Answering Questions: The How, Who, What, When, Where, and Why? - GotQuestions.org Podcast Episode 17

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Welcome to the GotQuestions podcast. On today's episode, I have with me Gwen and Jeff, two

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GotQuestions employees, and today we're going to be answering the question of how do we answer questions.

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Many of you know that GotQuestions .org, we have thousands of frequently asked question articles on the website, but what you may not know is we actually do still answer real questions from real people.

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Let me describe that process to you here briefly. So you can come to the website, there's a link that says, ask us a question.

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Someone asks us a question, the question is submitted to our database, and then one of our employees goes through all the questions we receive, looks at them, sees if we already have an answer that maybe the person missed, and if there's not an answer, we then assign that to one of our members of our volunteer team.

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We currently have over 250 people who help us answer all the questions you receive. So you could submit multiple questions to us over weeks, months, days, and possibly get a different answer every time.

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But all of our question answers are thoroughly vetted, they're evaluated. We want to make sure they know the

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Lord, love the Lord, have a desire to help people to understand his word. So any answer you receive should come from someone with that perspective.

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Then when they answer the question, it actually comes back to our database, and then one of our employees, often one of these two, will review the answer to make sure it's in agreement with our statement of faith, to make sure it's expressed with the right attitude, and most importantly, to make sure it's a biblical answer that we can wholeheartedly endorse.

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So we'll talk a little bit more about the ins and outs of that process. So, Jeff, Gwen, welcome to the show.

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Thank you very much. Thank you. What would you say is your favorite part of both answering questions and then also being at the editing process?

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And what an interesting part, both Jeff and Gwen, is they started out as volunteers for the ministry. So at one point, they were answering questions as volunteers, and eventually both became employees, and now they're still answering questions, but they're also reviewing and approving the answers of others.

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So to start with Jeff, tell me, what is your favorite part of the question answering process? I think one of the things that I like best is having the opportunity to respond to somebody who has a sincere question that you know that they really want a true answer for, and knowing that there is an opportunity to actually give a good answer to that question.

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It's very fulfilling to know that somebody is making a sincere effort to learn something or to know something that they're really struggling with, that it's an actual need that they're expressing, and to be able to say, yes,

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I actually have a means to answer that question for you. And I think sometimes it's more fun and interesting when that is not connected to something like an article.

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There's a lot of times where people will ask questions, and we are able to answer the question because we have, and that's something that's in an article on the site, and we're just able to provide them with that text.

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But there's a lot of times where people will ask questions that are a little more obscure. They might be a little more philosophical, or emotional, or personal, or something else like that.

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And it's very fulfilling to be able to say, that's a really good question, and not the kind of thing that many people would be thinking about, and we actually do have a way to respond to that.

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So my favorite kinds of questions are the ones that you look at and say, wow, that's a good question, and here's the way that we would approach that.

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Gwen, same question to you. Yeah, and I think my response is similar. I really enjoy the one -to -one, that someone is actually coming with a question, and you get to just help them and have that personal connection.

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And I think that some of my favorite recently have been when people just have a foundational misunderstanding of the gospel, which is so sad to see.

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But I feel like, wow, I can really tell this person the truth, and they have all these questions and all these concerns, and if I can just help them understand the basics, and what

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Jesus has done for them, it could really change their life. So seeing those kind of, that you get to have a meaningful impact on someone that really needs it, is my favorite part.

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I really identify with what you were talking about with misconceptions and things like that, because sometimes people can get uncomfortable, or they can even get hostile a little when you're talking about something, and they think that they grasp what they're asking.

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And there's times where people will ask questions, and the real problem that they're having isn't necessarily that they lack information, it's just that they're assuming something about Scripture or about God that's not actually the case.

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So that resonates with me, the idea that sometimes when somebody asks a question, having the opportunity to say, this thing that you're struggling with, this thing that you're concerned about, this thing that's giving you angst,

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I totally understand why you feel the way you do. And the really good news is, that's not even what the

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Bible says. That's not what God is like. You know, here's where, you know, your issue, your concern is actually just coming from a misconception.

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I don't even have to tell you you're wrong about something, or that you're thinking of it in the wrong way, it's just, you're right, that's a good question to ask, but here's the way that we solve that.

