My first time in an InterVarsity Bible study was not what I expected. I was a new Christian and wanted to learn everything I could about being a follower of Jesus. I expected to meet a wise, knowledgeable sage who would share his vast wisdom while I took reams of notes and flipped frantically through the Bible. Instead, I sat in a circle with a few other students while a friendly but awfully average guy asked questions about one passage in the gospel of Mark. Why does this guy ask so many questions? I thought. Doesn’t he already know the answers?

Initially, I was disappointed. I wanted to learn from someone with all the answers. But to my surprise, the more questions he asked, the more I began to see deeper meanings and implications in what we were reading. The hour flew by like it was five minutes. Where did he get these questions? I wondered. That night, I had several new and exciting realizations about being a genuine follower of Jesus. My heart was pounding and my mind was racing—I would have lingered for hours if anyone would have stayed and talked with me.

I had come seeking right answers. Instead, I was given thoughtful, probing questions that led to a much deeper understanding of Jesus. I was intrigued by this approach to learning. Later, when I was asked to become a Bible study leader, I learned the art of asking good questions that help others discover Jesus for themselves.

Faith grows from asking good questions
Having questions is extremely important. Why? Because we will not possess answers until we first possess questions. Questions lead to understanding and understanding leads to a deeper faith. Probably the most crucial thing you can do to develop a stronger faith in God is to ask lots of questions! Did you know that in the Gospels there are 80 separate instances where people brought their questions to Jesus? He spent more time asking and answering questions than he did preaching and healing. Jesus loved a good question!

And that’s good news, because most of us have the wrong idea about questioning the teachings of the Bible. We’ve been taught that it’s wrong to question anything the Bible says, that we should just accept everything and not ask why or how. We’ve been told that faith means just believing in something—even if it makes no sense at all.

There is a bumper sticker popular among Christians that demonstrates this anti-questioning attitude perfectly. It is usually found on the bumper of a 1974 half-ton pickup. It says, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.”

That bumper sticker irritates me, and here’s why. Jesus always listened, responded and even rewarded people who came to him with honest questions. The “God said it, I believe it, that settles it” mentality is just blind acceptance. It makes it seem as if God is not interested in a dialogue with us. And this could not be further from the truth.

As a matter of fact, Jesus thought people’s questions were so important that if he met someone who didn’t have a decent question, Jesus would say something really off-the-wall just to provoke curiosity—and then the questions would come. For example, in John 3, we meet Nicodemus, an expert in the Old Testament Scriptures. He doesn’t come to Jesus with a question. Rather, he thinks he’s got Jesus’ number, and he tells Jesus, “We all know you must be from God.”

Jesus then says something perplexing to Nicodemus, “Unless you’re born again, you’ll never see the kingdom of God.”

“What are you talking about?” asks Nicodemus. Now Nicodemus has a question—now he can actually learn something!

One of history’s greatest teachers and question-askers was Socrates. There is a story about a young man who came to Socrates and said, “Teacher, I want very much to be one of your students.” To this, Socrates replied, “Come with me.” He took the lad over to a large barrel full of water and said, “Look into the water—tell me what you see.” The young man looked and said, “I see nothing but water.” “Look again!” said Socrates. So the youth peered into the barrel again. Suddenly, the old man thrust the student’s face into the water and held him under so that he couldn’t breathe. He thrashed and struggled, but Socrates would not let him up for air. Finally, when he could stand it no longer, the old teacher let go and the young man came up. Gasping and angry, the soaked young man demanded, “Why did you do this to me?” Socrates replied, “When you want knowledge as much as you wanted air, then come back to me and you can be my student.”

Do you want to know God? Do you want your faith to grow? I’ve always found that people with a strong faith have an insatiable hunger to know God and possess an endless supply of questions. They are inquisitive. They are not afraid to question sacred beliefs. On the other hand, the person who always gives spiritual-sounding answers in Bible study, or who habitually spouts the latest Christian clichés, often has a stagnant faith, and a stale relationship with God. They have lost the healthy desperation to know him.

