Barry's Blog

A number of years ago, writer Philip Yancey alluded to the Southern novelist Walker Percy, who began his remarkable book, The Message in the Bottle, with a series of questions, six pages of questions in all, including the following: "Why does man feel so sad in the twentieth (or for us, the twenty-first) century? Why does man feel so bad in the very age when, more than in any other age, he has succeeded in satisfying his needs and making over the world for his own use?"

Percy continues, "Why is a man apt to feel bad in a good environment, say suburban Short Hills, New Jersey, on an ordinary Wednesday afternoon? Why is the same man apt to feel good in a very bad environment, say an old hotel on Key Largo during a hurricane?"

Yancey's article, following Percy's interrogative style, got me thinking about some of my own questions, many of which relate to faith, but others to just life in general. But all, without attempting any answers.

• Why do we, despite having more "time-saving" devices and technological advances than we could imagine, still lament that we are "too busy," and never have enough time? Why do we love diversion, entertainment, sports, and the "hustle-and-bustle" of life, but often dislike quiet and solitude? Why haven't things changed in the four hundred years since Pascal first made this observation?

• Why is it that  the more translations of the Bible we have, the less it is read?

• Why is it that only about 10 percent of the Bible (the Epistles) is written in a straightforward, didactic form, while the rest of the Bible relies more on indirect forms, such as poetry, history, and prophetic visions? Why are probably 90 percent of the sermons we hear preached in conservative, evangelical churches based on that 10 percent?

• Why do most of us look at financial wealth and prosperity as a blessing from the hand of God, while financial hardship or poverty is seen as a "testing" from God? Why does the Bible sometimes consider the former as a test, and the latter as a blessing?

• If Anna Karenina had had a cellphone on the train, would Tolstoy's novel have been 800 pages long?

• What in the world is the Book of Ecclesiastes doing in the Bible? Why do so few sermons get preached on Ecclesiastes? Why did Solomon, who displayed great wisdom in writing not only Ecclesiastes, but much of the Proverbs, spend the last years of his life breaking all the wisdom in the proverbs? 

• Why does a country like Sweden, with one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, also have a high suicide rate? Is there a connection? 

• What is the Song of Solomon doing in the Bible? Why is the Song of Solomon, alone of all Biblical books, interpreted allegorically when the Bible gives us little basis for an allegorical intent? How did a religion that includes a book like the Song of Solomon among its sacred writings ever get branded as an enemy of sex?

• If America is a "Christian" nation, how is it that the majority of its citizens cannot name the Ten Commandments, or the four Gospels?

• Why do sinners feels so attracted to Jesus, but so repulsed by the church?

• What did Jesus write on the ground when the woman caught in adultery (John 8) was brought before Him?

• Has anyone ever proposed an argument against a loving God that does not appear in some form in the Book of Job? Why is the Book of Job in the Bible? Why didn't God answer Job's questions? Why didn't Job seem to care?

• Why do so few Christians exhibit joy? Would a joyful person look more like Mother Teresa or Angelina Jolie?

• What did Aristotle mean when he observed, "Those who wish to succeed must ask the right preliminary questions."  (Metaphysics, II, (iii), i). What relevance does his question have for us?

• And one last question. If Jesus is the answer, then what's the question?

 For FinishingWell,

Barry Morrow