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So I definitely feel where you're coming from on that. For me, it started very early,

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God questions, seeing the difference between, like Jeff was saying, a genuine question, the person is truly seeking for an answer, and the more hostile ones, or the ones where they're just kind of either trolling us, or maybe even probing.

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You see, I wonder what they're going to say about this, but they're really not interested in the answer. But meeting those people who, especially when they write back, and they're like, thank you so much,

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I've wondered this question for a really long time, and you've explained it to me the way I can understand. So yeah, the thank yous are extremely powerful.

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We know people are grateful. So if you ever wonder, should I send God questions to thank you for the answer that provided?

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Yes, please do, because we never get tired of hearing those. But kind of on the flip side of that first question, what would you say is the most difficult type of question?

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What's the type of question you struggle the most with? And let me answer that first. For me, it's when they want us to give, the

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Bible says blank on a question where the Bible doesn't say something. So for example, why did

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God allow, and then insert some terrible life situation that's happened to them, and I can't tell you why

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God allowed that particular thing in your life. I can speculate. I can maybe even address, here's how other people in the

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Bible responded when something similar to that happened to them, but I can't tell you

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God allowed A so that B would happen. And so when the people, some of them get frustrated, you didn't tell me what the

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Bible says, or I want a biblical answer when I really can't,

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I can give you biblically informed speculation. So to me, those are the most frustrating. It's not that I don't want to answer the questions, it's more that I really can't, at least not to the extent that I'd like to.

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So Gwen, what would you say are the most difficult questions that you see coming in? I mean,

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I think for me, it is what you were talking about before of those people who aren't genuine, who are just wanting to debate.

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And that's, I am not a debater, so that's difficult for me to know how to handle them and especially how to handle them with grace.

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So sometimes I just pass them on to someone else, often to Jeff, but sometimes I do treat that as a growing experience for myself of, you know, like the

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Bible defends itself. God is true. And so even if this person is attacking it, that's okay, like God's truth can stand up to it.

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And so then it's a challenge for me of how do I respond in grace? How do I respond in a way that demonstrates

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God's love and his truth and kind of says, you know, you don't need to be a troll.

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There really are real answers here and we're going to take you seriously and be kind. Yeah, when

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I've gotten some of those questions, I do find it difficult at times to respond to people where you at least have a sense that there's not so much sincerity behind what they're saying as there is some sort of a challenge or an attack or criticism.

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And yes, the other editors very often pass those things along to me to respond to people for.

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And actually, that's not something that I take on because I find it to be some sort of hobby or, you know, interest in that sense.

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It's more that I appreciate the idea that even people who are a little hostile still have honest questions.

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In other words, just because somebody is upset and angry and they're not really asking, they're just attacking.

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That's still a real person who's got a real need. And even though they're being maybe a little hostile, maybe a little trolling, maybe a little snide, you can love that person by giving them a real answer.

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Where it gets difficult is exactly what you said is in trying to strike that balance of being truthful, being honest with the person, but also not compromising truth.

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Because you don't love somebody by saying, well, they're going to be unhappy if I say this or if I say that.

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Well, I have to tell them the truth. And sometimes that even includes telling the person, listen, the way that you are thinking about this is simply never going to work.

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It doesn't make sense. It's not fair. It's not rational. It's not reasonable. And that's a difficult thing to do.

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A lot of times the questions that I really I see for me that I look at and say, this is really hard.

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Like I would be very intimidated about answering that question. That's one of the things that I'm really blessed to work with an organization like Got Questions.

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When somebody has an issue that involves a life experience that I really can't speak to,

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I don't know what it's like to be a 75 year old woman who's just lost her husband of 40 years.

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That's a very difficult thing for somebody like me to speak to. And if it was just me all alone answering questions like that,

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I would feel very overwhelmed. I would feel very intimidated. Can I really give this person an answer that's meaningful?

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The Holy Spirit can do whatever he needs to do. But those questions that I look at and I say, oh, man,

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I don't know how I would give a real answer that's really going to help this person. There's 200 and some odd other people that I'm able to look at and say,

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I don't know if I could answer this, but I do know somebody who can. And that's a blessing. And that's something

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I love, too. I mean, our team is so diverse and just they love answering questions and are so skilled at it.

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So there's always somebody for something. If it's those heartbreak counseling situations or that difficult apologetics question or that obscure church history, there's somebody on the team that can answer it.