Not All Questions Are Created Equal
There are good questions and bad questions. Here is a list of good questions that people in the Bible asked Jesus:

• “How many times should I forgive someone?”
• “If something bad happens to you—is that God punishing you?”
• “Is wealth a sign that God is happy with you?”
• “What do we get if we leave everything and follow you?”
• “Don’t you care about what’s happening to us?”
• “Who gets to be at the top in your kingdom?”
• “Why do you keep speaking in parables? What do they have to do with us?”
• “How can anyone accept what you are teaching? It’s a lot to swallow!”

Every one of these questions led to a deeper understanding of Jesus and his kingdom. Jesus responded to all of them and gave the person much more understanding.

And here is a list of bad questions for Jesus, asked mostly by religious leaders:

• “Why don’t you follow all our rules and traditions?
• “Why don’t you care what people are saying about you?”
• “Do you realize that you are offending the religious people around here?”
• “Who said you could heal people on the Sabbath? Who gave you the right?”
• “Do you know the most important commandment in the Bible?”
• “Why do you run around forgiving people’s sins—don’t you know that only God can do that?”

These spiritual “know-it-alls” didn’t seek to understand. They were not open-minded. They were trying to catch Jesus on something or find a flaw. They had already decided Jesus was wrong and were looking for a way to prove it. In some cases, they just didn’t like what he was saying because they knew it was true. They really didn’t want to change anything in their own lives.

What makes a good question good and a bad question bad? It’s not the question itself, but the intent behind the question that matters. A question like, “What’s wrong with having sex with my girlfriend?” could be a good question if you’re asking with the intent to understand what God’s reasons are for putting limits on sex. But it could be a bad question if you’ve decided there’s nothing in the world that’s going to change your mind about having sex, and you just want to defend your own actions. The good question seeks to understand and is open to change. The bad question seeks to argue, not to learn.

You might be struggling with some decision or issue in your life right now. What kinds of questions are you asking? Are they good or bad questions? What is your intent—to understand God, or to argue?

The Value of Questions in Bible Study
Perhaps you can relate to my first experience with Bible study. You might have been put off by the emphasis on asking questions about the passage you were studying. Maybe you thought, What’s up with this Bible study? Why doesn’t the leader give us the answers to our questions? Doesn’t she know? In many cases, your leader does have a good answer to the questions, but he or she wants you to have the chance to discover the answer for yourself. The leader may hold back until you’ve had a chance to work at it for a while. The best teachers don’t try to show off their knowledge, but instead try to raise the right kinds of questions.

You are going to get a lot more out of Bible study as you let go of worrying about what other people think about you and just ask the simple questions you have about the Bible. It doesn’t mean you’re ignorant or that you don’t believe in Jesus if you question something he said. Your probing questions really show that you are a seeker and that you want to know the truth.

My pet peeve as a Bible study leader is when people in the group are so bored that they’re looking at their watches during the study because they’ve read this passage before and they have it all figured out. First of all, they can’t possibly know all there is to know.

Second, if they are bored with Bible study, it may be because they have become proud and complacent and their faith has stopped growing. Has this happened to you? If your faith is stagnant, you need to become desperate to know God again. Become a learner again, and start asking deeper questions about what you’re reading.

And finally, if you are trying to help your non-Christian friends discover Jesus, your greatest asset in witnessing is a good question that opens up a conversation about beliefs. One of my most exciting witnessing opportunities this year started when I found out that my friend Tony had spent the weekend at a retreat learning Transcendental Meditation and I simply asked, “What do you get out of meditating and saying chants?” We then talked openly about our beliefs and spiritual journeys. Show me an effective witness, and I’ll guarantee that he or she is skilled at asking sincere, thought-provoking questions.

—Shawn Young lives in Reno, Nevada, with his wife, Caryn, and his children, Kalena and Nathan. He has served as InterVarsity® staff in both Las Vegas and Reno.