I was really excited about this book as a resource for helping to answer questions that I get asked on a regular basis.  The authors, Clinton and Jeff Arnold, attempt to answer 50 of the most asked questions about God, Christianity and the Bible.  The book is divided into 9 sections, each with 3-8 questions relating to the topics of the Bible, life after death, the supernatural, God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and several other topics.  Each of the questions is answered in only a few pages and includes key scripture passages and discussion questions.

I believe this book was intended to help new Christians or those curious about Christianity to find brief answers and scripture resources for general questions about Christianity.  For this purpose, it’s not a bad resource.  I do believe that the authors probably bit off more than they could chew in that many of these questions couldn’t possibly be answered properly in only a few paragraphs.  For example, the second question in the book is “Are there errors in the Bible?”.  The authors attempt to answer this by giving only a few examples of seeming contradictions and refuting them by saying that they are simply not contradictions.  There is very little explanation.  There is actually more intro and opinion than actual answers in most of the chapters.  While I do agree with the authors, I wish they had chosen to answer fewer questions with more in-depth answers.

I do, however, love the discussion questions and key passages attached to each question and believe this to be the most valuable part of this resource.  I also love that they addressed questions that the church doesn’t often talk about, such as “Why are there hypocrites in the church?” or “Does God hate sex?” or even “Why does God feel distant?”  There are several very good discussions that could be started by the questions in this book.

While I’m not sure this book actually answers all of the questions it poses, it might be a great resource to at least begin the discussion.