Questions

One of the common modes of communication among humans is the question. We ask questions for a variety of reasons. There is the obvious -- I want information I don't have. There is the common rhetorical question, a question asked that need not be answered. "Is the pope Catholic?" is a question offered in response to a question because everyone knows the answer and "that's your answer." But I suspect that most of our questions are not in these two categories. Most are for a different purpose. Most are to nudge thinking. Teachers do it by asking questions in class. They know the answers and they want an answer; they simply want the students to participate. They want to engage their brains and get them to think down the paths that the teacher is wanting them to think. Very common.

In the garden, the serpent famously asked of Eve, "Did God say ...?" Why did he ask? It wasn't for information; he knew what God said. It wasn't rhetorical; he wanted her to answer. No, it was that third category. Get her answer so he could lead her to where he wanted her to go or, more accurately, how he wanted her to think: God is not reliable and needs to be questioned. So she "saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and the tree was desirable to make one wise. And she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave to her husband with her, and he ate" (Gen 3:6). Eve, the mother of all, handed that fruit -- "Did God say ...?" -- to Adam and to the rest of her offspring forever on the basis of the serpent's question, "Did God say ...?".

Today, of course, the question remains. For the unbeliever the answer is easy. "Nope! I don't believe it." For those who fancy themselves believers, it might be more cagey. "Sure, I believe it; I just don't believe you" or "Sure, the Bible contains God's word, but it isn't all God's word." It remains the question the serpent asked: "Did God say ...?" And we continue to answer it Eve's way. "I'll look at it for myself and, using my own perceptions and intellect, I'll evaluate it and come to the correct conclusion." Only, she didn't. Only, we don't. We use our own "eyes" as the plumb bob of truth without realizing we're already crooked (Jer 17:9). The fruit we see as desirable is in fact deadly. And we ignore the patently obvious God-breathed (2 Tim 3:16-17) truth (John 17:17) in front of us as a wonderfully clear means of finding out where our understanding and thinking and feelings and perspectives are mistaken. We answer the question wrong. "No, He didn't say that. He was wrong." With disastrous results.