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And not only can they, but they love to like the volunteers just have so much joy in it.

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They'll email, you know, can I please have another question? Or when I say, you know, like, happy anniversary, you've been serving with us for 12 years now.

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It's my joy and honor and privilege. I grow so much in this. I love it so much. So that's something

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I consistently enjoy is the interaction between questioners and volunteers and those questioners who write back because the vast majority of our questioners really are sincere and need help and receive it.

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And just to watch that relationship happen like as we're kind of the middleman is really fun.

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Yeah, I one of the things that I do like to see is that the volunteers, especially

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I think in most cases, they really have an understanding that if somebody is asking a question, even if it seems obvious to somebody, because that's that's that's true, not just with the

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Bible or anything. There's a lot of topics that it's like that if you're an auto mechanic and you know a lot about engines, a question that somebody asks, you may think, well, that's easy.

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That's obvious. Well, it is to you, but to the kindergarten teacher, that may not necessarily be that obvious.

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And it's nice to see how the volunteers we will we will assign a question knowing, you know, to this volunteer, this might be as easy as pie and you get these gracious, open responses.

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And that's where we get a lot of those thank yous from questioners and saying, oh, well, you really put my mind at ease.

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I felt like I could really ask the question. And you also see that development. It is fun to watch writers over time and show you were bringing up the idea of us and the experiences that we've had.

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I got to see that in my own perspective. It's been 17 years since I was able to start answering questions with God questions.

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And I can look back at answers I gave, you know, almost two decades ago and see the growth and the change that you get because the ministry stretches you.

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It pulls you outside that comfort zone and lets you see those sorts of things. And I think for me, part of being on staff has been hugely growing because I'm not just receiving my one question a week.

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It's I'm reviewing and looking at other people's questions. And I mean, I learned from how the volunteers answer because sometimes

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I have no idea the answer to the question. And then when I approve it, it's like, oh, and I also sort of growth on the other side, growth of questioners.

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We do have some frequent questioners, and sometimes you can even see that they're growing. And I love it when the volunteers take the opportunity to help someone.

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So, for instance, when it's what does this Bible verse mean, they don't just tell the questioner. They sometimes say, like, well, here's how you study the

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Bible. So they're answering the question and also like giving some developmental tools.

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And I think that's a fun thing to watch. That's that's definitely an important goal that I know all of us share with the

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Q &A system. Obviously, when you're answering a question with an article, there's an intent to present a certain idea or a certain perspective.

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And with the Q &A, we really are looking to have a more personal interaction.

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You're never just answering a question, especially in the Q &A system. You're always answering a person.

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And it is very uplifting, I guess is the way to say it.

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When you take in a question and you see there's a need and you give that to a volunteer and they pray about it, think about it, give back an answer that actually addresses what the person needs.

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It isn't just some dry academic issue. And sometimes, you know, writers will sometimes respond by saying, you know,

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I see that you asked about this. But I've talked to a lot of people about this particular issue.

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So here's the general idea. But what about this? And we'll have people who will write back and say, you know what?

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That really, that really helped me, you know? And I know that's what we're trying to do with the Q &A is if it was just about giving dry answers, we'll just write more articles.

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But being able to connect with people and answer them right where they are, that's a positive thing.

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Now, I know that you, Gwen, you're not as as comfortable with people who are a little more aggressively, you know, yes, we sometimes do have people who want to be a little more obstinate about things, not really asking questions.

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Shay, I obviously am coming at this from the perspective, I'm somebody who went from volunteer in the process here.

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So I'm looking at everything backwards. To what level did you see early on people who were being a little more hostile?

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Do you think that's something that's been. Do you see more people now who are asking questions in a challenging sense than there were in the past, or is that something that's tapered?

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So I think we actually have it on our list for a future podcast to discuss kind of how questions changed over the 20 year history of GotQuestions.

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But one thing I've noticed, it's not necessarily what whether they're challenging, but really what they're challenging us about.

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I'd say even 20 years ago, we got a lot less questions that required really hardcore apologetics, defending the.

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Core doctrines of the faith that does God exist as 20 years, new atheism has become more prominent, more attacks against the even the existence of Jesus and those things become so much more common that we're getting those more now counseling related stuff, which is kind of Gwen's area of expertise.

