The Power of Questions

And His disciples asked Him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?" (John 9:2)

Questions are very powerful things, much more so than what many of us give them credit. Questions often have an advantage over statements in that they can subtly imply many things without appearing obvious. It is far easier to hide assumptions and presumptions within questions than it is to openly state those same things and have them accepted.

Questions are much more efficient for creating insinuations and infecting minds than plain statements. Questions lead a listener to mistakenly accept suspicions that they otherwise might never have considered previously. The most tragic example of this in all history using this technique brought sin into our world. The serpent masked all sorts of negative insinuations about God in his questions to Eve and then reinforced them with false assertions to induce her into relinquishing her confidence in God's love for her. The result of that successful deception is the whole sordid history of sin on this planet.

While questions are a way of spreading suspicion, doubt and unbelief, at the same time the power of questions can also be used to flush out the truth if they are used correctly and skillfully. But it is vitally important that we not allow ourselves to be sucked into assumptions upon which questions may be based without thinking about them. As Jesus often did, we may need to meet questions with counter questions of our own to uncover the potential traps within a question.

Some questioning can have the effect of spreading the poison of suspicion and insinuation about someone's character while pretending to be concerned and innocent in the process. Many of us have been the victim of such vicious but innocuous attacks as our reputation is cast in a bad light by someone pretending to warn others about supposed faults in our character. In reality, just as the serpent did in Eve's mind about God's character, the greater faults reside in the character of the questioner rather than the one they are implicating. That is one reason it is so dangerous to accept and respond to questions just on the surface as Eve mistakenly did.

But even beyond this, it is far more important to practice discernment about the spirit behind a question. False assumptions are sometimes inevitable on our part in our questions because of ignorance and the influence of sin on our psyche that blinds us to reality. We may honestly desire to know the truth but often don't even know how to ask the right questions to find it because our hearts and minds are so filled with falsehoods that have not yet been exposed. Responding to questions filled with false assumptions but free of an antagonistic spirit may be very different than meeting insinuating questions from people who have a hidden agenda and ulterior motives behind their questions.

Questions can many times be the first line of attack whenever someone is wanting to discredit someone else. It is like spies sent in to infiltrate and undermine the defenses of the opposition before launching an all-out assault. Once an insinuation has been planted in the mind of a person about someone else through the use of subtle insinuation, it is impossible for the listener to ever recover the innocence of their former level of trust in the one thus implicated. After that, each time they see the person thus implicated they cannot help but remember the suspicions planted in their minds and these seeds of doubt can very quickly spring up and reinforce themselves by twisting facts and forming judgments to reinforce these suspicions. This is the nature of suspicion and doubt and comes from the subtle power of sin to tear apart meaningful relationships.

The Pharisees and Jewish leaders had become experts in this subtle use of questions and they practiced it regularly on Jesus. They tried in every way possible to implicate Jesus and to discredit Him by sowing seeds of doubt in people's hearts every chance they could in order to block His influence on people's hearts. They tried repeatedly to entrap Him through leading questions into answering incriminating questions in order to have Him discredit Himself. For in most questions with such hidden agendas, there is no way a person can answer the question as expected without serious damage. Some questions must be challenged rather than answered or else the hidden trap will spill out its poison no matter what answer is given. This is where it is vital to pay attention to the spirit behind a question rather than trying to be polite to answer the question outright.

In these verses we see the disciples of Jesus asking a question that is full of false assumptions and paradigms reflective of typical false ideas about God. Jesus had come to this earth and gathered these disciples around Him to reveal the truth about God to all who would pay attention. This question was so full of false assumptions that it would be difficult to respond without allowing at least some of them to remain, for the very way the question was shaped left no room for the truth. This question was framed with only two alternatives, like a multiple choice question that requires you to only select from the answers supplied leaving the responder no other option if none of the proffered answers are acceptable.

But unlike some of His responses to the religious leaders who had ulterior and hostile motives behind many of their questions, Jesus knew that His disciples were simply reflecting their preconceived beliefs in these false assumptions in their question. Knowing that their spirit was not like the hostility of the Pharisees, Jesus could respond by discarding all the built-in answers and move His disciples beyond their narrow perspective to use this as an effective teaching moment to introduce them to a clearer view of reality. He knew that this was not a trick question but was an honest inquiry but based on a lifetime of false assumptions and culture.

