Many questions, but some with answers we’ll not know here on earth
By Dean Collins
We all have many questions. Sometimes answers are there even before we know the question to ask, but the question guides our discovery. Good questions can connect us with others and lead us to discovery. However, sometimes questions can be traps, posed to support an agenda or even be a power play.
Good questions
Having been trained as a counselor and marriage and family therapist, I learned how to ask good questions. I also learned the importance of being comfortable with silence to give someone the time and space to respond.
I have a vivid memory of a time when my questions got me through a very tough moment in my career. That experience led me places I never imagined or could have anticipated in my wildest dreams. Asking good questions is a critical piece of any success I have achieved.
Here was the situation: I had been hired for a job as an HR executive at a company that thought my background as a therapist made me a perfect fit for their company and the growth strategy they had developed. I knew the executive leaders and had their confidence. My only hesitation was my lack of training in the actual details of human resources. As I said to the CEO when I was offered the job, “I am pretty good at the H in HR. I really know little to nothing about the R!” He informed me they were hiring me for the H.
The situation turned into a problem. Shortly after I agreed to accept the job, before my start date 45 days later, another company announced an acquisition of this one. Before I could begin, I no longer had a job. This was troubling on one hand and a relief on another.
The company that had hired me suggested I become a consultant to help with all matters of HR associated with the transaction: compensation, stock options, benefits, setting policy, merging payroll, recruiting, travel, and on and on. I had immediate hesitation. If I didn’t know much about the R in HR, then how in the world would I know how to lead these conversations? I was given a crash course in benefits, several notebooks full of information, and put on a plane to meet the executives at the acquiring company.
After a nervous dinner the night before my first meeting with senior leaders, I walked into the board room still uncertain how I would pull off this assignment. And then it hit me: Go to the whiteboard, pick up a marker, and start asking questions. As long as I was asking the questions, I wouldn’t need to answer the questions!
Questions to trap or enlighten
Jesus was asked many, many questions by the scribes, the Pharisees, and the teachers of the law. Some of the questions were in fact awful! Not the content of the question but the reason for the question. The questioners simply wanted to trap Jesus and get rid of him. As I said above, sometimes questions are power plays.
Jesus also asked many questions throughout his time on earth, well more than 300 of them. This leads me to my own question: Why did Jesus ask any questions? If he is the all-knowing God, he would by necessity already have all the answers!
His questions caused the listeners to learn, to consider, to wonder, and to realize that he was in fact the Messiah of God. Sometimes Jesus used his questions as a showstopper or reverse power play with those trying to trap him. In Luke 20 we see several examples of those questions that prompted Luke to report, “They no longer dared to ask him any question.” They knew Jesus had won the question game.
Questions to ponder
I noticed this morning that after Jesus shut down the Pharisees’ questions, his next question to them came from Psalm 110:1 and is repeated in Hebrews 1 as the author has established that Jesus is the superior answer and solution to our ultimate problem of sin. Jesus had the Pharisee’s heads spinning with the psalm they knew well and believed to be about the Messiah: “But he said to them, ‘How can they say that the Christ is David's son? For David himself says in the Book of Psalms, “The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” David thus calls him Lord, so how is he his son?’”
Sometimes scripture writers pose questions that set our heads spinning, too. For example, the last verse of Hebrews 1 asks about angels, “Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?”
I would like to know a lot more about angels and you probably would as well. Does our inability to know lots of information about angels today, their whereabouts, or how and when they work on our behalf mean that we have little evidence of their existence? I am convinced that angels are real and active, but I wouldn’t dare try to explain it to you.
I suspect that the ministering spirits/angels are as the letter of Hebrews described. And if you ask me to prove it I will remain silent. Or I might just pose a question back to you to answer successfully. And if you do, I will answer mine.
All the questions, all the answers
Some things in scripture we can verify and some things we accept in faith because we serve a God who knows all the questions and all the answers and is always good to his Word. A prime example comes from Genesis 1: “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”
Tell me the details and explanations for how and when this moment occurred.
I suspect you believe it but would be hard pressed to say much more about it.
So ask God any and everything you want to ask him. And sooner or later you will know more than you know now and not nearly what we will know when see Jesus face to face and have all our questions answered!
Your time with God’s Word
Luke 20:40-47; Psalm 110:1; Hebrews 1:10-14; Genesis 1:1-3 ESV
Photo by Ludovic Migneault at unsplash.com
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