Answering young viewers’ difficult bible questions
For teenage Christians and seekers in the Arab world wrestling with questions about God and faith, it can be hard to know where to turn. With its new series, SAT-7 ARABIC live youth show Quality Time is giving viewers the chance to ask their burning questions, hear faith-building answers, and even learn how to interpret the Bible for themselves.
“We noticed before the summer break that some young viewers needed answers to difficult questions about the Bible,” said Executive Producer John Adly. “Some of their questions required a specialist to answer them in a biblically correct way. This pushed us to dedicate an entire episode to answering young people’s questions about the Bible.”
After the episode was announced, the programme received a large number of questions through social media, and the team also took to the streets in Cairo to gather spontaneous questions from young people.
Special guest David Wissa, a well-known Bible scholar who is popular among young people, was welcomed to the studio to help unpack the questions in a special episode of Quality Time titled “Researching the Bible”.
Challenging Questions
David explained how it is “easier for the higher to come down, but not the lowly to rise up”, using the story of the burning bush to illustrate his point about God’s unlimited abilities: “In my limited thinking, I might ask how God can still run the world at the same time as talking to Moses. This thinking restricts God’s abilities and makes us think of God as limited like us… He is God all the time and came as a man without renouncing his deity.”
The questions covered topics from the Old and New Testaments, difficult-to-understand verses, and misconceptions about what the Bible actually says. A particularly challenging question came from a viewer about the meaning of an obscure verse from Ezekiel 23, but David addressed each one with biblically-referenced answers and simple explanations, which were easy for the young people to understand.
“Safe Space”
As well as answering questions, viewers were encouraged read the Bible for themselves, pray, and do their own research. The positive response and engagement with the episode has prompted the Quality Time team to consider doing something similar on a regular basis.
“The episode created a greater space for communication with the young people by giving them the opportunity to share their thoughts about the Bible,” John explained. “We want Quality Time to continue to be a source of biblical learning and a safe space for young people to share their thoughts and have their needs met.”