Questions Jesus Asked

Jesus did not hold many question-and-answer sessions. More often He held question-and-question sessions. His response to a question was often simply another question. Throughout the four Gospels, the number of questions Jesus asked was 183. Of those 183 questions, how many do you think He answered directly? Four. He responds to the other 179 questions with a question, a parable, or a cryptic remark that leaves those gathered with even more questions.

Clearly, questions were not the only way that Jesus taught or led people. He used many different ways to do that. He confronted some people with very direct words. Other times He launched into decisive action. Other times He did various miracles that testified to His words. Still other times He gave long sermons that were designed to help instruct large crowds of people. And yet, woven through Jesus’ story is the recurring theme of asking questions to those He encountered.

Judging by the way He interacted with people, Jesus was not as committed to up-front clarity as we are. We can slide into thinking that Jesus is interested in always and only ensuring that we have the right answers. The reality turns out to be somewhat different. He seems more interested in ensuring that we are considering the right questions. In fact, if we include the questions that Jesus puts in the mouths of characters in His parables, Jesus Himself asks an astounding 307 questions in the Gospels.¹ This can be an eye-opening bit of information if you have thought that Jesus was interested in only giving clear answers or resolving people’s dilemmas in life. Jesus created as many dilemmas as He solved for people.

How the Questions Jesus Asked Impact Discipleship

Jesus upends our modern infatuation with clarity. The modern school of thought is that the clearest person in the room, the one who defines reality in the most compelling way, is the one we should listen to and follow. We organize ourselves around clear vision statements, clear mission statements, and clear core values. Certainly, there is some value to clarity. However, the shadow side of clarity is that it creates consumers, not disciples. And a consumer mind-set ends the generative, creative process of the spreading of the Kingdom of God.

Jesus wants us to be His disciples, but that is not the end of it. He then invites us to make disciples too (Matthew 28:18‑20). Discipleship is to see and hear who God is and what genuine reality is as God reveals it, and then to live our lives according to that reality. Maybe that’s why Jesus so often declares, “Whoever has ears, let them hear” (Matthew 13:9, NIV; see also Mark 4:23; Luke 14:35; and elsewhere). To His disciples He says, “Blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear” (Matthew 13:16, NIV).

Jesus’ questions are often unsettling. His questions are not idle. They lead us. They provoke us. When we offer only answers to those who don’t know Jesus, there is no space for them to deeply integrate the implications of who Jesus is and what He has done. They are not forced to wrestle with it, to digest it.

A Simple Question Jesus Asked That Can Be Difficult to Answer

Even with His very first followers, Jesus led by questions. He asked them something so simple that it is hard to comprehend, let alone attempt to answer.

“What are you looking for?” is really a simple question, isn’t it? What astounds me is that the first question Jesus asks those who would follow Him is not about sin, brokenness, politics, or family history. It is not even a question about God or what we believe God is like. It is a question that gives us a glimpse of the heart of God. It’s a question that also stops us to give us a glimpse into ourselves.

“What are you looking for?” is a stunning question — brilliant in its simplicity, vexing in its answer. Jesus does not tell them what they are looking for, or even direct them toward what they should be looking for; He asks them, and by asking them, He leads them (and us). We are all in search of something. We are all on a quest. Jesus invites their internal, unspoken reality to the surface with a single question. At the very core, it is the foundational question of discipleship, of leadership, of life. What are you looking for?

By asking His first disciples that simple question, Jesus alerts us that He is not some systematic theologian walking around teaching dogmas so that we can pass some heavenly multiple-choice exam at the pearly gates. By asking that simple question, Jesus is offering these two men conversation, engagement, relationship, thinking, wrestling, and soul awareness. By asking that simple question, Jesus wants to unearth something in us. We cannot answer that question without exploring our heart and soul a bit. The moment that particular question takes root in us we become students of what matters most to us in life. Only once we have wrestled with that question can we even compare it to what Jesus might suggest we begin to look for with our lives.

The right question can do that. The Trappist monk Thomas Merton once reflected:

God, my God, . . . with You it is always the same thing! Always the same question that nobody knows how to answer! . . . While I am asking questions which You do not answer, You ask me a question which is so simple that I cannot answer. I do not even understand the question.²

The opening question to these first disciples of Jesus is an invitation to take stock of their lives. It’s an invitation to a holy pause. The question stops us long enough to take measure of whether the activity of our lives matches the deepest desires of our heart. Each of us must answer that question, and the earlier in life the better. There may be no greater tragedy than a life spent looking for the wrong thing. We all know people who have spent much of their life believing they were looking for something, only to find it, achieve it, buy it, or gain it and then realize it was not what they were actually looking for. It did not fill the void or end the quest.

1. John Dear, The Questions of Jesus (New York: Doubleday, 2004), 2.
2. Thomas Merton, A Thomas Merton Reader, ed. Thomas P. McDonnell (New York: Doubleday, 1989), 213.

Adapted from Curious: The Unexpected Power of a Question-Led Life, by Tom Hughes. Copyright 2015. Published by NavPress, navpress.com. Used by permission. All rights reserved.