Your Question is My Question
An in-depth framework for finding the right questions and discovering the right answer for them.
Welcome to Project 21st 👋
If you’re new here, Project 21st is a newsletter that examines the complexities of the 21st century and how it shapes our lives. Ultimately, I want us to have grace for ourselves as we navigate these complexities, and I believe faith is the source of this grace.
Specifically in this essay, we’re taking a deep dive into questions and how they have immersed our society. We'll develop a framework for asking the right questions and then focus on finding the right answer.
Back when this newsletter was called MWF at 8, I would include a section every Monday called 'Your Question is My Question.' Since then, I’ve never stopped obsessing over how powerful questions are and how they shape our worldview. I'm thrilled to finally share this essay with you today, which has been in the works since then!
If you enjoy this post, please share it with friends!
Let’s get to it ↓↓↓
“Good question”
I've heard the simple statement “good question” more and more over the past couple of years. Sure, occasionally someone will toss me this compliment when I ask them this question, but as we have undergone an increase of interview styled content (mainly through podcasts), this statement has become mainstream. Too often, an interviewee is almost on autopilot, responding with “good question” after the interviewer asks a question. On the other hand, it’s as if an interviewer is trying to elicit as many ‘good question’ responses out of an interviewee as he/she can.
Don’t get me wrong, there are times when a “good question” response is appropriate from someone being interviewed, but how about this exchange I heard on a podcast recently?
Interviewer: “So *guest name*, Thank you for being on the show. What’s your background in engineering?”
Interviewee: “Yeah, good question, I started…”
Wait, was it really a good question by the interviewer? Would anyone hosting a world-class engineer on their podcast not think to start by learning about their background in that field? I would hope so.
Hypothetically, let's say the interviewee responded by sharing how much he loved LEGOs as a child, assembling them every chance he got, and that his parents even entered him into LEGO building competitions. After hearing this, suppose the interviewer asked a follow-up question: ‘How do you still experience the kid-like joy of building and assembling products in your work today, considering you’ve evolved from a LEGO-building kid to creating revolutionary products?’
Interviewee - “Hmm, I think it comes from…”
Wait, was that not a good question? As a listener, I thought it was, but now I'm unsure because the interviewee didn't confirm that it was a good question… So what makes a good question?
A Question’s Potential
Questions are one of the most powerful tools we have as humans. Every day, we face a rapid of questions that need answers, such as:
What time are you leaving?
Did you schedule this thing?
Why are the numbers showing this difference?
When do you think we can pay this off?
How long until I can get that report?
When are we going to start this project?
What is for dinner?
Do I need to get anything on the way home?
Should we commit to this thing next weekend?
Are you feeling okay?
(that last one confirms the chronological order)
On one hand, questions can be stressful and anxiety-inducing, as there is uncertainty around the answer. On the other hand, questions can be exciting, as you are providing clarity in direction. Every question is like an unexplored part of a video game map - the answer is going to reveal the unknown.
Furthermore, we’re consuming everyone else’s questions that otherwise would have never crossed our mind. Going back to the podcast story, I didn’t know that there were several inefficiencies in our energy infrastructure, but I know now that I have a lot more questions than answers. The plethora of media we consume has injected complete strangers’ questions into our thought patterns.
But questions are only part of the equation. We live in a world where we must solve for an answer. Most people can instantly research any question by quickly pulling out their smartphone and typing it into Google for an answer, faster than an Olympic sprinter off the starting block. To make things even more disorienting, the rise of AI has led to every question not only producing an answer but also providing a personalized one (more on that later).
As a result, society has completely bought into passing off 'research' as our own original answers. However, the truth is that we're drowning in a sea of other people's ideas, and our minds deceive us into thinking that the information we're absorbing is our own. This makes our instinct to retreat inward, disguised by our research, to find answers.
This is a practical strategy for the questions we face as it relates to our rapidly changing world, but it will never suffice for the fundamental questions in life that people have always had to give an answer to. Not questions like 'Should we buy a house?' or 'Should I switch jobs?' or 'Does putting two pieces of bread on opposite sides of the world create an earth sandwich?', but rather the difficult, outward-facing life questions that everyone has faced, such as
'Who am I?',
'Why am I here?',
'What is my purpose?' and
'Where am I going?'
To answer these questions, we either look inward to ourselves, or outward from ourselves. By the end of this essay, I aim to provide a clearer understanding of how our world shapes our thoughts on life's important questions and how we can counter this influence by asking the right questions and finding the right answer.
The Right Questions
This year, the most questions will be asked in human history… until next year. In 1999, Google saw one billion searches across their search engine and this number has exponentially increased every year until they are projecting 5 trillion searches in 2025.
