideal wife (Prov 31), and not for the ideal husband?

Protecting What's Precious

1. How important to a happy marriage is virginity at the time of the wedding? 
2. What was Jesus' attitude to adulterers, and to adultery?
3. What are the important factors in restoring a relationship marred by adultery?

Marriage as a Metaphor for the Church

1. In the Bible which is more serious, the unfaithfulness of a woman or that of a man? Why do you think this is so?
2. Does God expect us to love Him like we love a spouse?

Jesus, Provider and Sustainer

The Sustainer

1. On a scale of 1-10 how involved do you think God actually has to be to keep this world running?  How involved does He seem to be in reality?
2. If God is fully in control of our world how free am I to make my own choices?
3. How open is God to my freedom of choice in the light of His knowledge of the future?

The Generous Provider

1. If you were Adam or Eve what more would you have asked God for? 
2. If God is such a generous provider why do we have to keep asking Him for our needs and wants?
3. Why do people make their dogs do tricks before giving them food?

Natural Evil

1. How free is Satan to cause tsunamis and drought, etc., that kill humans?
2. Does Satan get permission from God for all his actions like in the book of Job?
3. What is the book of Job trying to teach us about God and Satan?

Governing a Damaged Creation

1. Are we more useful to Satan dead or alive?
2. Does God sanction each spell of rain? What about the storms?
3. What do we mean by the statement that "even the winds and the waves obey Him?"
4. Does God work His miracles within the laws of nature or not?

Provider for a Damaged Creation

1. What do you think prompted God to provide Adam and Eve their first durable clothes?
2. Are we more important to God than a sparrow is?
3. Does God want us to have just our basic need or does he wish us to be prosperous?

Through a Glass, Darkly

Job's friends illustrated from nature that life had order and justice.  Job argued that creatures would deny that life had order and justice.  Who was right? Would creatures state that God/life was just or unjust?

The Earth is the Lord's

1. What claim does Satan have to this earth? If any, how valid is that?
2. Who has a stronger claim to ownership of this earth, God, for creating us, or Satan because we humans choose to side with him?   

A Fallen World 

1. Was God's curse on this earth active or passive? Did God wreak havoc on the earth or did He just allow sin to take it's effect?
2. Can Satan do what he wants on this earth or is he restricted in any way by God? 
3. How involved was God in landscaping the earth after the flood? Did He merely allow things to grow as they happened to, or did He supervise regrowth?
4. What remnants of God's handiwork in nature survive?  

The Ruler of This World

1. If as the book of Job suggests, Satan was the representative of this earth, how much access did God have to this earth and its creatures? 
2. After the cross, did God reclaim any further control of this earth?  Why did God not resume full control of this world then? 
3. Does Satan have power to heal?  

The "Wisdom" of the World

1. What is the difference between knowledge, understanding, and wisdom? 
2. If there is a geo-scientific explanation for some miracles of the Bible, such as the sun standing still, the parting of the Red Sea and that of the Jordan, would that render those events as non-miraculous?  

Through the Eye of Faith

1. Can faith heal? Can doubt prevent one from getting well even though one takes the same treatment as that which makes another well?  Do placebos work?  Why or why not?
2. To what extent can we rely on faith and at what point does one need some evidence before committing one's self?

Creation and the Fall

The Serpent Was More Cunning

1. What do you think of this statement "To explain the origin of evil is to excuse it?"

2. What was right with what the serpent told Eve: (1) that she would not die, (2) that they would understand good and evil like God? What was wrong with what the serpent said?

The Woman and the Serpent

1. Why do you think Eve exaggerated what God's instructions were, adding that they should not even touch the fruit which God had not said?

2. Is it wrong to be more strict than the Bible requires?

Deceived by the Evidence

1. At what point had Eve sinned—when she took the fruit, when she ate it, or even earlier when she decided she would eat it?

2. What do you think made Eve observe that the fruit was "good for food?"

3. What do you think made Eve think that the fruit was pleasant to the eyes?

4. What do you think of Mark Twain's statement that God made a mistake in forbidding Adam and Eve to eat the fruit; instead He should have forbidden them to eat the serpent?

5.    What was the necessity of having a test for humans?

Grace and Judgement in Eden

1. Was God more willing to save Adam and Eve than He was to save all the fallen angels whom Satan misled?  Why or why not?

2. Whose sin was worse, Eve who was deceived by the serpent or Adam who sinned knowingly?

3. What difference does it make to Adam and Eve whether the promise of salvation was given before or after the curse was given?

4. Does “grace” imply that the requirements of the law were too severe?

More Questions

1. Why do you think God made it necessary for humans to eat? Couldn't He have just programmed our bodies to last about 70 years?

2. What do you think of the saying, "Your body knows what it needs?" How reliable a guide is appetite, feeling, and desire?