Here are a series of answers to common questions taken from Dominic Steele's Introducing God book.  We use these answers in mission training because we are not sure about the copyright on other prepared answers.  We are giving the book away to people on mission.  You can order boxes of it here.

How do we know God is there?
Firstly, I know God is there because I speak to him every morning.  I have a sense of his love for me, of his guiding me through his word, and of his fatherly goodness towards me.  I also have the frequent experience of answered prayer – I ask him for things and he delights in answering my prayers.

Secondly, I know God is there because he made the world.  I am not prepared to accept that something as beautiful and complex as our world just came about by accident.  You and I are more than just ‘slime plus time’.

Thirdly, I know that God is there because he has revealed himself to us.  When God wanted to communicate with us - He came to earth personally in the birth of Jesus.  Jesus walked the planet, talked to people, dealt with their problems and helped them.  I could have met him personally, sat down and had a coffee with him – if only I hadn’t been late.  i.e. If I had been born 2000 years earlier and lived in Nazareth I could have played soccer with Jesus.

Jesus demonstrated the authority of God in all areas of life – over nature, sickness, death and evil.

Some say each of these incidents could have been illusions, fakes or that there have been other spiritual people who have managed to do similar things.

At this point I have looked to Jesus resurrection from the dead.  God’s raising of Jesus from the dead is a sign of breaking through the death barrier – or doing something that demands attention – that shows an authority greater than anything I have or have seen anywhere else.

The evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is strong, as the Apostle Paul records:

Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.   2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.   3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,   4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,   5 and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.   6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.   7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles,   8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. (1Corinthians 15:1-8)

That Paul made his claim public at a time when 500 people who could have contradicted it were alive is significant. And that his letter was regarded across the first century world as fact and not fiction – when those people were alive – I think gives it the ring of truth.

© Dominic Steele 2006, from 'Introducing God: Meeting the God who Loves Us' (Used with Permission)

Is there life after death?
I went to the funeral of an atheist. It was awful – there was no comfort.

She had climbed to the top of the legal profession – conquered everything there was to conquer in her professional life.  Realised life was empty and there was nothing more to live for that she wanted to achieve – so killed herself in an interstate hotel room.

There was no hope that could be offered to her family.  There was no hope of a reunion, of seeing her again.  There were just a few pessimistic poems, speeches about what a success she was and the finality of ‘she’s gone’.

The Bible presents a strong contrast.  We can know there is life beyond the grave, because there was life after death for Jesus.  Jesus resurrection is described as the ‘first fruits’ of the resurrection that we can experience.

Isn't a Christian just a good person, or someone who believes in God?
Susie Moroney is one of Australia's greatest long distance swimmers, yet even she could not save herself if it came to swimming across the ocean.

 Suppose a plane with you, me and Susie Moroney crashed in the middle of the ocean. I (who am not a great sportsman) might swim for an hour and then drown. You might swim for several hours and then drown. Susie might swim for several days and then drown. But none of us will be able to swim back to Australia. Left to our own efforts we will drown.

 Being good enough for God is like that. Some people are 'more good' than others. But in the end none of us are good enough for God. The offence to God of people like Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot and Stalin was massive (they were very poor swimmers). The Calcutta mission worker Mother Teresa was a good swimmer. You and I are probably somewhere in between . But in the end none of us is good enough to swim to the shore under our own efforts. None of us is good enough.

 Imagine the teenage girl who always does what her parents ask, keeps her room tidy, gets home on time, and even mows the lawn. She is the perfect 'good' daughter, except she never ever speaks to her parents. We arent 'bad' in the Hitler way. But so often we treat God like the teenage girl treated her parents. We do not respect him or relate to him as he wants to be related to. As the girl's parents are angry with the way their daughter treats them, so God is angry with the way we treat him.

 The daughter 'believes in her parents existence', she just won't relate to them. Likewise so many people 'believe in God's existence'. Believing in God, and being good are not in the end what God wants from us. He wants us to relate rightly to him, to respect him, speak to him, listen to him, obey him. When we don't do that, God rightly gets angry.

 No matter how good at swimming we are we won't be able to swim to Australia. Round the Word Yachtsman Toni Bullimore was in his overturned boat in the Atlantic Ocean expecting to drown when he was rescued by an Australian navy ship on the 9th of January 1997. Bullimore describes the feeling of seeing the ship as one of 'absolute unparalleled elation', a joy so pure that it actually hurt.

 Before God we are unable to rescue ourselves. We need to accept God's rescue mission. God so loved us that he send his son into the world - the man Jesus Christ. By dying in our place, Jesus took our punishment and bought forgiveness.

 The question for you is not do you believe in God, or are you a good person, but have you accepted God's rescuer - Jesus?