When I pondered how to begin this piece, I first considered starting out by asking, “What's wrong with this question?” But the more I thought about it the more I realized that my own question would be replicating the very thing I was trying to expose. By asking a question in this way I would also be laying a foundation of assumption; I would be implicating that there indeed is something wrong with the way the disciples formed their question and then I would be in the same boat as they were. To begin by implying that something is wrong without first examining it is an effective way to implant that idea without stating it outright. But I decided to be more open in my approach (and also to avoid discrediting myself with those who might quickly notice my own inconsistency) and take a different approach.

Challenging assumptions within a question does not always imply that we are hostile to the question. I believe that encouraging people to regularly challenge the assumptions in their own thinking and their own questions is one of the most effective ways to have them learn to think more clearly. If a question or assumption is actually based on truth, there is no need at all to react defensively to either challenges from others or by our own examination.

So often people become offended whenever an assumption is challenged and feel that it is inappropriate or even wrong to question our assumed beliefs. But God has no problem with our challenging assumptions and in fact strongly encourages us to do so. God is not looking for blindly loyal subjects who never think or reason or use the intelligence He gave them. He wants us to grow in maturity and to begin to function like adults and have a sensible and defensible reason for what we believe. But most important is not whether our exposed assumptions turn out to be right or wrong but is whether our spirit is open to correction and we are willing to lay aside preconceived opinions without undue resistance when it becomes clear that they are faulty.

Some of us feel a great deal of shame associated with having our presuppositions uncovered. Many times we go to great lengths to avoid having any of our beliefs examined feeling that it is an affront to our faith. Instead of being willing to challenge our own assumptions regularly and allowing God to replace falsehoods with truth, we think it is our job to entrench ourselves more firmly in what we already believe and treat everyone who challenges our opinions as enemies to be attacked and pushed away. I suspect that this intense reaction driven by fear of exposure may be caused when we think that our worth and value are dependent on our always being right. When this is the case we isolate ourselves from any around us who see things differently and cut ourselves off from the very sources that God may want to use to help us mature and advance. The Bible speaks of this mindset as hardening our heart and it can be fatal if not faced honestly.

Pride is most often the obstacle to having our assumptions and beliefs examined openly without becoming defensive. Pride is the artificial means for propping up our self-worth in place of trusting in what God says about our value. Pride is actually a symptom of a deep emptiness in the soul that can never be satisfactorily filled with the things we assume will bring us relief. Pride and selfishness is the very core of sin and blinds us to accept the love and value we need that we think we can achieve through other means. Interestingly, pride is not something tangible that must be removed; rather pride is a vacuum that attracts all sorts of temporary gimmicks in attempts to dull the pain of our empty hearts at the deepest level.

On the other hand, humility is not a vacuum of self-esteem as many have assumed. Moses was the most humble man who ever lived according to the Bible, yet because of his dependence and intimate connection with God from which he received a confident sense of his worth, he could stand peacefully in the face of overwhelming attacks, ridicule and threats with a humble boldness because his reference point was not dependent on what people thought about him but was rooted in how God felt about him.

Yes, I did get a long way off from addressing the question of these disciples. But I feel that it is important to follow a thread sometimes to flush out important issues and then come back to the beginning and possibly follow another thread later. The truth I see in this story is that Jesus' disciples were much more open to having their presuppositions challenged, at least to some extent, than were the Jewish leaders who had hardened their hearts each time Jesus exposed their false premises. But with His disciples Jesus could counter their ignorance by offering better explanations without so much danger of being ignored. His disciples had enough humility (though it was still in short supply many times) to be willing to listen and have their assumptions challenged without getting so offended.

I see much more in these verses that I am eager to explore, but as usual I need to close this piece because it is getting lengthy and I need to let the Spirit apply what I have seen to my own heart and life. I want my own spirit to be willing to receive convictions and be corrected just as these disciples needed to have their assumptions exposed. Jesus drew them close to Himself for over three years so that their perceptions of reality could be transformed to begin to see things as heaven sees them rather than from the narrow mindset of earthly religion. I too need to have much of my thinking and my assumptions transformed as the Spirit continues to reveal things I have mistakenly assumed from my own religious upbringing. And I want to ever be willing to cooperate with His mentoring.