The Question - A New Book

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Introduction

 

            Two thousand years ago, Jesus challenged the religious system of His day. It had become infiltrated with traditions and man-made practices that had nothing to do with the Word of God or the Lord’s intervention for His people. Many of the people with whom Jesus came in contact had doubts and were oppressed by this religious system. Jesus challenged the people of His day by asking over two hundred and thirty questions – more than any other leader in recorded history.

            The uniqueness of this book is threefold: First, in two thousand years no other book has been written that summarizes these extraordinary questions. Second, the questions that Jesus asked pressed the very heart and root of the issues that were universally significant during that period. Third, these questions, the answers to these questions and Jesus’s authentic resolutions transcend time and space to the current condition of our culture today. They cover every aspect of our lives whether we deal with the purpose of life, our relationship to one another, or how God wants to impact our conventional society.

            The Question builds a bridge between what Jesus said two thousand years ago and His empirical message to what we desperately need to hear today. Jesus has a unique way of communicating, inspiring us to reach down deep into our very being. His questions are piercing and challenging, and cause introspection that would only be inspired by the Almighty. It is a unique and unusual process of communication created by the world’s greatest leader.

I was a young industrial management consultant in my early thirties and still very impressionable. A corporate conglomerate hired me to take over a three-plant facility in north central Ohio to help restructure management and materials systems so the company would be more productive. The previous General Manager, in his last meeting with his staff, said something very profound to me as young consultant. “Decisions are not difficult,” he said. "What is difficult are the questions. If you ask the right questions, you get the right answers, and if you get the right answers, you have all the right facts. Then if you have all the right facts, the decisions are obvious!”

Wow! What an astounding revelation to me. When I recommitted my life to the Lord a couple of years later, I was amazed at how many questions Jesus asked in the New Testament. Over two hundred and thirty-three questions, in fact. Questions about all matters of life, including life itself. Many years later, I felt the inspiration to write this book.

The questions Jesus asked are categorized into eight chapters: “Spiritual Values”, “Spiritual Life”, “Spiritual Relationships”, “Spiritual Alignment”, “Spiritual Commitment”, “Spiritual Provisions”, “Spiritual Revelations”, and “Spiritual Warnings”. Each chapter is broken into three sections: “The Definition”, “The Bridge”, and “The Questions”. In attempting to bring the reader into the perspective of what Jesus is saying in contemporary terms, the sections on “The Definition” and “The Bridge” may be somewhat lengthy as in the “Spiritual Values” and “Spiritual Relationships” chapters.

            In some chapters, these sections are very short because they require no lengthy explanation. What is important is that Jesus answers many of His own questions, and they can pierce our hearts today as they did 2000 years ago when He asked them. Often the application is quickly and uniquely apparent.

            Some questions Jesus asks, He does not answer. We are left to ponder what Jesus meant and in some cases why He asked the question in the first place. Jesus asked more questions than any other great leader in history. In fact, when He was twelve years old the first words Jesus ever spoke recorded in Scripture was a question that resonates through the ages: “Why are you searching for Me? (Luke 2:49). There must be some reason He asked all these questions. They are probing and provocative. They cause us to introspect and look deep into our motives. Jesus, with all His wisdom and practical applications, invites us into the realm of research – a laboratory full of questions.