Theology Questions of the Week

Here are a couple of the questions I have been asked by my 10 and 7 year olds in the past week.

1. Why did Jesus descend into hell? (As in the Apostles' Creed) I think the question was really if Jesus, who was perfect, went to hell, what chance do I have to escape the same fate. I explained that Jesus was not sent to an eternal hell and conquered Satan even in death, but it got me thinking about the theology of this statement.

2. I don't get how God said "Let there be light," and there just was light. I don't get that. I explained that no one understands the science of this, and this is where faith comes in. I explained that some people who don't believe God created the world think that it all happend in some kind of big bang. We talked about how this didn't make a lot of sense either. Faith is believing even when things aren't easily understood.

3. Ann Bennett is really working on controlling her thoughts. She has been struggling with passing judgements about people she sees at school -- so and so is fat, he's not very smart, her hair is ugly, etc. We have talked about how Jesus asks us to take our thoughts captive and work on thinking about people as He sees them. Every day she gets in the car and says she is still working on it. One day in the past 2 weeks, she was so excited because she had a "good" day - meaning she didn't have any of these thoughts. I've explained it takes a lot of practice and prayer to do this, but I've had a hard time actually telling her this is probably something she'll be working on her whole life! That might not be very motivating.

So, those are a few of the theological conversations we've been having recently in our house. Who knew I needed to have my theology straight for conversations with my elementary school aged children! It's amazing how much we learn from our kids.