Do I have to go to church to be a Christian?
In the church I go to people usually don’t ask this question – because they want to go, so the question of ‘having to’ doesn’t really come up. 

Part of the problem is perception of church.  The word ‘church’ means ‘meeting’ or ‘gathering.’  So, what we do at our church is meet with God and each other.  We listen to Him speak to us through his word (then there’s a comment and question time), and we speak to Him by praying.  We also meet with each other – as his children – to encourage each other in our relationship with Him.  And we have a great time singing.

The environment is warm and friendly – and there’s great suppers afterwards.  I think most people who come think of it as a highlight time in their week.

The times that I don’t want to go to church though is when relationship is broken between me and God or between me and someone else at the church.  What has happened is either I have done something wrong to break the relationship or they have.  Either way the relationship needs fixing.

I think one of the great things about having a relationship with God is that we know that we aren’t perfect (that we have declared autonomy), that we do get things wrong, that there are going to be times when we need to apologise, and that there is forgiveness because of Jesus death.

I spoke at a church meeting a few months ago and afterwards a man came to apologize to me, and then I apologized to him.  Both of us had annoyed each other several years ago, and hadn’t seen each other since.  He said when I walked in the room he realised that he felt angry with me and wanted to fix it.

I was able to tell him about my feelings as well – and we both forgave each other and left united as brothers.

The unity that we have is a real unity of having fixed the problem – not a wallpaper unity of pretending.  And the problem is fixed in that Jesus has forgiven us and we can forgive each other.

In fact Jesus taught us to ask God to:
‘Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.’

And with a group who are relating like that – who wouldn’t want to go.

© Dominic Steele 2006, from 'Introducing God: Meeting the God who Loves Us' (Used with Permission)

Christians are a bunch of hypocrites, so why would I want to be one?
I am a hypocrite and a Christian and I still want to be one.  Well to be more accurate, I want to be a Christian, and in my better moments I don’t want to be a hypocrite, but I recongise that in my worse moments I am both a Christian and a hypocrite.

As someone who has a relationship with God, who understands that I have been forgiven because of Jesus death, and who is trying to live to please my Father, I don’t always get it right.

Our family was at a Caravan Park on holidays at Christmas Time, Catherine had had to go back home and it was half past ten at night on New Years Eve (the kids were asleep and I was outside the tent).  A drunk man came along and was challenged by a security guard.  They started running and he fell over our tent ropes.  There was swearing, a smashed beer bottle, and the security guard yelled for someone to call the police.

I asked the man from the caravan across the way to use my mobile to call the police (you could only get mobile reception from 100 meters up the road) and I didn’t want to leave my kids – with a security guard lying on top of a drunk a few inches from the edge of the tent, a broken bottle lying next to them – and the kids calling out frightened from inside the tent.

The man from across the way refused to take my phone saying he didn’t know how to use one, so I reluctantly ran up the road to make the call.

After the police arrived and took the man away, the kids were settled again, I lay in bed fuming, writing (in my mind) and rewriting my speech to give on new years day to the man from across the way about some helpful new years resolutions he could make about how to be a man.

But then I thought someone might invite him to Introducing God, and it might be hard to watch me on the video after I had made the speech I was writing.

It was a challenge.  I have to live consistently in my private life on holidays – when I am reacting to difficult situations when my kids are in potential danger – and not just when I am at work. (In the end I didn’t say anything).

This is the challenge that all God’s children face.  And some of us don’t do it very well.

For each Christian person – having come into relationship with God – the process begins of God changing them by his Spirit.  Some will fail spectacularly – a man I know has just cheated on his wife.

The genuine child of God – when there wrong is pointed out – will ask for forgiveness.  If they refuse to turn back to God and ask for forgiveness then that is probably a sign that all though they called themselves Christian, they were not really Christian.

However, before I was married, when I was in the phase of going out with girls trying to work out if she was the one that I wanted to end up with as a life partner, my first question to any potential girlfriend wasn’t ‘What are your brothers and sisters like?’ – my first question was ‘Do I want to have a relationship with you?’

Similarly, you may have met a rat who claims to be Christian, who would make a pretty awful brother.  My hope for them is that they would ask for forgiveness and turn back to God.  My hope for you is that you wouldn’t reject eternal relationship with God, because of someone’s poor behavior.

How can we know that the Bible is true?
At one level I know the Bible is true because in my experience the things the Bible says about me, God, my relationship with him, the damage I have done to that relationship, the forgiveness he offers me, the way God hears and answers my prayers, all ring true in my experience.

At another level I investigated the Bible’s factual reporting of historical events and found that they stacked up. 

