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41 questions answered so far, each in theological review. If yours is not among them, the search will say so plainly, and it joins the list we work from.
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Ten categories, every answered question filed under one of them, each page leading on to the next question.
God & the TrinityWho God is, what he is like, and how Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one God.3 answeredJesusWho Jesus is, what he claimed, and why his death and birth matter.5 answeredThe Holy SpiritWho the Holy Spirit is, what he does, and when he comes to a believer.3 answeredScripture & How We Got ItWhere the Bible came from, which books belong in it, and whether the text can be trusted.8 answeredSalvation & the GospelWhat the good news is, how a person is saved, and what faith and repentance mean.5 answeredPrayerHow to pray, why pray at all, and what to make of prayers that seem unanswered.3 answeredThe Church & Christian LifeWhat the church is, what baptism and the Lord's Supper mean, and why gathering matters.4 answeredOther Beliefs & ReligionsOther faiths and movements stated fairly, in their own terms, and answered from Scripture.3 answeredSuffering, Evil & Hard QuestionsPain, death, hell, and the questions people ask when life hurts.4 answeredBible People & HistoryThe men and women of Scripture, and the history behind the text.3 answered
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God & the Trinity
Who God is, what he is like, and how Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one God.
- 1Does God exist?Yes. Christians do not believe in God as a guess to fill a gap. We believe because the world he made shows his power and nature, and because he has spoken, first through the prophets and then in his Son. The question is not really whether there is evidence, but whether we will treat the evidence as what it is.
- 2What is the Trinity?The Trinity is the Christian confession that there is one God, and that this one God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three persons, each fully God, equal in power and glory. The word itself is not in the Bible. The reality is taught everywhere in it, and the church forged the word to protect what the Bible says from being flattened in either direction.
- 3What is God like?God is spirit, eternal, unchanging, all powerful, holy, just, good, and true. And he is love. Scripture gives his character in his own words and deeds rather than in our guesses: he is the I AM who always is, the Maker who never tires, and the Father who so loved the world that he gave his Son.
Jesus
Who Jesus is, what he claimed, and why his death and birth matter.
- 1Is Jesus God?Yes. The New Testament calls Jesus God in plain words, shows him doing what only God does, and records him receiving the worship that belongs to God alone. That is why the church at Nicaea confessed him as very God of very God, of one substance with the Father, and why Chalcedon confessed him as truly God and truly man in one person.
- 2Did Jesus claim to be God?Yes, though usually in the language of his own Scriptures rather than in a slogan. He took God's own name, I AM, onto his lips, claimed oneness with the Father, forgave sins, and accepted worship. His hearers understood the claims clearly enough: the charge they brought against him, again and again, was blasphemy.
- 3Why did Jesus have to die?Because sin is real, God is holy, and forgiveness is not the same as pretending. Isaiah said the Servant would be pierced for our transgressions and bear our iniquities. Paul says God proved his love in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The cross is where God's justice and God's love meet without either one being set aside.
- 4Was Jesus born of a virgin?Yes, according to the Gospels and the prophecy they quote. Isaiah promised a sign: the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son called Immanuel, God with us. Matthew records that Mary was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit before she and Joseph came together, and the church has confessed it ever since in both its great creeds.
- 5Did Jesus rise from the dead?Answered in 30 seconds, 3 minutes and a deep dive.
The Holy Spirit
Who the Holy Spirit is, what he does, and when he comes to a believer.
- 1Who is the Holy Spirit?The Holy Spirit is God himself, the third person of the Trinity, not a force, a feeling, or God's power in the abstract. He is there at creation, hovering over the waters. He speaks, teaches, and can be lied to, and when Peter confronts Ananias he says the lie told to the Holy Spirit was a lie told to God.
- 2What does the Holy Spirit do?He convicts the world of sin, guides believers into the truth, teaches and reminds them of Jesus's words, and produces a different kind of life in them: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. His work always points to Jesus rather than to himself, and its fruit shows up in character, not in show.
- 3When do Christians receive the Holy Spirit?At conversion, when a person hears the gospel and believes. Paul tells the Ephesians that in Christ, having heard and believed the word of truth, they were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. The Spirit is not a second stage reserved for a spiritual elite. He is the seal of everyone who belongs to Jesus.
Scripture & How We Got It
Where the Bible came from, which books belong in it, and whether the text can be trusted.
- 1Did a council choose the books of the Bible?No. No council sat down and picked the winners. The books were recognised, not selected: the churches received writings that carried the authority of the prophets and apostles, used them for generations, and the later lists and councils named what was already received. The section of this site called How We Got the Bible works through the documents one by one.
- 2Why does the Bible have 66 books?Because those are the books the people of God recognised as carrying his authority: the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms that Jesus himself named, and the writings of his apostles. Thirty nine books of the Old Testament and twenty seven of the New. The number was never a target. It is simply the shape of what was received.
