Questions From The Creator

By Michael John Cretaro

Have you ever stopped to notice that the Bible is full of questions? Questions that invite us to look deeper inside of God's word so that we can see the fullness of what he really wants to say to us. In this book, Questions from the Creator, author Michael Cretaro takes questions from the beginning to the end of scripture and presents them in a way that is both entertaining and inspiring, educational and also devotional. In each question, there is a chance to look at what God is saying to us in a much deeper way. When considered in their entirety, this book takes the reader on a journey that will remain interesting and memorable. This book, Questions from the Creator, compiles a collection of sixty-three biblical questions that one rarely finds brought together. That makes it perfect for both individual study and bible study fellowships. And at the end of each chapter, there are questions for personal reflection or discussion. Questions from the Creator gives the reader a chance to do much more than just read the bible, it provides a chance to understand it, and in the process, grow closer to the creator who wrote and inspired it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781681976310

Book preview

The Question: Where are you?

The Location: Genesis 3:9

The Situation: God is searching for Adam.

A very interesting situation is taking place in the Garden of Eden. Almighty God, the creator of all things, is actually trying to get his newest creation, human beings, to believe that he, God, does not know something and is in need of them to inform him. This of course is impossible, or is it?

What has just happened is that Adam and his wife Eve have just disobeyed God by eating from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, something that God had instructed them not to do. And instead of punishing them, God is searching for them, henceforth the question, Adam, where are you?

Adam’s first response is one of surprise, because instead of responding naturally with a given answer, he responds with an excuse for why he was not responding. And what is his excuse? He says he did not respond to God’s question because he was afraid. In other words, Adam says he kept quiet because of fear. But fear of what? Adam says he hid himself because he was naked. In other words, Adam was ashamed and did not want God to see him naked, knowing of course that as the creator, God has already seen him naked because God created him that way in the first place. So obviously, something wrong is going on here, and God picks up on it right away.

God asks Adam how he knew he was naked and whether or not he ate the forbidden fruit, which is associated with the knowledge of good and evil. Adam says that he did eat this fruit and blames it on Eve, who blames it on the serpent who is condemned by God. And the rest of the story goes on from there as we all know. But what is really going on here in this part of the story, which is the heart of our question in the first place.

The whole purpose of this essay is to answer the question Where are you? Adam answers out of fear because of his nudity. We must realize that a lot of times in sacred scripture, the physical is meant to represent a deeper spiritual meaning. God of course knew Adam was naked but wanted to use that physical reality to point to the deeper reality of his spiritual nakedness. When Adam says he was naked, God asks, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the fruit that I have forbidden you to eat? And that brings us to the heart of the matter and the answer to the question, Where are you? Adam is in a state of disobedience and separation from God.

Do not think that Adam is ignorant of what is taking place. He remembers very well that God had told him that the result of disobedience is death. The tempter had deceived Eve into believing that God did not really mean what he said when he promised that the result of disobedience would be death but instead would be enlightenment. And were Adam and Eve enlightened?

Yes, in a way they were. They now knew for sure that God was not lying. One of the main reasons that Adam suddenly recognizes his nudity is because it represents his flesh, which he now knows is going to die and is probably afraid that the death sentence might be carried out immediately.

So when God asks Adam where he is, what he is really saying to Adam is that he has chosen death over life. And that is where Adam is, separated from God because of sin.

But instead of killing Adam and Eve, God clothes their nakedness and promises a redeemer who would one day overturn their death sentence and restore life, which of course has been accomplished through Jesus Christ with his death on the cross and his resurrection.

So what does it all mean for us?

Simply put, it is a chance to reflect for ourselves where we are with God. Are we hiding from him? Are we believing the lies of the world that sin is no longer sin and that we can live any way we want to and still be okay with God? Do we think that we can ignore God all our lives and still make it to heaven as if we are very close friends?

When it comes to this question from the Creator, where we are can be answered in one of two ways. Either we know for sure and are right, or we do not know and are wrong even if we think we know. Our best bet is to pray reflectively and let the Holy Spirit show us where we really are with God so that we can repair anything that needs to be taken care of. For in the end, if we are right with God, then when asked where we are, we can respond, I’m right here, Lord.

For Reflection

Where am I with my relationship with God?

Are there things in my life which cause me to hide from God?

What can I do to find God more completely?

The Question: Who do you say that I am?

The Location: Matthew 16:15

The Situation: Jesus is asking the disciples if they truly recognize his identity.

Jesus of Nazareth has been traveling and preaching and teaching for a while now. He has gathered quite a following for himself. Many people have become interested in him because quite simply, they have never seen or heard anything like him. And out of all the people following him, he has chosen some to be the closest to him, his disciples. They too have seen and heard a lot of things that are new, exciting and even unexplainable. These are common, ordinary, everyday people. They are Jews by birth, nationality, and faith. They come from Jewish families and communities. Their entire life has been fashioned by their Jewish faith and history.

