Student Administers Test

I received an email from a stu­dent ask­ing whether it was okay to “put God to the test.”

I just came back from a strange church ser­vice, and I have a ques­tion. Late­ly, I have been learn­ing quite a bit about God up there. The pas­tor’s wife shout­ed out loud that the Lord wants us to “test” him in prayer, mean­ing see if our prayers are answered. I was con­fused about this state­ment, as I recalled the temp­ta­tions of Christ, when Satan tempts Jesus, and Jesus quotes scrip­ture, “thou shalt not test the Lord your God.” Am I get­ting caught up in a tech­ni­cal­i­ty, or is there some mer­it to this claim, which I do not under­stand? I can see how God would want us to pray and ask for proof in life, but I feel such a strong injus­tice to this thought. Any thoughts?

As I fre­quent­ly field this ques­tion or a vari­ant there­of, I thought my response might be of more gen­er­al inter­est.

Are we to test God or not?

In Deut 6:16 we are com­mand­ed not to put God to the test. In Malachi 3:10 God tells us to test him.

Is this a con­tra­dic­tion? No, not at all. The Hebrew word in Deuteron­o­my 6:16 is nac­ah http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/words.pl?word=05254
where­as the word in Malachi 3:10 is bachan
http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/words.pl?word=0974

So what we have is two words in Hebrew that can both be trans­lat­ed “test.” Some tests are for­bid­den and oth­ers are com­mand­ed.

So what are we for­bid­den to do? Jesus tells us not to tempt God in Luke 4:12 (quot­ing Deuteron­o­my 6:16). If we look up Deut 6:16 (“Do not tempt the Lord your God as you did at Mas­sah”) we will notice that it is a ref­er­ence to Exo­dus 17, where­in the Israelites demand that God do a spe­cif­ic thing to prove he is with them. That’s the same temp­ta­tion Satan set before Jesus: make God per­form an action of your own choos­ing.

How­ev­er, we read in Malachi 3:10 that God desires us to test his good­ness and his faith­ful­ness. We are to expect God to per­form actions of his choos­ing.

That makes sense. In the first case we are giv­ing orders to God, in the sec­ond case we are receiv­ing orders from God. In the first case we are try­ing to be God our­selves, in the sec­ond case we are allow­ing God to be God.

Per­haps we could phrase the dis­tinc­tion thus:
“Don’t try to tell God what he ought to do, but expect God to do what he has promised to do.”

So in your spe­cif­ic case, it all depends on what sort of prayers you’re expect­ing God to answer.

Did that help clear it up?