Total Pageviews

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Questions

I don't really care for someone who thinks that they know all the answers in life. It just seems to rub me the wrong way. The older I get, the more I realize how much I have to learn. In fact, I desire to continue learning until the day I physically die.

Sometimes in our walk with God we think that we have to have all the answers to really believe, the really have faith, the really be a mature Christian.

Somehow I think God is more interested in the questions that we ask than in us knowing all the answers.

We in our western mindset are so concerned about keeping everything linear, everything in a box, everything understood, not realizing that in the first century time that Jesus walked on this planet, systematic theology was a foreign concept and knowledge was circular, many times explained by stories.

Stories to which people would ask questions.

Again, in the first century, the primary teaching method was one of questioning, and it is by far the most effective at imparting wisdom.

When Jesus was 12 and stayed back in Jerusalem, his mother found him with the teachers of the Law, who were amazed at His questions. In the rabbinical teaching style, the rabbi almost always answers a question with another question - which will ultimately lead to an answer.

The thought process is this - if you ask me a question and I give you my answer, it is my answer. If you hear another answer from someone else that you like better, there is no pain involved because their answer seems better than my answer. However, if you ask me a question and I, in turn ask you questions that lead you to an answer, it is then your answer, and you are much more likely to retain that when faced with alternatives.

Maybe, just maybe we need to become better at asking questions than providing answers.

No comments: