Questions and Answers

"King Jesus"

By: Lindsey

When I was little my dad used to read a Bible story to Allison, Betsy and I and then he’d have us draw a picture about it. (Okay, we may have only done this three times!) But I loved it!

These fond memories inspired me to do the same for my little siblings. I do it a little different but I’m the “Bible Lesson” lady. Whenever I’m left in charge of the kids, one of them always asks me, “Are we doing a Bible lesson?” or “Can we watch a Bible show?”

I don’t do the lessons as often as I’d like, but I love it when I do it and I enjoy watching animated Bible videos with the kids. I love seeing their interest in the Word.

With all these lessons comes a LOT of questions. Questions I’d love to answer, but even with all my own personal studying of the Word, genealogies, timelines, there are still some questions the Bible just doesn’t answer.

“Was Pilot nice?” Hmmm… what should I say? He wasn’t extremely nice seeing as he let them crucify Jesus. But Jesus had to die on the cross so, he was just sort of in the wrong place at the wrong time… and he didn’t really want to kill Jesus. Hmmm…

“Ummm… kind of,”

Today we watched the animated Bible show about Jesus dieing on the cross. In one scene, Mary comes and pours her expensive spikenard over Jesus, saying He needs to be “anointed”

“What does anointed mean?”
Ummm… hmmm… Any answer I give she won’t understand and I’ll just dig myself deeper into questions. Hmmm… maybe if I don’t say anything she won’t ask again!

In another scene a disciple runs into the room and announces, “Judas has killed himself!” Oh boy.

The inevitable question: “What does that mean?”

“Ummm… he died,”

The second inevitable question: “How?”

Gulp, “Ummm…he fell down in a field and his guts spilled out,” (Acts 1:18)

“What?”

“His guts spilled out,”

“What’s guts?”

“His insides, all his insides just sort of spilled out,”

I always knew the Bible was a little gory but I didn’t realize the full extent until I started to teach it to kids. I’m glad the Bible isn’t very detailed for its full of sexual sin and people getting slain! No wonder they only teach you about Noah’s ark and such when you’re a kid. Don’t pick on those flannel board Sunday school teachers until you’ve tried it yourself!

Then after the show they were looking at the cover of the show about Jesus' resurrection and Lindsey asked of the picture.

“Why is He [Jesus] wearing this different outfit?”

Uh…well, yeah hey! What was Jesus wearing when he came out of the tomb?

“I don’t know. I don’t know what He was wearing.”

Some of their questions leave me struggling to find an answer they will understand while others have me simply saying:

“I don’t know, ask Jesus.”

Yet even though, I rarely feel like I have a "good" answer for their many questions, I find their curiosity poking at my own mind to think differently.

“Was Pilot nice? Did he ever change?”

“What about the servant of the high priest who got his ear cut off in the garden at the arrest?” (Luke 22:49-51) “What happened to him? The Man you came to arrest heals your ear and rebukes the man who cut it off?”

“What about the soldiers at the crucifixion? What did they think when the whole world shook at Jesus death?” (Matthew 27:54)

“What about those in the temple when the veil was ripped?” (Matthew 27:51)

“And what about all those who came out of their graves? The Bible has two verses about it and that’s it!” (Matthew 27:52-53)

I've found that sometimes the things the Bible doesn’t say, speaks louder than the things it does say. May we never get so used to these precious words that we miss all that can be learned between the lines in the unanswered questions.