- 3Why isn't the Gospel of Thomas in the Bible?Because the churches that received the apostles' writings did not receive it. It is a later collection of sayings attributed to Jesus, with no narrative, no cross, and no resurrection, and parts of it teach a view of salvation by secret knowledge that contradicts the apostolic gospel. It was known in the ancient world and set aside on exactly those grounds.
- 4Has the Bible been changed over the centuries?The text has been copied by hand for centuries, and copyists' slips exist and are openly catalogued. But the message has not been rewritten. We hold manuscripts far older than the printed texts, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, and they show a text transmitted with remarkable care. Isaiah's promise stands: the word of our God stands forever.
- 5Who wrote the Bible?People did, and God did, and the Bible insists on both. On the human side it has many authors across many centuries, from Moses to John. On the divine side, Peter says men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, and Paul calls all Scripture God-breathed. Real writers, real styles, one intention behind them.
- 6How do we know the Bible is God's word?Because the Bible claims it, Jesus treated it that way, and the evidence we can test supports taking the claim seriously. Paul calls all Scripture God-breathed. Jesus said the Scripture cannot be broken, and argued his whole mission out of the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. Christians receive the Bible as God's word on the testimony of the God-man who rose from the dead.
- 7What are the Dead Sea Scrolls?They are a library of ancient Jewish scrolls, copied between the third century BCE and the first century CE and hidden in caves by the Dead Sea, where they were found again from 1947. Among them are the oldest known copies of the Hebrew Bible, including a complete Isaiah scroll from about 125 BCE, and they show that the text was copied with great care across a thousand years.
- 8Why do Catholic Bibles have more books?Because the Roman Catholic Church counts an extra group of ancient Jewish writings, the deuterocanonical books, as Scripture, and Protestant churches follow the shorter Hebrew canon that Jesus and the apostles used. The books themselves are old and were widely read. The disagreement is about their authority, and it was fixed formally at the Council of Trent in 1546.
Salvation & the Gospel
What the good news is, how a person is saved, and what faith and repentance mean.
- 1What is the gospel?The gospel is the good news of what God has done in Jesus Christ: he died for our sins according to the Scriptures, he was buried, and he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. It is news before it is advice: a death that pays for sin, a resurrection that proves it, and a living Lord who is to be confessed, believed, and followed.
- 2How can I be saved?By grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and not by anything you contribute. Ephesians says it outright: it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. To be saved is to turn from your sin, confess Jesus as Lord, and trust that God raised him from the dead for you. The rest of your life is learning to live from that gift.
- 3Can a Christian lose their salvation?Christians have answered this question two ways for centuries, and this page will not pretend otherwise. What Scripture states without qualification is the keeping power of Christ: his sheep will never perish, and no one can snatch them from his hand. It also gives sober warnings to those who turn away. How those fit together is where faithful churches differ, and both readings are set out here fairly.
- 4What is repentance?Repentance is a change of mind about sin and about God that turns into a change of direction. Peter's command joins both halves: repent and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped away. It is more than feeling sorry, which can evaporate by morning. It is agreeing with God about your sin, grieving it, and leaving it, trusting the mercy that meets you on the way back.
- 5What is faith?Faith is trusting God's word and God's Son with your whole weight. Hebrews defines it as the assurance of what we hope for and the certainty of what we do not see. It is not believing without evidence, and it is not mere agreement that something is true. It is the hand that receives what grace gives.
Prayer
How to pray, why pray at all, and what to make of prayers that seem unanswered.
- 1Why doesn't God answer my prayer?Sometimes he has answered, and the answer was no, or not yet; sometimes our own refusal to listen or obey blocks the conversation; and sometimes heaven is silent for reasons we are not given, as it was for Paul and, in Gethsemane and on the cross, for Jesus himself. What Scripture never teaches is that unanswered prayer means an absent God, and the same Bible that records the silences commands us to keep asking, seeking, and knocking. Bring the unanswered prayer itself to him. That too is prayer.
- 2How should I pray?Simply, honestly, and to the Father, in the pattern Jesus gave. His own prayer starts with God's name, kingdom, and will, and only then asks for daily bread, forgiveness, and protection. Prayer is not a performance or a formula. It is talking to a Father who sees in secret, at whatever length the moment actually needs.
- 3Why pray if God already knows everything?Because prayer was never mainly about informing God. Jesus says the Father knows our needs before we ask, and in the same breath teaches us to ask, because prayer is how children speak to a Father, how our wills are bent toward his, and one of the means he has chosen for doing his work in the world. A wise father who knows what his child needs still wants the child to come and ask. So does God.
The Church & Christian Life
What the church is, what baptism and the Lord's Supper mean, and why gathering matters.
