Is there such a thing as a bad question?

Sometimes enemies of Jesus came to him with a question, but it wasn’t because they wanted an answer. They wanted to trap him in his words. Such questions were bad questions.

But those were Jesus’ enemies. Can Christians ever ask bad questions?

Questions with wrong assumptions

A Christian may be struggling with inner anger against God. That Christian may come to you and ask, “Why did God let this horrible thing happen to my family?” You agree that what happened to this family was horrible. You understand how pain is powerful and can lead to such questions.

What might be hard, though, is knowing how to answer this question. What do we say? What is the answer to the why?

What makes it hard to answer certain questions? Is there really an answer, but we just haven’t learned it yet? Or is there something wrong with the question so that it is actually impossible to answer?

If a parent says to an innocent child, “Did you cheat on your spelling test again?” the child who has never cheated on spelling tests cannot answer yes or no. “Yes” would be a lie, and a simple “no” doesn’t address the problem in the question. This is a bad question—it contains a wrong assumption.

Christians can ask questions of God not intending to do wrong. They are eager to honor God even as they are hurting and struggling. But Christians can ask questions that have wrong assumptions in them, including the assumption that it’s possible for God to be responsible for evil.

An answer from the Bible

How can you reply when someone asks, “Why did God let this horrible thing happen to my family?”

What if you were to acknowledge that what has happened to this family is a horrible thing? You note that before sin entered the world, there were no horrible things in the world. You agree that God is in control of all things and it is right for Christians to go to God with all their concerns. You then gently say to this hurting brother or sister in Christ, “I think I might know what you’re thinking. You’re hurting so much, and you can’t understand how a God who loves you could have allowed what occurred to happen to you. Is that right?”

At that point, you might tell a story. You might talk about a young man who was not without his flaws but had done nothing deserving of execution. He had done nothing deserving of being sold into slavery by his brothers.

You may know where this is going.

He was kidnapped. He was secretly taken across borders and brought to a foreign country. He was sold again as a slave. He did his best to serve well but was falsely accused of assaulting a woman. He went from slavery to prison. He had done nothing to deserve what he was experiencing, but even when he helped someone and then requested the simple favor of being remembered, he was forgotten.

How many tears could Joseph have justly shed? How many times could Joseph have theoretically asked God, “Why? Why did you let these horrible things happen?”

Joseph may have had one hundred good reasons to assume that God must have done something wrong.

But such an assumption is what can make a question bad. It’s not automatically wrong to ask why. Such a question could come from a trusting curiosity that admits we may never know but rejoices that peace can still be ours. But there also is a why question that comes from a heart that is angry, frustrated, confused, bitter, and more angry.

Maybe you know a heart like that because your own heart has felt like that.

Forgiveness for flawed understandings

Joseph may have had one hundred good reasons to assume that God must have done something wrong.

But somehow, even after living close to half his life as a victim, he did not assume that God was the problem. With everything transformed, now as a ruler of Egypt, Joseph looked into eyes that were terrified. His brothers knew how their actions had affected an innocent man, a man who could now unleash all the bitterness and anger that could have been eating him up for the last decade and more.

But what did Joseph say? “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Genesis 50:20).

Why did God let this horrible thing happen to my family?

Questions reveal an eagerness to grow. Christians want to know all that can be known.

If the question implies that God could be responsible for evil or that in some way God has been something other than loving, then we know the question is a bad one. It contains an assumption that is not true. There is evil in the world, but its source is not God.

What is amazing is what God can do in the midst of evil. Somehow and in some way, miraculously and beyond our understanding, God is powerful, in the middle of the horrible, to work his good and gracious plan for the benefit of his children.

Can it sometimes feel like such words are an easy way out to avoid facing reality?

Never does Joseph say that he understands why his life was allowed to go one path rather than the other. What he states with confidence is what he knows: “You, my brothers, sinned against me. There was evil in those events, but my loving God is more powerful than your evil.”

God’s love undid the evil intention of the brothers’ actions, and God’s love turned this into good even for those brothers who had sinned against Joseph.

There’s more. God’s love is so powerful that it could wash away the sin, the evil intentions that sold a brother into slavery. God’s love washes away those times when we have assumed we know better, thinking that God must be the problem.

When such a thought has slipped into one of our questions, what joy to know that God forgives bad questions.

An eagerness to grow

There is such a thing as a bad question. But there are also many good questions, important questions, thought-provoking questions. Questions reveal an eagerness to grow. Christians want to know all that can be known. God’s children are aware that his Word contains “everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him” (2 Peter 1:3). God’s children want to “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).

God’s children want to know God’s perfect will for their lives.

So we ask questions. Good questions!

Learn more about FIC’s newest contributing editor.

Ask a question at forwardinchrist.net/submit.

Author: Stephen Geiger
Volume 113, Number 1
Issue: January 2026