Anonymous Asks (334)

“If Jesus was/is omniscient, why did he ask questions?”

Good question. You can find several lists online of the questions Jesus asked in the gospels. Curious Bible students have dug up at least 300, minus a few repetitions from overlapping accounts. No single explanation accounts for them all, but one thing we can say with absolute certainty is that Jesus never asked a question to which he didn’t already know the answer.

Here are a few types of questions the Lord commonly asked, with some observations about what they may have been intended to accomplish.

1/ Rhetorical Questions

Rhetorical questions are not really questions at all. Rhetoric is a way of making a point, a common figure of speech in many languages. The audience already knows the answer.

The Sermon on the Mount alone is loaded with rhetorical questions, one after another. This is by far the type of question the Lord asked most often.

Matthew 5:13 “But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?”

Matthew 5:46 “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?”

Matthew 5:46 “Are not even the tax collectors doing that?”

2/ Questions That Required Soul Searching

Other questions were almost rhetorical but not quite. They forced the listener into introspection to see if he was somehow falling short of God’s standard or behaving illogically:

Matthew 7:3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”

Matthew 8:26 “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?”

Matthew 9:4 “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts?”

3/ Questions That Pointed to His Deity

The most important thing the Lord ever did with his questions was point to his own deity, in order that his audience would confront God’s command to believe in the one he had sent.

Matthew 9:5 “Which is easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven’, or to say, ‘Get up and walk’?”

Matthew 12:29: “Or again, how can anyone enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man?”

Matthew 16:13-15 “Who do people say the Son of Man is? Who do you say I am?”

Matthew 22:43-45 “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him Lord? If then David calls him Lord, how can he be his son?”

Luke 22:49 “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”

4/ Questions That Challenged Unbelief

Matthew 12:27 “And if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your people drive them out?”

Matthew 12:34 “You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good?”

Luke 6:46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’, and not do what I say?”

5/ Questions That Pointed to Spiritual Truths

Matthew 12:48 “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?”

Matthew 16:26 “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?”

Matthew 17:25 “From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes — from their own sons or from others?”

Matthew 21:31 “Which of the two did what his father wanted?”

Matthew 26:54 “But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen this way?”

Luke 10:36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”

6/ Questions That Exposed Hypocrisy

Matthew 7:4 “How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?”

Luke 13:15 “Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water?”

Why the Questions?

There are other categories of questions we could create, and plenty more questions we could fill them with, but the key to understanding not just the questions Jesus asked but so many other things he said and did is found in the gospel of John at the tomb of Lazarus. Jesus prays:

“Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.”

Jesus never asked questions to find out the answers. He asked questions to make people think. Every word that came out of his mouth was for their benefit and ours. Once we understand that, a great deal about the gospels falls into place.