- 1Why should I go to church?Because the Christian faith was never designed to be lived alone, and the Bible says so in terms of habit and health, not preference. The first believers devoted themselves to teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer, together. Hebrews warns against neglecting to meet, not because God needs attendance figures, but because encouragement needs a room, a table, and other people.
- 2What is baptism?Baptism is the sign Christ gave his church of washing, burial, and resurrection. In it a believer is plunged under water and raised again, picturing what Paul describes: buried with Christ through baptism into death, raised to walk in newness of life. It is done in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and it marks a person as Christ's before the watching world.
- 3What is the Lord's Supper?It is the meal Jesus gave his church on the night he was betrayed: bread broken as his body given for us, a cup taken as the new covenant in his blood, eaten and drunk together in remembrance of him until he returns. Paul hands it on as something he received from the Lord, and the first church devoted itself to the breaking of bread as it did to teaching and prayer.
- 4What is the church?The church is the people of God, not a building, a brand, or an audience. Jesus called it my church, promised to build it himself, and the first picture of it is a community devoted to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. If you belong to Christ, you already belong to his church. The local congregation is where that belonging takes flesh.
Other Beliefs & Religions
Other faiths and movements stated fairly, in their own terms, and answered from Scripture.
- 1Do all religions lead to God?No, and the reason is not tribal loyalty: the faiths contradict each other about God, sin, and salvation, so they cannot all be roads to the same place. More decisively, Jesus did not present himself as one guide among many, saying, I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me. Christians can respect their neighbours of other faiths, and should, without pretending the differences are small.
- 2Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God?In one sense yes, and in the decisive sense no: both faiths worship the one Creator, the God of Abraham, and reject every idol, but Christianity's whole claim is that this God has made himself known in his Son, and Islam denies that Jesus is God's Son or that he was crucified. John states the test plainly: whoever denies the Son does not have the Father. The God is one, but the knowledge of him is not the same.
- 3What do Jehovah's Witnesses believe?Jehovah's Witnesses share a great deal of Christian vocabulary and moral teaching, and differ at the centre. They teach that Jesus is a created being, God's first work, who was the archangel Michael before his earthly life, and that the Holy Spirit is God's impersonal active force rather than a person. The historic church, by contrast, confesses Jesus as God of God in the Nicene Creed, and it is on his identity that the two faiths divide.
Suffering, Evil & Hard Questions
Pain, death, hell, and the questions people ask when life hurts.
- 1Why does God allow suffering?The Bible does not give one reason for every instance, and anyone who offers you one is overselling. It does give a frame: the world is fallen and groaning, human evil does real damage, God is patient toward a world he intends to judge and remake, and in the meantime he has entered the suffering himself in Jesus Christ. The final answer is not an explanation but an ending: a day when he wipes away every tear.
- 2Where is God when it hurts?With you, is the Bible's answer, though rarely in the way we would have scripted. God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble, says the psalm, written out of trouble, not about it. And in Christ he has not watched suffering from outside it. The God of the cross knows the inside of pain, and his invitation to the weary is rest, not explanations.
- 3What happens when we die?The Bible says we die once, and after that face judgment. For those who trust Christ, death is not the end or a long unconscious wait: Jesus told the dying thief, today you will be with me in Paradise. Beyond that lies what the whole story leans toward, resurrection of the body and a renewed world where death itself is finished.
- 4How can a loving God send anyone to hell?It is the hardest question in this section, and the Bible does not dodge it. The same book that calls God love also records Jesus warning of eternal punishment, in the same sentence as eternal life. The Christian answer holds both: God's love is proved at the cross, where he bore the cost of sin himself, and his justice means that persistent, final refusal of him is not overridden. Hell, in the Bible's terms, is separation from God finally granted to those who demand it.
Bible People & History
The men and women of Scripture, and the history behind the text.
- 1Who was Moses?Moses was the Hebrew prophet who led Israel out of slavery in Egypt, received the Law of God at Mount Sinai, and led the people through forty years in the wilderness to the edge of the promised land. The Bible's verdict on him is unmatched for an Old Testament figure: no prophet has arisen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face.
- 2Who was Paul?Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles: a Pharisee who persecuted the church, met the risen Jesus on the Damascus road, and spent the rest of his life planting churches around the Roman world and writing the letters that fill much of the New Testament. No other figure explains how a crucified Jewish Messiah came to be worshipped from Jerusalem to Rome within one generation.
- 3Was Jesus a real person?Yes. Whatever a person concludes about his claims, the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth is confirmed by sources outside the Bible, including one that hated his followers. The Roman historian Tacitus records that Christus suffered the death penalty under Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius, and the Jewish historian Josephus wrote about him within the same century. The debate worth having is not whether he lived, but who he was.
Review status: in-theological-review. Every Contend page passes a human theological review against the Statement of Faith before it is published as approved teaching. This section is in that queue.