In Latest Book, Author Andrew Farley Answers Questions Most Pastors Won't Touch

A quick question to begin the new year. Have you ever sat in a pew on a Sunday morning and muttered to yourself, “This pastor is making absolutely no sense in his sermon. I have to believe some sins are unforgivable and we can lose our salvation!”

I think if we are being honest, we have all been there. It seems like there are a lot of questions about Christianity we would like to ask but for whatever reason it might be better to just remain silent. Our rationale seems justified: 

• My pastor will think I am dumb. 
• I’m probably the only person who thinks this way.
• If I bring up this particular topic it will probably wreck my marriage.

In his latest book, 101 Bible Questions: And the Surprising Answers You May Not Hear in Church, author and radio host Andrew Farley seeks to provide answers to the hard, seemingly taboo questions about Christianity, ones that often ruffle even the most experienced and seasoned pastors.

I recently sat down with Farley to discuss his radical outlook on the nature of God, why it’s important to ask difficult questions about Christianity, and the most puzzling Biblical question he has ever answered.

You're a pastor, a radio host, an author, you certainly wear a lot of hats. Is there any one of these areas that is your favorite?

I would definitely say the radio broadcast because it is basically every day. We are on six days a week, we're answering questions on the fly, and we never know what we're going to get. People call in and ask about a Bible verse or a personal struggle, something that is going on in their lives that they've never talked to anybody about. Suicidal thoughts, a marriage that's a wreck. We get questions from all over the world, and we have just a few seconds to prepare our response. So, it's a real thrill, and I love helping people.

If you were trying to convince a friend or family member to pick up a copy of 101 Bible Questions, what would you say to them? What would your sales pitch be?

A lot of people offer Bible answers and Bible questions with answers, but our subtitle of this book is, And the Surprising Answers That You May Never Hear in Church. What we're saying there is, sometimes the Gospel is a little bit better than we ever imagined. The love of God is a little bigger. The grace of God is a little more unconditional than we imagined. And so, we're really wanting to point people to the love, grace, and forgiveness of God. So they're asking questions like, can I lose my salvation? They're asking questions like will I be judged for my sins? Jesus said, “I have to answer for every idle word.” But I thought my sins were forgiven? What if my relative committed suicide and they were a believer? Are they in heaven now or did they commit the unpardonable sin? These are real rubber meets the road types of questions where people are hurting and they need answers. That's what this book is all about.

For every author/writer there always seems to be a point in time, a trigger, a tipping point where you say to yourself, “I have to write this book!”. For you, what was that moment?

I was 19 years old on the floor of my apartment, begging God for answers. I was saying, ‘God, I'm doing everything they said to do in church. I'm reading my Bible four and five hours a day. I'm sharing my faith with everybody that I meet. I'm in church every time the doors are open, but I still don't feel like I'm growing spiritually. I feel like I'm in the army trying to achieve something to get closer to you.’ I just crashed and burned and had a real experience where I was at the end of my rope and asking God for genuine answers. And I would say over the next couple of decades, that prayer was answered. It wasn't a lightning bolt out of heaven, but it was more like a couple of decades of rebuilding.

What do I believe about my relationship with God? How good is He? How good is His grace? Can I mess this thing up? Can I ruin it? Can I fall out?  Is God ever angry with me? What does He think? We’re playing church and relating to God, yet I feel like, as Christians, we're missing some of the biggest answers of all. Like what does God really think of me right here, right now, in my current mess? What are his thoughts about me every day? And so that's why I had to write this book. It’s because I want to help people who need answers, and they could hear 500 sermons and yet never get to the bottom of their question.

It often seems that people are hesitant to ask pertinent questions about the Bible because they don’t want to seem unknowing or that they didn’t pay attention in Sunday School class as a kid. Why is it so important to ask difficult questions about the Bible?

I think you have to be willing to be misunderstood and willing to be rejected. Some people are asking these questions and they get kicked out of church. I'm not kidding. I get emails all the time. People say, ‘Well, I went to my pastor and I asked him about such and such because in his message he said this. And when I challenged him, he told me to leave.’ That's not a healthy environment. We need to be able to have good dialogue. So we're going to have to be willing to be rejected. We have to be willing to be misunderstood, willing to look not knowledgeable in order to learn and grow. Nobody knows everything. And there's a million questions out there about the Bible and our faith. And even the people who act like they have all the answers, it doesn't mean they're right on everything. I think we have to just be willing to be rejected and willing to be misunderstood and maybe even willing to look bad in order to get our questions answered. Anybody who really respects us is not going to shame us for asking.

Do you have a favorite question of the 101? If so, what is it and why do you like it so much?

I have a favorite. But you know what? I think that it's not asked very often. I wish it were asked all the time on radio or in opportunities at church. But the question would relate to what is Christ doing in your every day? Or maybe you could rephrase it as what's the role of the Holy Spirit in you every day? Some questions that get people thinking, alright, Jesus, yes, he's a historical person and there are historical events known as the Cross and the resurrection. But could we hit the pause button and go, wait a minute, Jesus rose from the dead, and He literally lives in me? So, why is He there? What is He up to? What is He doing? What is He thinking in there? What's He planning for today? What is His purpose in indwelling me? Because He could have just given me a ticket to heaven. He could have just given me a get out of jail free card and go to heaven someday certificate. But He gave me himself. He gave me His life and He gave me His spirit. So what if we start asking why He is there? What is He up to? What is He about and what's His agenda? I think that's an exciting question to ask every day.

After people have had a chance to read 101 Bible Questions, what would you like your readers to get out of the experience? What is your greatest hope for the book?

Confidence, I think being certain of God's love, certain about their relationship with Him and confidence. The other thing is we're bringing in an awareness to a new resource that compliments the book. It's called BibleQuestions.com. So, after you've got 101 questions settled in your mind from the book, maybe you're asking more, or perhaps a new question occurs to you. And so you can visit our companion site called BibleQuestions.com. We're really excited about this. It is way better than a Google search. When you search on Google and then you're scrolling through all kinds of sites trying to find your answer and piece it together. This is leveraging AI (artificial intelligence) for the purpose of God's kingdom. We've programmed it with all our books, all of our content, and all of our radio answers. Everything we've done for 25 years has been poured into this site. So, a person can go to BibleQuestions.com, ask any question, and here's the kicker, they can ask in any language of the world. Mandarin, Arabic, or whatever. And so, this is a huge mission, and even for people at home in North America, you get your answer in 10 seconds or less, and you can phrase it any way you want and you can ask anything you want about the Old Testament or New Testament.

And what I love about that is we get a chance if there are questions left unanswered, we can go in and edit and keep programming for the next person. So it will be even better. It's pretty cool technology.

To Purchase 101 Bible Questions: And the Surprising Answers You May Not Hear in Church