Bible questions expand thinking
Herald-Leader Online | March 11,
2006 | by Paul
Prather
Former
Herald-Leader religion writer Paul Prather is a Mount Sterling minister and the
author of three
books.
Rev. Prather
was a regular in the "Faith and Values" section of our local paper. I think
this column reflects the real intellectual hunger of persons who claim Christian
faith and how one pastor joined the journey. Do questions like these mean that
mainline Christianity might be making a come back or are we still in an
anti-intellectual phase?
At
the
church
where
I'm
pastor,
we
have
a
Bible
study
class
for
adults
that
meets
Wednesday
evenings.
About
a
dozen
to
20
of
us
pull
our
chairs
into
a
circle
and
spend
an
hour
or
more
examining
the
Scriptures.As
we
finished
the
last
segment
of
a
long
study
of
Romans,
I
asked
the
group
what
biblical
book
they'd
like
to
tackle
next.
One
member
suggested
we
do
things
a
bit
differently."I've
got
a
lot
of
questions
about
the
Bible,
and
about
God,"
she
said.
"Why
don't
we
all
write
down
the
questions
we
really
wonder
about --
that
nobody
ever
answers?
Then
we'll
discuss
those."
The
idea
caught
on.
The
group
brainstormed
enough
questions
to
fill
up
a
page
of
a
yellow
legal
pad.
For
over
a
month
now,
we've
been
working
our
way
through
the
list.I
announce
at
each
Wednesday's
session
what
the
following
week's
topic
will
be.
Some
folks
arrive
at
the
next
class
carrying
treatises
they've
downloaded
off
the
Internet
or
Bible
citations
they've
looked
up
in
concordances.
Nearly
everybody
has
an
opinion
about
every
topic.
Often
we
strongly --
yet
always
amiably --
disagree.
It's
nearly
impossible
to
hold
the
discussion
to
the
class's
time
limit.click here
to
read
the
entire
column
Filed Sat - March 11, 2006, 11:10 AM in
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