Is There Value in Questions?

Children ask questions. Lots of them, one right after another, without embarrassment or apology. They are sponges. They are ferocious about learning. And Jesus points at them and says: this is what the kingdom requires.

So — is there value in questions?

What a Disciple Actually Is

The word disciple carries a lot of religious weight, but strip it down and it just means student, pupil, or learner. And there is one quality that marks a good student above almost all others: they ask questions. Teachers know this. The students who ask are the ones who are actually learning. The ones who sit quietly and assume they already understand — or are simply disinterested — are the ones who stay stuck.

Jesus modeled this from the beginning. Walk through Matthew alone and watchIn plain English, to observe means to see attentively — to give careful, focused attention to something. This is precisely what the Hebrew shamar points at: watchful, protective attention toward something valued. In religious usage, particularly in the Church of God tradition, "observe" has been reduced to performing an external requirement. The original sense — attentive seeing that allows something to reveal itself — is what the feasts and sabbath are actually asking for. Synonyms: shamar, keep, watch, guard. More how often he asked: why, what, how, where, who, when. He asked his Father, he asked the crowds, he asked his disciples — and his disciples, catching his habit, turned around and asked him. “Why do you speak to them in parables?” (Matthew 13:10). “Why could we not cast it out?” (Matthew 17:19). The questioning mind is contagious when the teacher has one.

The deepest why in the Gospels isn’t rhetorical: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). A very real question. Not a performance, not a quotation for form’s sake — a genuine cry. The one who modeled questioning did it all the way to the cross.

The Question of When

When stands out from the other questions — not because it’s less valid, but because of where it leads. The disciples asked exactly the right question in Matthew 24: “When will these things be, and what will be the sign(Greek sēmeion) — a miracle told less for its power than for what it signifies; the word points at meaning, not spectacle. John builds his gospel on them — numbering them and saying he wrote them down so we might see and believe (John 20:30-31). Synonyms: sēmeion, signs. See An Entire Message More of your coming?” And Jesus didn’t discourage the question. He answered it at length — the whole of Matthew 24. But he also said: “Concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matthew 24:36).

The takeaway isn’t don’t ask when. It’s that the question of exact timing can become a distraction from the more important question of what is actually happening and in what sequence. The process, the nature of events, the pattern — these are worth understandingIn the New Testament this is synesis — a bringing-together: scattered pieces drawn into one cohesive whole, not a quantity of information accumulated. In plain terms it is connecting the dots — understanding is unification, not accumulation. Synonyms: synesis, unification, insight, discernment See The Importance of Understanding in Jesus Christ More. Pinning everything to a precise date is where we spin our wheels. As my grandmother used to say: time will tell.

What to Ask

Beyond the obvious questions — what does this mean? who does this apply to? — there are some that tend to get skipped. One of the most useful: How did Jesus ChristNot a surname but a title: the Greek Christos, rendering the Hebrew Mashiach (Messiah) — "the Anointed." The anointing that set apart Israel's kings, priests, and prophets all converges on the one person it was pointing to. Synonyms: Messiah, Anointed, the Anointed One, Mashiach, Christos. See also: Logos More demonstrate this? The Scriptures are constantly trying to show us something. He is the living demonstration of what they’re pointing at. When a verse seems strange or disconnected, the question why is this here? — asked honestly and held patiently — tends to eventually produce an answer. God is a God of purpose. There is a reason for what he is showing us. The question is the entry point.

Another worth keepingFrom the Hebrew shamar — to watch over, guard, protect, give attentive care to. A shepherd shamar the flock. The keeping the feasts and sabbath requires is the attentive, protective engagement that creates the conditions for seeing what they reveal — not external compliance with a schedule. Synonyms: shamar, observe, guard, watch over. More: How does this connect? Not just to nearby verses, but to the whole. Scripture is genuinely mysterious — God conceals, and kings search things out (Proverbs 25:2). The hiddenness is real and it is by design. Questions aren’t a workaround for that; they are the designed response to it. And the questioning process is a lesson in itself — the seeking changes you before the answer arrives. Sometimes Jesus made statements so interesting that they provoked questions without asking anything directly — the implied question hanging in the air. That provocation was deliberate. He was trying to get a questioning mind going in the people listening.

Bad Questions

There is a saying that there are no bad questions. That’s not quite right. There are real questions and there are pseudo-questions — and the Pharisees were masters of the latter.

Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words… “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocritesFrom the Greek hypokritēs — a stage actor performing behind a mask; its parts (hypo, under + krinō, judge) also suggest one who judges from a concealed position, motives hidden even from himself. In Jesus' mouth (Matthew 23:27-28) both seem at work: religion performed for an audience, and a self that judges others while never coming under the same view. See Mask and Verdict More? Show me the coin for the tax.” — Matthew 22:15-18 ESV

The flattery, the setup, the trap hidden in the question — none of it worked, because Jesus didn’t take the bait. He asked his own question instead: “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” And it cut straight through theirs. (Matthew 22:23-46 is well worth reading in full — the dynamics between Jesus and his questioners in that passage are instructive.)

But before we settle in to watch the Pharisees, it’s worth turning it around. Notice how they came at him — flattery first: “Teacher, we know that you are true.” Flattery works because something in us reaches for it. Someone asks my opinion, and — ooh, let me tell you. The pride of life flares up, and a puffed-up mind is a closed one. The pride that loves being asked is the pride that has quietly stopped asking.

What makes a question bad isn’t the topic — it’s the motive. A question asked to catch, to score, to protect an existing position rather than to learn, is a pseudo-question. The heart behind it is already closed.

There is a third type worth naming: the unprocessed question — thrown out in passing, as small talk, without any real intent to pursue the answer. Less destructive than the trap, but it has the same closed quality underneath. If a question isn’t worth sitting with, it probably isn’t a real question yet.

Real questions come from a genuinely open mind — and they stay open long enough to actually receive what comes back.

Stagnation

The opposite of a questioning mind has a name in Scripture:

“You are neither cold nor hot… For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.” — Revelation 3:15-17 ESV

I need nothing. That is the declaration of a mind that has stopped asking. Not necessarily arrogant — just settled. Comfortable. Sure enough that the questions have stopped coming. And it produces exactly what it claims to have escaped: poverty, blindness, nakedness. The gold refined by fire, the white garments, the salve for the eyes — these are not for the one who already has everything. They are for the one who has finally realized they don’t.

Ask

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. — Matthew 7:7-8 ESV

Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stoneA natural material whose substance remains what it is regardless of how it is shaped or how fine it is ground. In the biblical symbol-system, stone represents truth as it is found in reality — unmanufactured, carrying its own integrity. The altar of uncut stone, the tablets of the commandments, Christ as the foundation stone — the same substance at different scales and purposes. Petros — a moveable stone or pebble. Petra — bedrock, the immoveable foundation. Same substance, different scale. Synonyms: rock, petra, petros, foundation, pebble, boulder, gravel. More? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! — Matthew 7:9-11 ESV

All the questioning — the why and what and how and when, the real questions held patiently over years — eventually arrives somewhere. There is one ask that all the others are moving toward. Jesus named it plainly:

I am the bread of life. — John 6:48 ESV

The humility of a child, pressed far enough, becomes something more than curiosity. It becomes a real humbling — the recognition of our own need — and the willingness to simply ask for this bread of life. That’s where the questions lead. And he said everyone who asks, receives.

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