Book Club Questions for God Has a Name

1.Comer opens with the claim that what you believe about God sets the foundation for the person you will become. Do you find that claim compelling? Can you think of a specific way your understanding of God has shaped your character — for good or ill?

2.He suggests that many of our ideas about God are not completely wrong, but "wrong enough to mess up how we relate to him." What's the difference between being totally wrong about God and being wrong enough to cause damage? Why might partial distortions be especially dangerous?

3.Comer introduces the concept of God as a projection — the idea that we unconsciously remake God in our own image, reflecting our own identity, desires, and experiences back at us. Where do you think those projections come from?

1.Comer draws out the significance of the divine name "Yahweh" — often rendered LORD in our English Bibles — and explains that it comes from the Hebrew verb "to be." How does knowing that God's name is essentially "I AM" change how you think about who he is?

2.Many of us grew up with the word "God" as a kind of generic title rather than a personal name. Comer argues this matters more than we realize. What is the difference between a title and a name in terms of the kind of relationship it implies?

3.The author points out that Yahweh is the most frequently occurring name for God in the Old Testament — appearing thousands of times — yet most English readers never see it because it's translated as LORD. Were you aware of this before reading this chapter? How does recovering the personal name change how you might read familiar passages?

1.Comer notes that "compassionate" is the first adjective God uses to describe himself in Exodus 34:6. Why do you think God leads with compassion? What does that sequencing tell us about God's priorities in how he wants to be known?

2.The Hebrew word for compassion here (racham) is related to the word for "womb" — it carries the idea of a mother's visceral, gut-level love for her child. How does that imagery reshape your understanding of divine compassion? Does it feel different from how you usually think about God's character?

3.Many people carry a picture of God as primarily stern, demanding, or easily disappointed. Where do you think that picture comes from — upbringing, culture, personal experience, or something else? How does the reality of God's compassion challenge or comfort that picture?

1.How would you define "grace" in your own words before engaging with Comer's chapter? After reading, how has your definition expanded or shifted?

2.Comer distinguishes grace from mere kindness or niceness. Grace is unmerited — it is given to those who haven't earned it and don't deserve it. Why is that distinction so important? What would be lost if we collapsed "grace" into just "being nice"?

3.Many people operate with a performance-based view of their relationship with God — they feel accepted when they're doing well spiritually and rejected when they're not. How does a robust understanding of grace destabilize that system?

1.Comer points out that the Hebrew phrase often translated "slow to anger" is literally "long of nose" — a vivid idiom for someone who doesn't flare up easily. What does that earthy, embodied image communicate about God's temperament that a more abstract phrase might miss?

2.Many people's gut-level picture of God is of a being who is quick to anger — watching for mistakes, ready to punish. Where do you think that image comes from? Does it match the God you encounter in Exodus 34?

3.Comer is careful to say that "slow to anger" does not mean God never gets angry. Divine anger is real. What is the difference between God's anger and human anger? Why does it matter that God's anger is always just and never capricious?

1.Comer spends time unpacking the Hebrew word hesed, which appears in Exodus 34:6. He suggests no single English word captures it fully — it combines love, loyalty, and covenant faithfulness. What gets lost when we flatten this into a single word like "love"?

2.The phrase "abounding in" (or "great in") hesed suggests this is not a measured or rationed love — it overflows. Does your daily experience of God feel like you're relating to a God who abounds in love? If not, what's the gap between the doctrine and your experience?

3.Hesed is covenantal — it is love that holds even when the other party fails to hold up their end. How does that kind of love differ from the conditional love that is most common in human relationships? What does it feel like to be on the receiving end of love that doesn't quit?

1.Comer pairs "abounding in love" with "abounding in faithfulness" — the Hebrew word here is emet, meaning truth, reliability, and constancy. Why do love and faithfulness need each other? What would God's love look like without his faithfulness to back it up?

2.The book of Lamentations — one of the most raw and grief-saturated books in the Bible — contains the famous line, "His mercies are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." What makes a declaration of God's faithfulness especially powerful coming from someone in the middle of catastrophic loss?

3.Comer argues that God's faithfulness is not dependent on our faithfulness — it is rooted in his character, not our performance. How does that truth function as both a comfort and a challenge?

1.Exodus 34:7 says God maintains love to "thousands" — meaning thousands of generations — while visiting iniquity to "the third and fourth generation." Comer draws attention to the asymmetry here. What does it tell us about God that his love dramatically outpaces his judgment in scope?

2.The idea of God visiting the iniquity of parents on their children has troubled many readers. How does Comer handle this tension? Do you find his explanation satisfying, or does it still raise questions for you?

3.Think about the generational patterns in your own family — both blessing and brokenness. How have the choices of those who came before you shaped who you are? How does God's faithfulness to thousands of generations speak into that story?

1.Comer draws attention to the three distinct Hebrew words in Exodus 34:7 — often translated wickedness, rebellion, and sin — arguing that together they cover every category of moral failure. Why do you think God uses three words rather than one? What does that exhaustive list tell us about the scope of his forgiveness?

2.Is there a category of your own failures that you find hardest to believe God actually forgives — things you hold onto and carry even after asking for forgiveness? What does it mean that God's forgiveness is explicitly designed to cover even those things?

3.Comer likely distinguishes between forgiveness as a legal declaration and forgiveness as an experienced reality. Many Christians believe the doctrine of forgiveness but struggle to feel forgiven. What creates that gap, and how can it be closed?

1.After a string of grace-saturated attributes, Exodus 34:7 closes with "yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished." Many readers find this jarring. How does Comer frame this attribute — is it a contradiction of the earlier ones, or is it consistent with them?

2.Comer argues that a God who ignores evil and never brings justice is not actually a good God — he is a complicit one. Do you find that argument compelling? How does our culture's aversion to the idea of divine judgment reveal something about our shallow view of justice?

3.Think about an instance of great injustice — whether in history, in the news, or in your own life. What does your gut-level desire for someone to be held accountable tell you about the human need for justice? How does that desire point toward something real in the character of God?

1.Comer returns to his opening thesis: what you believe about God shapes who you become. After working through Exodus 34:6–7, has your picture of God changed in any significant way? If so, how?

2.The author draws on the image of Moses descending Sinai with a radiant face — he had been with God, and it showed. What does that story suggest about the relationship between time spent with God and visible transformation in a person's life?

3.2 Corinthians 3:18 says we are being "transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory" as we behold him. What does it mean practically to "behold" God? What practices or rhythms help you do that in everyday life?

1.Comer's central claim is that wrong ideas about God — even partially wrong ideas — quietly deform us, and that accurate ideas about God have the power to transform us. Looking back over the entire book, which wrong idea about God did you most need to have corrected? What was the source of that distortion?

2.Which chapter or attribute from Exodus 34 hit you most deeply — not just intellectually, but in your chest? Why do you think that one landed the way it did?

3.Comer argues that Exodus 34:6–8 is one of the most quoted passages in the entire Bible — echoed throughout the Psalms, the Prophets, and the New Testament. Now that you have worked through it slowly, do you notice those echoes when you read other parts of Scripture? Give an example of a passage that reads differently now.