A lot of people asked Jesus questions when he taught in the Temple. One asked a question to learn.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the twelfth chapter of Mark’s Gospel (Mark 12:28-34), which finds Jesus teaching in the Temple during the last week of his life.
Most of chapter twelve is fairly contentious. Jesus argued with Sadducees, he argued with representatives of the priesthood, he argued with Pharisees who were present, he argued with Herodians. In general, people seemed to be determined to catch him in a falsehood, or an untruth, or something that would get him in trouble either with the officials or with the crowds.
And then along comes this one scribe. We don’t know his name. Mark says that the scribe saw that Jesus answered them well, and so the scribe asked a question: “Which one is the greatest commandment?” That was a fairly standard kind of conversation opener between religious teachers in the first century, and for that matter, in the twenty-first century.
Jesus answered the question — not something that Jesus was really noted for in chapter twelve. Jesus said, the first is to love the Lord your God; the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. The scribe agreed. Jesus told him that he was not far from the realm of God.
It turns out that we learn more when we ask questions that are intended to help us learn something, to help us understand something, to help us build a relationship with someone. The questions that are designed to trap or ensnare, the questions that are designed to confirm our own opinions: they don’t lead us much of anywhere. The scribe asked a question to which he clearly had an answer, since he in the end agreed with Jesus’ answer, but he asked it because he wanted to know what Jesus thought.
And he found out. He found out something that he already knew about God, but he found out something about Jesus that until that moment he could not have known, with so many others engaged in a process of trying to trap or ensnare.
In these days, so many questions are asked in order to put somebody in a position that they cannot escape. Wouldn’t we be better off if we asked questions to learn, to grow, to understand, to build relationship with those around us?
Then, indeed, we might find ourselves not far from the realm of God.
That’s what I’m thinking I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
