Throughout the Bible we read of God asking questions. In fact, in the very beginning, in Genesis 3, we find the all-knowing, omniscient, creator God asking His creation, “Adam, where are you?” Why did God question Adam, Job, Elijah, or the children of Israel? Why did Jesus ask those coming to him for help what they wanted from Him? Why did Jesus so often answer a question with a question?
God doesn’t ask us questions because He doesn’t know the answer or because He’s toying with us. God asks us questions to reveal himself, to provoke us to think, to draw us out, to get us to consider our motivations and our actions, to take the right action by obeying Him, and to follow Him as a disciple. Often in our desire to hear from God we tend to focus on God’s statements rather than his questions. Douglas Estes, in his book The Questions of Jesus in John (Leiden: Brill, 2013), states, “Most readers of the gospels read them (the gospels) to see what Jesus will say, not to see what Jesus will ask.” We look for the pat answer, the promise, the statement, that we can then readily apply to our situation. We don’t want to grapple with questions. But what do the questions of God draw out of us? Invariably the questions of God require actions not answers; decisions not debate.
