The question mark: Not as loud or aggressive as its exclamation counterpart, yet able to perform a unique an important role. Questions can be filled with wonder, can show concern or care, can humble and help teach. In fact, the act of asking a simple question can hold a lot of power. According to the Internet, Jesus asks a total of 307 questions throughout the gospels. That’s 307 questions from the One who has all of the answers. So, what’s so important about asking questions and why would He bother to ask them in the first place?
This past year I have not been able to see or spend time with loved ones as often as I would have liked. Most likely, you complied with this same COVID-19, lockdown precaution! But, now that COVID restrictions have finally lifted, I was finally able to go on a mini-vacation that allowed me to spend a significant amount of time with each person in my family . . . what a gift! Vacation mornings at our family cabin almost always consist of my most favorite things: a fragrant, black coffee to warm my hands, the cabin songbird’s unique and peaceful chatter, and time alone with Jesus and His Word. One of these mornings I had gathered up my Bible, notebook and morning coffee and I was sitting at the kitchen table reading through the book of Ezekiel. I had my notebook open and was scribbling down a myriad of questions and thoughts about the passage when my Dad interrupted: “What are you doing?” he asked.
“Asking a lot of questions,” I replied.
“Who are you asking your questions to?” he asked, peeking across the table.
“Jesus,” I said.
I was asking Jesus questions about Ezekiel. It was during this short, before breakfast conversation that I realized the importance of asking questions and the detriment to the relationships in our life when we do not take the time to ask them. After all, questions are actually very important; they hold a lot of power. And, if the King of Kings bothers to take time to ask questions even though He knows all of the answers, there must be power and purpose behind them.
QUESTIONS ARE POWERFUL BECAUSE THEY CAN SHOW LOVE TO OTHERS
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.”
Philippians 2:3
Have you ever been a part of a conversation with someone or met someone new for the first time and find conversing with them difficult because they don’t do their part to carry the conversation? This is seriously the worst! You know, the people that spend the whole conversation answering your questions as you get to know them but never offer up any questions to get to know you? Those interactions typically die out quickly and these people often do not go on to become your bestie. Why is that? Well, when we take the time to ask questions of someone, it shows that we care about them and what they are talking about. This leads to deeper relationship. Not taking the time to ask questions shows that you are not investing and that the conversation is only one sided – completely and totally about you. Asking questions takes the focus off of yourself; it is selfish to continue to only answer someone’s questions without reciprocating the gesture. Take the time and remind yourself to ask questions of others. That simple question can stand as a powerful act of love towards your friend or neighbor, fulfilling the law of God.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
Mark 12:30-31
QUESTIONS ARE POWERFUL BECAUSE THEY CAN HELP US GROW IN OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD
This same question asking, conversational courtesy applies to our relationship with God. It’s important to share the things on your heart with the Lord, but solely interacting with God in that way makes it all about you. When we take the time to ask what He thinks or what He meant when He said in His Word “fill in the blank”, the spotlight shifts away from us. There is humility in reminding ourselves that we don’t understand everything and that we don’t know all of the answers. There is an unlimited amount of wisdom to learn about God. Asking questions to God leads you into a posture of submission to His answers and ultimately to His way over your own.
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
Matthew 6:9-10
One of the greatest dangers a Christian can face when reading Scripture is to be merely a spectator of God’s Word. Do you believe that God’s Word has the power, through Holy Spirit, to completely change and transform you? Do you believe that it is living and active? When you ask questions of God and make that a natural rhythm of reading His Word, you move from being a spectator to an active participator in God’s Story.
“For the Word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edge sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
Hebrews 4:12
Do you find the Bible confusing and unclear sometimes? Join the club. So, all of your questions that you have about why it’s confusing and unclear are important – whether deep and theological or silly and seemingly trivial. And God knows all of the answers. How comforting is it that we don’t have to?! Who better to ask for clarity on something written in the Bible than the One who wrote the entire thing?
As a Pastor, I have been leading Bible Studies with young adults for close to 9 years. I, so badly, want the students to see the value in spending time daily in God’s Word. This is foundational to being a follower of Jesus: knowing His Truth, walking in it and spending time building your relationship with God by getting to know Him. I believe that most of the time when someone doesn’t spend time prioritizing reading God’s Word it is because they don’t know how to read it. If they really knew how to read it, it would be like food to their souls, and they would want to daily join the feast. Part of truly reading and engaging with God’s Word is to ask Him questions and when our Young Adults get together to study God’s Word, we spend most of the time doing just that. We read the passage of scripture and then we leave the floor open: “What questions do you have?” During this last semester of school, our students did a Bible study through the book of Judges. It was fun to ask all of the questions and to spend time trying to answer them together. Some questions led to dead ends – either we didn’t receive an answer, or the question we had wasn’t relevant; and some questions, although seemingly unimportant actually led to awesome discoveries about God, His character and significant faith treasures. For example, when reading the story of Deborah in Judges 4-5, many of us had the question about the significance of the Palm Tree that she would sit under every day to judge the people of Israel. Why a palm tree? Was it simply because it was too hot in the desert sun and she needed shade? Maybe. It seemed like a silly question, but when we asked God the question He revealed something deeper to us: the palm tree is important because it was where Deborah went each day to meet with Him. The people knew that that’s where they could find her and that’s where she would point them back to God because that was her space that she went, every single day, to meet with and hear from her God. This reminded us of how important it is to be people who seek Jesus every day. We want to be people who are known to take that time daily to meet with God. The palm tree: a beautiful reminder and discovery; all from a simple, seemingly unimportant question. Take the time to ask questions of God today and, in the same breath, don’t let His questions pass you by. Embrace it. There is power in questions.