And now, their master or rabbi has them alone with himself. All the crowds have been dispersed for now so that they can be alone to talk and enjoy fellowship and relaxation. It is in this type of environment that Jesus asks them what other people are saying about him. The disciples simply repeat what they have heard and seen—that most people really don’t know what to think or say. Some say he is a new prophet, others say that he is one of the prophets of old that somehow has returned. In other words the reaction is mixed, and in reality, the crowds may not really care who he is as long as he keeps doing what he is doing.

But that is not good enough for Jesus or the disciples he wants to train to be like him. And so he asks them the same question, only now it is personal. For when Jesus asks them who they think he is, he is not just asking for an answer from their minds but also from their hearts.

For how they answer will shape and determine what kind of relationship they have with him and each other. And just like the crowds, the disciples are not really sure what to say. They may have some kind of guess deep down in their hearts. They may not have the courage to say what they really think. Certainly they don’t want to be wrong with whatever response they give, lest it seem that their commitment to him is less than he desires. How will they respond?

Well, they don’t. All accept one. And that is Peter. For some reason it is Peter who steps forward and makes a very bold and startling proclamation. Whether it is through faith or knowledge of ancient prophecy or maybe even Jesus’s own words to him when Jesus told him that if he followed Jesus, one day he would be a fisher of men. But Peter says that Jesus, this man with a human body just like his own, is the very Son of God, the Christ who is to come into the world. That all the prophecies and scriptures that told of a Messiah to come are now being fulfilled in Jesus.

So that Peter and the others are unique from all the other Jewish people in history because it is they, not those before them, who not only get to witness this great event but actually live with and share in it daily.

In other words, when Peter says that Jesus is the Christ, he is not just making a supernatural revelation but a very personal one as well. For if Jesus is the Christ, then this Christ is also their friend, daily companion, and personal instructor. For it would be one thing if the Son of God appeared and came like some otherworldly fantastic revelation that just astonishes everyone. But this guy is very ordinary and all too human.

So in saying Jesus is the promised Messiah, he is also implying that the promised Messiah has come to us as one of us, to literally be with us as we are and meet us where we are. I mean, he even has a mother.

So how does this relate to us? It relates to us because even though we have the benefit of history and centuries of teaching and tradition along with the examples of countless lives that have been lived for Jesus and his church, we still must make a decision in our own hearts and minds and lives. Who is Jesus to us?

Is Jesus a church figure that we see in our places of worship and only there? Is he a story in the Bible that we think about when we read the Bible? Is he a subject that a preacher talks about when he gives a sermon? Is he a safety valve that we run to when sin or shame or guilt gets too much for us to handle and we feel we need to be forgiven of something? Is he like a teddy bear from which we seek comfort and security when we feel alone or afraid or helpless? Is he some judge whom we fear because we believe that at the hour of death we will have to face him and account for our entire lives?

Jesus can indeed be all these things and so much more. But even if he were all those, we would be missing the point. For you see, when the question Who do you say that I am? is really understood, Jesus is asking for more than just an answer to his true identity. He is asking for a status on our relationship with him. In other words, where do we stand with Jesus? What real place does he have in our lives?

How important is he to us in how we make up our minds and exercise our free will? For what good would it do us to believe all kinds of religious and theological truths about Jesus if deep down in our hearts we don’t really respond to him the way that he wants us to and knows that we need to for our own fulfillment?

In the end, if you really think about it, when Jesus asks, Who do you say that I am? the only true response is simply, Lord, you are someone I love with all my heart. That answer will be more than sufficient to take care of all the rest. Think about it.

For Reflection

Who is Jesus to me?

Who am I to Jesus?

The Question: But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith?

The Location: Luke 18:8

The Situation: Jesus has just concluded a parable about seeking justice for those who feel victims of injustice.

Jesus seemed to be the kind of teacher who really enjoyed telling stories. And the way in which he told them allowed people to feel as though they too could understand and relate, even though Jesus himself was thought of as being so smart and full of wisdom. That was one of the attractive things about Jesus, that on one hand he was so wise and above everyone else and yet when you listened to him you felt as if he was talking just to you and for you.

In the times that Jesus lived, there really was not very much in the way of equal rights or laws against discrimination, and so it was very easy and commonplace for the weak and poor to be taken advantage of and even victimized without mercy. It is into this situation that Jesus is telling the story of a poor woman who has a legitimate grievance against someone for some reason. His listener would have instantly understood such a predicament and would have been listening very closely to see how the story concluded. For all too often in their life experience, justice was something that could only be dreamed about.