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I never in a million years did I envision GotQuestions as being a counseling ministry, and we're not because we really there's only so much you can do with a text based answer sent in an email or article on a website.

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We all someone asks us the counseling related question. We're like, OK, here's what the Bible says.

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Here's what I can give you advice as a friend. But we always please speak with the

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Christian counselor or psychologist or someone who can help you with some of these more deep seated type of issues.

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Because the last thing we want to do is they're giving us incomplete information. We're trying to essentially diagnose something.

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And that's something we want to want to stay as far away from as possible. So, Gwen, that being your area of expertise, what are the strengths and weaknesses of trying to do on a limited basis some counseling as part of answering questions for people?

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Yeah, well, I think it is like you said, email is limited. I mean, you're going to miss tone of voice.

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You miss the like that automatic time. You know, you have to wait a few days for your answer.

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You're missing the body language. You're missing just that presence of people. But I think that sometimes for people, it's a really helpful first step.

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Like you might be too afraid to share that problem with someone else. So you can just type it up in an email.

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Then you receive a loving response that says, hey, have you talked to people at your local church?

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Are you even part of a local church where you can have that in -person community? Have you talked to a Christian counselor?

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Have you seen a doctor? And it just maybe turns on in their mind. Oh, this is a normal problem.

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And there is help to be had. Like I'm not crazy. Yeah. And I think, too, sometimes there are things that really can be answered in email.

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You know, it's kind of one of those common problems. And the person just needs a reassurance. Oh, this is normal.

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This is a validated. My problem has been validated. And then just those basics.

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Oh, I just needed that reminder. I just needed that nugget of truth or to remember that.

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Oh, that's right. I can call my friend and get prayer right now. I'm not in this alone. So I think it can be a really helpful either encouraging people on to the further help that they need or just it really is that enough little stuff gap for that particular thing.

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One issue you raised and many people commented to me is so the anonymity of it, the fact that we don't know who they are, they don't know who we are, really frees them up to answer the questions that maybe for whatever reason they were too embarrassed to ask their pastor or a trusted

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Christian friend. But again, because it's anonymous. They feel completely free to ask questions.

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And believe me, there's some questions we've received that I did not need to know that.

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I really don't want to think about that. But yeah, we said, ask us your questions. So you're asking us your questions.

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So we're not going to complain about it. So that's something that surprised me. I think in many of these, we'd really rather have them talking to a pastor, someone in the real world.

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But if they're not going to do that, we're going to provide them with the best answer we possibly can. We've answered in the nearly 20 years,

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I mean, 650 ,000 questions have been submitted to us. That's a lot of questions.

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Obviously, those include repeat questions, but every question you could possibly imagine. People ask me, so Shay, has anyone ever asked you, and before they even complete the sentence,

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I just say, yes, because either, yes, they've asked that exact question or something really close to it.

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At the same time, even with that many questions, we still see occasionally, huh, that's interesting.

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I've never heard that question or I've never heard that question asked from that exact perspective.

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Jeff, what's a question you've seen maybe recently that maybe surprised you a little?

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Usually the questions that surprise me are the ones where the question is either you would think that it's the kind of thing that we would have had an article for, for example, but it's just not something that comes up as very often.

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Or when you get questions that are so overtly leading towards some idea where it almost surprises me to read it and say,

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I'm not sure why you're putting a question mark at the end of this statement, because you're not asking, you're just telling me something.

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Sometimes the things that surprise me come from Christians, come from believers who are asking about certain ideas, certain topics, certain subjects that they basically say,

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I'm not getting any sort of feedback about this in my church. And when that's on topics like morality or even politics and things like that,

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I'm sometimes surprised that that's not something that people are more comfortable talking about. But I also understand that those topics can be sensitive and can be strange.

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Sometimes people phrase things in ways that you have to say, I know what you're asking, but I've never heard somebody ask it like that before.

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And that's something that I know we brought up to people, for example, on social media or when we tell people here is a new article that we have.

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And sometimes people will say, why in the world did you phrase it that way? Why is the title of your article this question?

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And the answer is because that's exactly how people ask the question. You know, yes, we could phrase it in all sorts of fancy language, but that's the way that's actually the way people ask those questions.

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So for me, the things that are surprising usually come in in the way people phrase things and wondering, you know, where did you come up with the idea of, you know, asking that question?

