asking not answering

I remember when I was college, I was constantly uncovering new ideas, deeper definitions for concepts, and connecting the dots of my worldview. It was a fun time; an era of discovery, youth, and way too little sleep.

As I was growing as a disciple of Jesus, I came across a quote that would deeply shape my learning and pursuits moving forward. I was getting coffee with a dear friend and out of nowhere he dropped this profound, truth-bomb of a quote on me without any notice.

He tends to do that. I love him for it.

This quote stuck with me for the next few months. I struggled to find the exact quotation, finding lots of variants on the internet but was never sure which one was the original quote from that coffeeshop moment.

I finally found it (or at least a great version from the sea of online quotes) that I have held on to over the years.

“In the Gospels, Jesus is asked 187 questions. He answers (maybe) 8 of them. He himself asks 307. Maybe faith isn’t about certainty, but learning to ask- and sit in the complexity of good questions.” -Kevin Nye

Wow. Profound, right?

Notice how even the quote is almost a question. Now the point of this quote is not to lead us down a spiral of deconstruction to the post-modern void of total uncertainty. Or maybe it is, but I’ll walk a different path thank you very much!

But this observation on Jesus of Nazareth, the divine rabbi, God-in-the-flesh is stunning. It reminds me of several things.

Jesus values questions.

He rarely answers them clearly and loves to ask them. And his teaching style is full of parables, which often times don’t give the audience the clarity they seek.

Growing up in church, I was taught to read the Bible as the divine source of propositional truth; that one could read the Bible on their own and – with a healthy dose of common sense – figure it all out on their own. And in some parts of my family and social contexts outside of my childhood church experiences, I was surrounded by conservative politics.

In the realms of church, politics, and immediate community I was immersed in was objective truth, common sense & reason, and enduring faith. In all of these things, the motto was “what we hold to is simple and absolutely correct and the other side is wrong.”

Don’t get me wrong, my parents raised me believing in vital truths of God that were essential to me finding Jesus. I grew up believing the Bible was true, God was real, and that Jesus was a real person who died on the cross. I am so grateful for my parents orchestrating an upbringing and firm foundation of core values.

Yet overemphasizing certainty can be problematic.

If you used common sense in reading the Bible and thinking about politics, you would come to the right conclusion.

Funny how everyone disagrees on what “common sense” leads us to believe and how to interpret Scripture. Weird how much we disagree on what “common sense” means for the political realm. But politics and theology are just two indicative examples of a larger problem.

Asking questions was about getting the answers, not about sitting in the tension of uncertainty. Somehow common sense could lead us to transcend our finite limitations. Somehow depravity doesn’t impact the reason of the human being. But no matter our background and upbringing, we all come from somewhere and some culture.

We are embodied in time and space. It’s inevitable. Yet, I’m not primarily here to critique a certain subgroup. My point is that this quote stunned me.

What if Jesus of Nazareth was on to something?

What if asking questions was more than just a quest to answers?

What if our discipleship was about more than dogma, simple faith, and common sense?

What if the Teacher was modeling something with questions and lack of answers?

This quote shaped my perspective deeply as I moved through college. Humility, patience, and trust in the Lord were not just virtues for the public square or in relationships but in apprenticeship to Jesus; in my learning, discussing, and studying, I learned how to be someone who could sit with good questions.

And I’m still learning to learn what I have learned.

Learning to sit with questions means in part to know the what kind of questions to sit with. These kind of questions are the ones that aren’t easily or quickly answered. The kind of questions that require us to think deeply. The kind of questions that ask us to give our allegiance to the Eternal King and evaluate the traditions & ideas of our heritage and that fill your subculture. The kind of questions that challenge our comforts, selfish ambitions, and subtly hidden arrogance. The kinds of questions that lead us into worship.

Jesus values questions. As His followers and students, we should too.