QUESTIONS ARE POWERFUL BECAUSE THEY HELP US TO SHARE THE GOSPEL
We know that Jesus is the King of everything . . . and that ‘everything’ includes rhetorical questions! A rhetorical question requires no reply, either because the answer is obvious or because the asker already knows the answer. Often, Jesus responds to the people that He is sharing the gospel with with a rhetorical question because it challenges the listener’s heart. And when you’re dealing with people, who have their own way of thinking ‘figured out’ or maybe who think they know all of the answers, asking a rhetorical question, which points clearly to an answer, allows the person hearing to come to the conclusion on their own. Remember when you were a kid and your mom told you not to touch the hot stove? But, you were curious and didn’t really understand the consequences, and so you went and touched it anyways? Now, after touching it and getting hurt, you understood for yourself, by your own experience, WHY you were told not to do it and you would probably never do it again. For my sister, it wasn’t the stove but mom’s curling iron. She has a scar to this day to remind her of the lesson learned: do not touch hot things! Jesus, the best teacher, knows that telling people all of the answers all of the time does not always produce life-long disciples. Rather, leading someone in the right direction to come to the True conclusion on their own is going to have more success. Rhetorical Questions have the power to do just that.
One of my favorite examples of this is found in Matthew 9. Often, Jesus posed rhetorical questions to the Pharisees, taking swing after swing at the hardened walls of law, judgement and tradition surrounding their hearts. In this passage Jesus first forgives a paralyzed man’s sins, which aggravates and confuses the crowd. To prove to them that He has the authority to forgive sins, an act of the soul that can only be done by God Himself and cannot be seen directly by the human eye, He proceeds to miraculously heal this man from his paralysis. And, in the process of loving the unnamed paralyzed man, He doesn’t pass up the opportunity to teach the bystanders by asking the following questions:
“Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, ‘Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’?
Matthew 9:4-6
BAM, rhetorical question. It’s a simple answer because Jesus has just shown them exactly what they need to know – making the answer obvious. And, in asking His rhetorical question, He has taken the opportunity to chisel at a difficult heart posture – if they will allow the question to hit the mark and do its intended work.
I find that many Christians, myself included, are quick to share the Truth of our faith and give out answers to those around us, making sure that they know that we are right and they are not. Don’t get me wrong, Peter says that we should be quick to have an answer to anyone who questions us about our faith (1 Peter 3:15-16) – there is value in sharing Truth about Christ with those we encounter. But, why not take the time to ask someone what they believe or what they think about God? What would happen if we paused to listen and ask questions, showing them love and care, rather than being quick to speak? Taking the questioning route is ultimately taking the listening route – and we could all stand to let our inherent selfishness melt away and listen to one another better. After all, the Spirit of Jesus knows the person you’re talking to and knows how to ask the heart piercing, rhetorical, and personal questions that they need to be asked to teach them and lead them closer to relationship with Him. And, in the process of loving through listening, maybe your friend would show you the same decency, care and attentiveness as you share what you believe: the Truth about God’s love for them. Questions are powerful because they can lead to deep, personal discoveries.
THE MOST POWERFUL QUESTION BEING ASKED OF YOU
Now, there is one question that is being asked of each us and that question has the power to determine our destiny. I dare you to tell me that the underrated question mark doesn’t hold power after hearing this question! Now that I’ve built up the anticipation, let me set the scene: In the Gospel of Mark Jesus has spent a lot of time with large groups of people. They have followed Him and watched Him, learning from Him and wondering about who He is and what He is doing. So, Jesus graciously shares pieces of the Kingdom with them. Not just through the words that He speaks and the Truths that He tells but also in the miracles He performs and the needs that He meets, both physically and spiritually. In this particular instance there are over five thousand people that Jesus has been feeding spiritually, and then He proceeds to feed physically, by miraculously multiplying enough loaves and fish to more than satisfy each of the hungry people. At this point in the Gospel of Mark, this is the largest scale miracle that Jesus has performed. I mean, He has already healed a lame person, delivered someone from demonic power, and calmed a raging storm – but not with this many witnesses being affected. And then, a few short chapters later (which in actually time could be days, weeks or months), Jesus feeds another large group of people. Needless to say, many people have now come into contact with the wonderful, loving, Kingdom power of the Messiah. They are watching! Jesus, assuming his disciples have heard the chatter and wonder from the crowds about Him, asks them a question:
“Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, ‘Who do people say I am?’
They replied, ‘Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.’
Mark 8:27-29
But, this is not the destiny determining question. After all, even people today say Jesus is a lot of things: not real, a good guy, a prophet, the Son of God, etc. Jesus is asking the question of ‘who do people say I am?’ to set up His destiny determining question:
‘But what about you?’ he asked. ‘Who do you say I am?’
Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah.'”
Mark 8:27-29
There it is: Who do you say I am? That heart piercing, soul rendering question is being asked of everyone, and their response determines their destiny. Answer with Peter’s strong and sure declaration: “Jesus, you are IT. You are Lord. You are the promised one. You are God Himself in the flesh, come to save!” and your destiny is Heaven for eternity with God Himself. Answer with any other answer and your destiny is eternal judgement in hell. So, who do you say Jesus is? Your answer determines your destiny.
The question mark: not like an exclamation mark, semi-colon, period, or comma. Unique in itself a simple question has the power to show love, to humble, to teach, to share the gospel and one, simple question has the ability to determine your destiny. Make sure that you take the time to ask questions: of others, of God, of yourself. You don’t want to miss out on the opportunities that it can afford. After all, there is power in a question.
Written by: Justine Joy
Refined Joy 