Jesus uses a parable about a widow who goes to court to try to convince a judge to give her justice against an opponent of hers with whom she has a grievance. It is important to remember that in Jesus’s times, widows were helpless and often left to care for themselves. So in using a widow as a character in this parable, Jesus is using someone who would have been poor and helpless. At first the judge ignores her because in the times in which Jesus lived, that is what the response was to most widows—they were ignored. But eventually the judge gives in because the widow refuses to give up.

The point Jesus is making is that God does not want us to give up either. He wants us to continue to seek him that he may eventually be found. He wants us to continually ask that we may receive. And sometimes the greatest gift of all is the grace to continue to seek and ask. In other words, the gift of endurance. When God sees that we will not give up, he knows then that we cannot lose. And that is when we start to see his grace in our lives begin to blossom.

What blossoms is a faith that is strong and solid and can endure any circumstance, even suffering and death. For what is faith? Not just a belief in something, for the devil believes in God but does not have faith in him. Rather, faith is a relationship that also includes trust, hope, and most importantly, love. We have faith in God because we trust him. Having created us and given us life on earth and all that it includes, we can see everyday examples in our life and the world around us how God is trustworthy. We hope in God because deep down inside of us we believe it is only right for good to ultimately win over evil. And it is that hope that gives us the endurance we need to continue to do good, believing that it will be worth it in the end.

And the key that ties it all together is love.

We have faith in God because we love him and know that we are loved by him. For if love is not present, then what good is faith? I mean, think about it. Would you have faith in your enemy? No, you would not. So when Jesus asks if he will find faith, what he is really asking and indeed hoping for is this: that when he comes, will there be people who believe in him, in his love for us, his desire to save us and set us free? He is not simply looking for people who believe in the reality of his existence, for even evil knows the truth about that.

No, Jesus is revealing a God who wants us to have faith in his desire to care for us, hear us, and answer us. A God who wants us to be happy and secure in knowing that our prayers do get heard and answered by a God who delights in doing just that. That is the kind of faith that Jesus wants to find. The kind that welcomes him with a waiting and joyful heart. For when we receive him with that kind of faith, it will be easy for others to see it in our lives and in our attitudes that he is present within us and through us.

Which brings us to the final point about the question Jesus is asking. When he comes, will he see himself inside of us? Because if the answer to that question is yes, then our faith is truly alive and well, producing in us not only a relationship of trust and love but the divine presence of the one whom we have faith in. For in the end, that is the true fruit of faith, that we end up receiving the very one whom we have faith in.

And we can imitate the widow in the parable. We can come to God with our needs and fears and struggles and doubts and tell him all about them. Some may get resolved. Others may linger on for some time and require patience.

Still others might not ever get resolved in this life, but only in the next. But in the end, we believe in a savior who promises to make all things new and come back to finally finish what he started once and for all, forever. Isn’t that something worth having faith in?

For Reflection

Am I living a life that is prepared to meet the Lord?

If not, what can I do to better prepare myself?

The Question: What do you want me to do for you?

The Location: Mark 10:51

The Situation: Jesus is traveling along a road and comes across a blind man who begins to call out to him. After refusing to quiet down, Jesus notices him and asks him what he wants.

In the gospels, Jesus is said to have performed many miracles and wonderful things. Things that were surprising and unexpected and beyond belief. Yet at the same time were also beyond dispute. No one could argue that these things did not really happen. Especially when the individual themselves was living proof that something drastic has happened, a change has taken place that is unexplainable.

But this particular case is unique in that the person involved is crying out to Jesus all by himself, on his own. Nobody brings him to Jesus, nor does Jesus seek him out. In fact, a careful reading of the passage would lead one to believe that if the man had kept quiet or quieted down as those around him are telling him to do, that Jesus would have passed on by and done nothing.

So what would make this man cry out and refuse to be silenced? The key lies in how he cries out to Jesus. He addresses Jesus as the Son of David. This is a title that would have been instantly understood by every Jew as pertaining to the Messiah. The very one that the prophets of old had written about and predicted would one day come into the world. No doubt that this man has heard of Jesus from others, as Jesus’s reputation obviously proceeded him wherever he went. So when the blind man hears that it is Jesus that is passing by, something inside of him realizes right away that this will most likely be his only opportunity in life to take a chance on the impossible and ask for a miracle.

And so he cries out, and continues to do so and refuses to let others silence him. As a result, Jesus hears him, notices him, and calls for him. And then Jesus asks him a rather curious question. He asks what the blind man wants from him. Jesus can obviously see that he is blind and that this request is probably not for money or some kind of charity. No, the reason that Jesus asks what the blind man wants is so that the blind man can see, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, what he really needs.

In being asked to say what he wants, he is forcing the man to be specific and particular about his request. The man is being invited to get right to the heart of the matter and ask for not simply what he wants but what he really needs. And the man does not hesitate. He asks for his sight and says that he wants to see. Jesus commends him on his faith and persistence and grants his request, and his sight is restored. The last we hear about the man is that he sees and is said to be following Jesus along the way.

