By Michael Kelley
There are, if you want to be super simplistic about it, maybe only two types of questions that we ask each other.
The first type of question is based on the need for information. It is asked in order for the asker to know something that he or she doesn’t already know. This is the kind of question I ask most every day about my keys, or my shoes, or my wallet, or my whatever — “Jana, where is my whatever?” I ask because I don’t know, and I assume the person I’m asking possesses the knowledge that I need and might be willing to share it with me.
But there is another type of question — this one is not based in information, but based more in revelation. You ask this type of question to another when you know the answer, and maybe even the person you’re asking knows the answer, but through asking it reveals something else that the person you are asking it to might now know. And God asks these kinds of questions all the time.
Take, for instance, the garden. The fall has happened. Man has rebelled. Everything in creation has been turned upside down. And the Lord asks a question of Adam and Eve:
“Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9).
This is not a question-based in information; God the Creator knows very well that his humans are hiding behind some trees over there. He’s not asking it because He doesn’t know; He’s asking it because He wants to reveal something to Adam and Eve, and to us. The revelation is both about themselves (and ourselves) and about Him. Through these three words, God brings us to a point of revealing that we are, as sinners, hiding from His presence. And that He, because of His great love, is seeking us out to be in right relationship with Him.
As parents, we do the same thing even if we don’t know it. We come in the house and we see that the lamp is broken. We know that a child has done this, and most of the time we know which child. But we ask anyway, “Who broke the lamp?” It’s not because we need information; it’s because we desire revelation. We want the child to own up to what they’ve done, and in so doing, to take responsibility for that action and ultimately for us to reveal both the discipline and the grace we have for them.
Revelation. Not information.
When we come to Jesus, then, we find Him asking all kinds of questions. And I would posit that when Jesus asks a question, it’s not a search for information; it’s to the end of revelation. But there is one particular moment in the gospels when He asks a very surprising question:
