The Power of Questions
From my S.O.A.P. Journal
Scripture
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”…But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
Genesis 3:1, 9 (NIV)
Observation
In the two biblical creation stories, a shift is made from the cosmic stage of Genesis 1 to a garden arena in Genesis 2. God in the Genesis 1 saga is named “Elohim,” or simply “God.” In the Genesis 2 story, God’s name is “Yahweh Elohim,” or the “Lord God.” Genesis 1 is grand in scale and scope, while Genesis 2 is intimate and cozy.
Then the mood shifts again as we move to Genesis 3. If this were a movie, the music behind the words would turn from light and airy to dark and heavy as we begin Genesis 3. Enter stage left, the serpent. What stirred in me this morning was that the serpent starts with a question. “Did God really say?” His temptation was not for the first couple to do anything, but rather to believe something wrongly of God and his character. The eating of the forbidden fruit was stirred in our first parents through a question about God.
In The Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer famously wrote, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” He expanded this thought when he also wrote,
“For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. This is true not only of the individual Christian, but of the company of Christians that composes the Church. Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God, just as her most significant message is what she says about Him or leaves unsaid, for her silence is often more eloquent than her speech.”
The serpent knew this truth. Thus, he tempted Adam and Eve to think badly about God and his character and he did so with a question.
What also struck me this morning is that God also asks questions of his most prized creation in these first pages of sacred text, but with an entirely different motive. Here are God’s questions in Genesis 3:
Genesis 3:9 (NIV) But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
Genesis 3:11 (NIV) And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
Genesis 3:13 (NIV) Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
God’s questions are direct but also filled with kindness and inquisitive love. God’s questioning ways continues in Genesis 4 in the Cain and Abel saga with the same kind of tenderness:
Genesis 4:6 (NIV) Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast?
Genesis 4:9 (NIV) Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”
Genesis 4:10a (NIV) The Lord said, “What have you done?”
In all six of these questions, God’s loving but truthful character shines through. You can almost see a tear in God’s eye as he asks these tough questions.
In today’s reading, I also looked at Luke 2. The last story in this chapter is the only account we have of Jesus as a teenager. Lost from his parents for three days, they find him in the Temple with teachers of the Law. Frantic, they ask Jesus, “Why did you do this to us?” I do wonder if this is a sanitized version of what his scared parents actually said! Jesus responds with (you guessed it) - a question. “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49 NIV). Jesus, even as an adolescent, was describing his personal character. In the Greek, the word “house” isn’t really there. It’s just the word “father” which can be translated, “Didn’t you know I’d be about ‘the things’ of my Father?” Jesus does the good, holy “things of his Father.” Jesus used a question to describe and define who he was.
Application
It’s simple but profound that these ancient stories tell a truth about both life in God and the works of the devil. From the first pages of scripture, we are introduced to both the glory and the grit of walking with the One who made us. We are in a fight. The enemy of our soul, the one called “the accuser of our brothers and sisters” in Revelation 12:10, uses questions to deconstruct God’s character and deform ours while the Lord God uses questions to inform God’s character and reform ours. “Questioning” can be experienced as either an “inquisition” or an “inspiration.” The enemy is an accusatory inquisitor while the Lord is a life-enhancing inspirer. Both question me but with very different motives. The accuser wants to destroy me while the Lord wants to expose my misguidedness and correct it.
“The enemy of our soul, the one called ‘the accuser of our brothers and sisters’ in Revelation 12:10, uses questions to deconstruct God’s character and deform ours while the Lord God uses questions to inform God’s character and reform ours. ”
I also know that I can use questioning likewise. My questioning can either add life or take it. A few years back, in a gift of reverse mentoring, Wes Olds gave me a leadership gift. I had just had a bad coaching moment with a staff person, and he and I were debriefing it. Wes gave me an insight on how to do better next time. He said, “Jorge, begin with a question.” Boom! Why was this so helpful? The obvious answer is that questions, when done well, can be disarming and even healing. They communicate to the one you are asking, “I care about you.” At the same time, my timing, tone and tenor of my questioning can be used by the enemy to hurt people. This good and holy questioning impulse is seen in God the Creator (Genesis 3-4) and God the Teenager (Luke 2). My motive in asking questions can, with the Spirit’s help, be a gift and grace to people. May it be.
Prayer
Lord, this is so helpful for me as a Christ follower who wants to grow in my own apprenticeship to Jesus, as a human who wants to love people well and as a coach who wants to help spiritual leaders take their next step. Give me discernment to know the difference between the enemy’s questions and yours. Give me wisdom to use questions to help people not hinder them. To the glory and fame of your name, I ask it and pray. Amen.
A Favorite Quote from a Book I’m Reading…
“One of the biggest mistakes we’ve made in the modern church is to reimagine spiritual maturity as the need to confess less. The unspoken assumption is, “As I ascend in relationship with God, I confess less because I have less to confess.“ True spiritual maturity, though, is the opposite. It’s not an ascension; it’s an archaeological dig as we discover layer after layer of what was in us all along. Spiritual maturity means more confession, not less. Maturity is discovering the depths of my personal brand of fallenness, and the depths to which God‘s grace has really penetrated, even without me, knowing it. ”
