The Shack by William Paul Young
Week 5: Chapter 5 — Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Read Chapter 5 of The Shack.
Previewing Week 5 of The Shack
Read 3 of 7 discussion questions below. Unlock the complete 20-week guide when you’re ready.
Mack arrives at the shack expecting emptiness and dread — and instead finds something that obliterates every expectation he had about what God looks like.
Discussion Questions
7 questions1.When Mack first arrives, the shack is exactly as bleak and frozen as he feared. But then the landscape transforms into summer warmth and color. What does this transformation suggest about what an encounter with God does to the landscape of our inner life?
2.God the Father appears to Mack as a large, exuberant African-American woman named "Papa." The Holy Spirit appears as an Asian woman named Sarayu, and Jesus appears as a Middle Eastern carpenter. What was your initial reaction to these portrayals? Why do you think Young made these choices?
3.Papa explains that she chose a feminine, maternal form because of Mack's deep wounds from his own father — "given who you are and what you've been through, I didn't think that would be a good idea." What does this suggest about how God meets people where they are, rather than insisting on a single, fixed presentation of himself?