With the New Testament (back section of the Bible focusing on Jesus) I discovered that the question of ‘Is it true?’ is really two questions:
•    Are the documents we have what was actually written by the original writers?
•    Did the original writers write what actually happened?
Are the documents we have what was actually written by the original writers?
Historians work out whether a copy of a document is reliable by posing two smaller questions.
They ask how much time was there between when the original was written and the oldest surviving copy?   They say the shorter the time - the more reliable the document.  Then they ask how many really ancient copies exist.  The more copies that there are in existence – the more credible the document.

The oldest copies we have of Thucydides history are from 1300 years after the original was dated, and there are only eight copies in existence.  The oldest copies of Caesar’s Gaelic war are from 850 years after the original and there are only ten copies in existence. The oldest copies of Tacitus’ history are from 700 years after the orginal and there are only two copies in existence.

There are copies of sections of the gospel of Matthew and John from the early second century – that’s only 50-80 years after the original was penned.  There are complete new testaments from around 350 AD. And Cambridge University’s Biblical studies department says the number of copies of the New Testament that were produced in the first thousand years after they were written numbers in the hundreds and thousands.

For the four gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John the evidence that ‘we have what was originally written’ is much much stronger than any of the comparable ancient historical accounts.

Did the original writers write what actually happened?
As a reporter I am persuaded that they did, because their accounts were circulating widely in the public domain when people who could have refuted their accounts were still alive.

For example at the 1998 Olympic Games in Seoul, I saw Grant Davies awarded a silver medal for Australia in the 1000 meters kayaking.

You could probably verify that Davies did win that medal by checking on the internet. 

What is less well known is that on the venue scoreboard at the end of the race it originally had Grant as having received the gold.  However when the officials checked the photo finish there had been an initial mistake and Grant was awarded the silver.  He had missed out on gold by 1/1000th of a second – the thickness of a business card. Grant said to us as we walked with him to the medal presentation: “I guess I’m going to think about that for the rest of my life, I guess I should have paddled faster”.

There, I have (in the last paragraph) put out a ‘version of events’ into the public domain about something that happened a long time ago.  But if this claim remains uncorrected in the second edition of this article you will have reason to be confident that it is accurate.

That I make the claim public at a time when there are others who are still alive who were also there, who could verify my claim – makes it much more likely that I am telling the truth.

The Apostle Paul writes of 500 people who had seen Jesus risen from the dead.  And he says explicitly that that at the time he wrote that claim down in his letter to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 15:1-6) most of the people who saw Jesus that day were still alive and could verify that claim.
If God is loving how can he send people to hell?
 The other side of this question is: 'If God is so just how can he accept anyone into heaven?' God reveals to us clearly two aspects of his character: his justice and his love.

God, because he is just, cannot say that our rebellion against him doesn't matter. All of us have offended him. We reject God's commands, which is a personal rejection of God.

When my daughter was two she jumped violently on the back of my then baby son, she offended my son but she also offended me. I have been clear with her that she is to be gentle with her little brother. In the same way, when we adults act against each other (in our sexuality misbehaviour, in our selfishness, in banging into each others cars without owning up) we offend another person, but we also offend God.

Our rejection of God's commands is a symptom of our personal rejection of God. God has been clear how he wants me to live and how he wants me to relate to him. When I go astray I am actually saying to God, "God, I do not accept you as God of my life - I am the ruler - please go away and leave me alone."

God cannot just say to Hitler that it doesn't matter and sweep Hitler's offence under the carpet. And God (because of his justice) can't say that my offence doesn't matter, for my offence may be of a different degree - but its antisocial nature is the same.

God in his justice gives us what we ask for. Eternity without him. 'Hell' is not the popularly conceived 'goblins at the end of the garden', but rather is eternal loneliness ... as God withdraws relationship from us.

The greatness of the Bible message is that God is not only just, but loving. In the moment of the death of Jesus, the love of God and the justice of God meet. In his last moments on the cross, Jesus cries out in anguish to the Father, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" The answer is that God so loved us, that he has abandoned Jesus (sent him to hell) to pay the price of our rebellion, so that God could in his love accept us, and yet maintain his justice (and not say that our offence does not matter).

We must accept God's justice, the question is: Will you accept God's love ... and thank him for Jesus death on your behalf?

What about other religions?
I don’t function fast in the mornings.  While I was having a shower, my little boy swung his arm around in the kitchen, hit the coffee cup that Catherine was carrying across the room to get the mild, and scaled his arm very badly.  Catherine raced him into the shower with me and told me to turn off the hot tap.

After a few minutes I realised he needed to be in the cold shower – not me, so I got out of the shower.  Then I put him in a cold bath.  It was freezing – his little face poking up through the water – but I was determined that he would stay under the cold water – because burns recover better if they have cold water put on them for 20 minutes.  He was wimpering, shivering, freezing – pleading to get out – and I ruled against him – ‘Stay in the water’.  But I did it for Solomon’s good.  It hurts to have an obedient boy make a reasonable plea, and to be a father who rules against your son.
If there had been any other way I would have found it.