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I know what you're asking. I get where you're coming from, but I'd never heard somebody ask it that way before. Why don't you, Gwen, any surprising questions you've noticed recently?

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I don't know that it's recent, but the ones that always surprise me are, I guess, things that I haven't thought about before.

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So kind of some of those practicalities of like, OK, so if the Israelites were really wandering through the desert, you know, what did they do?

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Oh, I think someone said the other day, why did they need to pray for meat? Didn't they have sheep with them?

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It's like, oh, I've never really paused to think about that. And just those questions that come up when you realize these are real people and this really happened.

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And so how did all those logistics work? It's like, oh, good question. Sure. Those things that surprised me as well.

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Interesting factoid, I guess, is that we learn a lot through these questions, learn better ways of explaining things, especially like a follow up question.

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So we answered the question, we thought, in a really good way. And someone, well, what about this?

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It's like, oh, I really should have said that with my initial response. So kind of fine tuning our responses, even fine tuning the article so that not only does it answer the direct question, but answers the definite side issues that play into that.

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Another thing that I think the follow up questions have helped us with is to understand that there are times where we as editors, as volunteers, and this works for Christians just in their ordinary lives, is there does come a point in time where it's no longer appropriate to answer certain things.

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There are some times where, like in a positive sense, we'll tell somebody, look, we've answered this as much as we can. We need to encourage you to speak with the pastor, speak with friends.

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You know, dry information is all we can give you. Or times where we'll tell somebody, look, the purpose of our ministry is not to debate.

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So we may answer a question and your response is to say something like either I don't agree, I'm not sure

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I see that the same way that you do. And sometimes it teaches us, you know, OK, now that I'm seeing this next time,

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I can maybe preface this a little better by saying, look, this is the perspective that we have. I'm not necessarily saying you're going to agree with it, but here it is.

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Because there are limitations to how much time we can we can put into any one line of questioning.

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Let me tell you a couple of quick, fun stories that come as part of running a ministry that answers questions.

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The first, we get questions that a person will want to tell us like their entire life story, all the things that have gone wrong.

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And then they'll ask a question at the end. So let me give you an example. I was addicted to drugs.

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I cheated on my wife. I did all these things. And oh, the other day

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I got a tattoo. Is that a sin? And you're just like of all the stuff you just mentioned, the tattoo is by far the least important.

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So sometimes we guess we'll answer the question they actually ask, but we're actually going to go back.

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And yes, here's the answer to that question. But you might want to consider these other things you have going on in your lives.

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And some people will land on the site not knowing we're a

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Christian ministry, especially like with the apps. If you search for questions, sometimes our app will come up, so people ask us any type of question.

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Well, probably my favorite occurrence of that was I got this question, is the insert this softball bat a good bat to use for my softball team?

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Yeah. And if our first reaction was, I'm sorry, this is not the type of question we received.

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But the funny thing is, I play on our church softball team and we as a team had just bought that exact bat.

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So I said, I'm sorry, this is not the question we typically receive. But just so you know,

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I told that story. So it was a funny little thing. And that person actually came back and submitted a follow up question that was spiritually.

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So sometimes even with the completely unspiritual, not related to our ministry questions, if we can, we'll even provide an answer for those with the goal,

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OK, maybe the person will come back. But something science or medical related, we're like, OK, this is no, we're not even going to try on these.

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But every once in a while, like. Let's give this a shot and see what God will do, because you never know.

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Yeah. And it's good to be have that availability to remind people that even if you can't find an answer literally written down, there are answers to these questions.

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Anything is OK to ask. It is OK to question. It is OK to ask. It is OK to find out that information.

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And that's that's the reason I appreciate the tagline that we often use with this is the Bible has answers and will help you find them because they're out there.

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It's good. It's good to see that even when people ask questions that are way off in left field, God can still use that as a way of helping them find truth.

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Yeah, exactly. So, Jeff, Gwen, thank you for joining me on the show today. Thank you for a little behind the scenes look at how

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GotQuestions answers questions. And Jeff, with our tagline right there, originally it was

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GotQuestions, the Bible has answers, we'll find them for you. But as we kind of evaluated that, it's like, yes, to a certain extent, we want to help find people answers, but we also want to train them to how to find them.

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So that's why we switched it from GotQuestions, Bible has answers, we'll help you find them.