One can wonder at this point as to how long he followed Jesus. You can imagine that in return for a miracle like this, that the man would have followed Jesus for the rest of his life, not just because he can now see but because of the faith that made his request possible in the first place. For it is that faith that Jesus rewarded and a faith that most likely endured. So we can assume that the man never stopped following Jesus after that.

Which also implies that he was able to see the crucifixion and death of Jesus and most likely wondered how could something so terrible happen to the Son of David. After all, if he is the Messiah who can heal the blind, how can God let this fantastic life be killed?

Of course we know the answer and that is the resurrection. And imagine if the blind man saw that. Imagine if he too received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and spent the rest of his life as a living version of the gospel witnessing for Jesus.

For if that chain of events is how things turned out and we can bet that they most likely did, then that man received much more than just his sight. He received his heart and soul as well. For it does not seem practical to think that he can see all of a sudden and simply goes home and lives an ordinary life as if nothing big ever happened. No, he probably spent the rest of his life having a relationship with the Son of God whom he had personally met on the road that day.

A blind man whose first sight is Jesus. Which means he received much more than just eyesight, he received insight. He saw himself, his faith rewarded, his sins forgiven, and his relationship with God renewed. His ability to relate to people and live a full life was given to him.

So what would we say if God asked us what we would want him to do for us? When we think about all of the things we could request, ask for, and tell him we need or want, the best thing we could ask for is for him to show us who we really are by inviting him come into our lives.

What do you want me to do for you? Please show me who I am and come into my life and fulfill me, Lord, as only you can do. Now that’s something to ask for.

For Reflection

What needs do I want Jesus to fill in my life?

What areas would he want to fill in my life?

The Question: Which of the two did the father’s will?

The Location: Matthew 21:31

The Situation: Jesus is using a parable to try to explain the difference between words and actions.

Here we go again with Jesus the storyteller. Once again he uses everyday examples that the average person will understand in order to prove a point that they might not have been considering. The story this time focuses on something very familiar to the people of his time, a father with two sons. As expected, both sons are told to go and work for the father. The father gets two different responses and surprisingly gets two different reactions. Both sons say one thing and do another, and this proves to be the key to the parable.

It is really the difference between someone who is all talk and no action and cannot be trusted to keep their word and someone who has a change of heart and in the end can be trusted after all. The two things in the parable that would have really gotten the attention of the people who were listening were the use of a vineyard as the place of work and the comparison to the chief priests and the elders.

The setting is in the temple in Jerusalem, and so in that context, what is being said will have much more implications than in a smaller rural setting. Everyone would understand that sometimes we change our mind and decide that maybe our first idea was not the best one. So simply because one son said that he would go to work and did not and the other son said he would not go to work and eventually did would not have taken anyone by surprise.

So when Jesus asks which one did the will of their father, the people listening, instantly respond with the correct answer because it is a no-brainer. But Jesus does not stop there. He takes the lesson even further by making a comparison to the teaching and preaching of John the Baptist whom he says came to show you the way of righteousness. So the lesson now has much deeper implications.

For now the son who said he would go to work as the father told him and did not is not just a lazy young man who needs to grow up but a hypocritical person who is really lying to God. And the son who says he does not want to go to work for the father but in the end does is really being honest. He does not want to go to work but eventually does because he also recognizes a sense of duty and responsibility.

When compared to the preaching of John the Baptist, the connection is obvious. John preached repentance from sin and conversion of heart. The chief priests and the elders did not listen because they thought that they had no reason to listen. So like the son who does not take his father’s words seriously, neither do they take John’s words seriously. They might believe that it is necessary for the sinners of the world like the tax collectors and prostitutes that Jesus mentions, but certainly not for them.

Just like the one son probably thought, It does not matter if I go to work for my father, I don’t need to, and besides, my brother can always do it. Why do I have to? The main point is this: in mentioning John and righteousness, what Jesus is really doing is bringing attention to himself. Because he is the one that John pointed to and was bearing witness to.

So in the end, what Jesus is saying is that the ones in authority, the ones who are educated and religious and recognized, have missed a chance to participate in the kingdom of God more fully, and as a result, the ones who originally rejected God’s kingdom have changed their minds and hearts and are actually closer to it than the ones who supposedly know all about it.

The real moral to the story is whether a person has an honest heart or not. The first son did not have an honest heart as he did not keep his word to his father and did not care. The second son did have an honest heart because eventually, truth won the day with him. And just like the sinners who repented and admitted that in the end, God is right and they needed to get right with him, so too can we.

If we find ourselves in a place in life where we are like the second son who has said no to the father’s will, what Jesus is trying to teach us is that it is okay to be honest with God. It is okay to tell God that we really don’t want to do something or that we would rather do