On the night before he was killed, Jesus, with tears, begged his father not to have to go through with his death,

Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will." (Matthew 26:39)

I felt with Solomon in the bath that day, I just had the smallest glimpse into the father’s heart, as he looked down from heaven, as his obedient boy made a reasonable plea, and to be a father who rules against your son.

But what struck me was ‘What father would kill his son – if there had been any other way?’  Only a thug of a father.  Only a cruel barbaric father.

But that is not the Father God of the Bible.  The Father we meet in the Bible is a Father who loves and delights in his son. 

What I have come to see is that there was no other way of me being forgiven other than for the son to take the punishment that should have been directed at me.

And the problem with other religions is that they ultimately are suggesting other ways.  If you look closely at every other religion other than ‘Biblical Christianity’, then you will see that essentially they are saying ‘We do things to make ourselves acceptable to God’, where as God (in the Bible is saying) is saying ‘I sent my son to die so you could be acceptable to me.’

When God went to the extent of sending his son to die, any other proposed route to God is an insult to him and his son.  To propose another way is to say either ‘the death of your son was not enough,’ or ‘I have a better idea’.  Either way they are salt into the wounds of the death of Jesus.

What about those who haven't heard of Jesus?
Our friends had a baby who died at birth.  Their baby never had a chance to hear about Jesus.  Or what about the baby who dies at four months old?  Or the child who grows up in a country where the name of Jesus is not known. 

I do know is that God’s character is to be just and loving – and so I take it that in all areas God will treat every person in a way that is fair and loving – based (I think) on what they could know.

However, for most of my friends – they have heard of Jesus – and yet some I think choose not to find out more.  There are two public holidays each year to mark his birth, one to mark his death, and one to mark his resurrection.

We who have celebrated those public holidays have a greater onus on us to find out about Jesus and there will be a greater level of responsibility.

I offered to give a friend the other day a set of the Introducing God DVD’s – he said ‘No thanks.’ Now, this may sound strong, but I don’t think would be unfair of God for him to be judged more harshly than the baby who was never offered that opportunity.
If God is good, why is there so much suffering and evil in the world?
Sometimes it’s directly clear.  Someone speeds or drives irresponsibly, and so have a car accident and they or someone else are injured.  Or someone is greedy so someone else goes hungry. 

But sometimes it just isn’t clear at all.  Someone is born with a mental or physical illness.  The most faithful person who battles with depression and eventually suicides.  Or the little girl who is struck down with cancer.

The startling thing about the Bible story is that there was no suffering and evil in the garden (on the first page) and there will be no suffering and evil in heaven (on the last page.

We are told that suffering is introduced because we declare autonomy. 

Sometimes the suffering comes as a direct result of our autonomy (we speed, then we crash, we are injured).  In fact every time we suffer I think it is reasonable to ask the question ‘Why God is there something that I have done to directly cause this problem?) 

But sometimes the suffering has no direct cause. It is just part of the general punishment on the world for it’s rebellion against God.  Work is difficult, there are thorns and thistles in the garden, the hard disk on the computer crashes, childbirth is painful, raising children is not straight forward, even the best marriages have tensions.  There’s cancer, broken hips and depression.  These are all consequences of our decision as a race to declare autonomy.

When my wife Catherine was very sick, she and I over months turned in dependence back to God in ways that we hadn’t before. 

Someone hurt me very badly last year.  It took me months to be prepared to forgive them.  But the process took me on a journey where I understood God’s character much much more deeply.

I am still not sure that I would be prepared to say that I am glad that Catherine was sick or that the person hurt me.  But I can see that God has worked good in our lives through those things – and that I certainly am less arrogant, less self assured, more humble, more dependent and trusting in God.

When a teacher was shot dead in a shopping center near us, one of his students wrote a poem or prayer that was published in the newspaper, pointing out that we can call out to God in the midst of suffering – because God understands suffering – because his son suffered.

The pain that Jesus went through was physical pain (he was flogged and had nails belted into his wrists), but much more than that it was relational pain.  Jesus’ Father who loved him turned his back on him.

Jesus went through that pain, taking the pain/punshiment that we deserved for our declaration of autonomy – so that we could be forgiven and ultimately enter into the new heaven – where there will be no suffering, pain, crying or tears.

Some days – it seems so painful I cry out to God to bring that world today, other days, I say ‘Wait Lord, there’s another friend I want to be introduced to you – so they can live with you in a pain free existence for ever in heaven.’

© Dominic Steele 2006, from 'Introducing God: Meeting the God who Loves Us' (Used with Permission)