The world where people would ask a question, shrug, and say 'I don’t know' is long gone. In fact, saying 'I don't know' is often unacceptable, as it's viewed as a lazy response, given how easily accessible answers are in today's world. This has created a culture that can’t stand to be without answers when pressed for them. For instance, if your boss asks you something outside your job description, you might still spend time studying the answer to avoid appearing unknowledgeable.
Thus, questions no longer allow you to stop and think; they command you into action. How have we seen this? Just look at how some of these top business minds think about questions:
“We run the company by questions, not by answers.” - Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google
“Good leaders ask great questions that inspire others to dream more, think more, learn more, do more, and become more.” - John Maxwell, author of a zillion books
“The important and difficult job is never to find the right answer; it is to find the right question." - Peter Drucker, guy that one of your business teachers had a quote of on every other slide
“If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing.” - Edwards Deming, Business Writer/Composer/a lot of other things
“I was curious. I wanted to improve, learn, and fill my head with the history of the game. No matter who I was with—a coach, hall of famer, teammate—and no matter the situation—game, practice, vacation—I would fire away with question after question.” - Kobe Bryant, man who could put a ball in a hoop exceptionally well
Solving complex questions has created the world we live in today, and the organizations that do it well have unlocked immense value. But as the rate of our questions exponentially increases, so does our need to answer those questions. This is why it’s more important than ever to be asking the right questions. Asking the right questions involves evaluating these three things: context, culture, and condition.
Context of a Question
If you grew up in a formal education system, you may have heard a teacher say, 'There's no such thing as a dumb question.' However, if your upbringing was more militaristic, either at home or in your education, freedom of thought might not have been encouraged, suggesting the opposite could be true.
Now, if we’re telling the whole truth, there is such a thing as a dumb question. I understand the sentiment behind not wanting to discourage question asking, so perhaps the phrase should be: “There is no such thing as dumb questions, but there is such a thing as a wrong question.”
I am a certified public accountant (CPA) with a strong knowledge of technical accounting terms. If I were in a room with other CPAs and someone asked, 'Is cash an asset on the balance sheet?' Everyone's first thought would be, 'That's the wrong question to ask. Of course, cash is an asset.' It's not a challenge to the person's intellect, since, as a CPA, they would be assumed to know that cash is an asset.
Suppose the circumstances were different, and I was in a room with botanists trying to determine the cash flow of a project. One of them asked me, “Is cash an asset on the balance sheet?” I would respond, “Good question (🤯) - yes.”
Imagine if we change the circumstances of the accountants and now picture this group of CPAs studying future trends in accounting. They are theorizing about an environment 100 years into the future, wondering if the essence of cash has changed from what we know to a completely digitized commodity, with no physical ownership. With a different context, we would look back at that question and think, “Wow, this person was asking the right questions.”
The lesson here is that it’s important to know the context of the question. Assumptions are the enemy to context, and this presents itself when someone claims to have the answer but does not know the context of the question. It's like encountering a homeless person while driving by, and without knowing their life story, you look down on them, assuming they made mistakes that led to their situation (I’m 100x guilty).
The same type of errors are made when we lack context about the question and, even more importantly, the person asking it. Determine the context, then assess the question.
Culture of a Question
When we understand the context, then we can work to understand the culture around a question. Recall the teachers in our classroom days who would say, “there are no such things as dumb questions.” They fostered an inquisitive culture in their classrooms. Chances are, we felt more comfortable in that classroom. We felt safe to challenge what was being presented in a respectful way.
This inquisitive culture is being fostered more in our society which makes it more important than ever that we are asking the right questions. An inquisitive culture loses its returns when it creates an environment of endless “why?... why?... why?” questions on loop.
As we become more aware of endless questions, I personally often sat silent when I had a question, even in an inquisitive culture. It could have been social pressures or my nervous speech impediment, but often my rationale for not asking a question was, 'Ehh, I'll just Google it.' And what often comes after one Google search? Another one… and another one… and another one, stuck in an endless question loop.
Therefore, I would argue that our inquisitive culture is more like someone has leaked the nuclear codes of the question bomb, and it’s detonated on the whole Earth. This happened when we shifted our questions from humans to the internet.
One problem we face with internet research is determining whether we're asking the right questions. If I don’t find an answer I like to my first question, there’s a chance that I modify the question to confirm what I want. Thus, we introduce great bias into our process to find answers. We can’t program our own bias into humans, and instead, we have to live with the uncomfortable answers that our questions might bring.
As our question culture is primarily internet-based, it's becoming increasingly difficult to identify the right questions and avoid a culture of biased inquiry. We don’t need to continue to feed our culture’s volume of question-asking; instead, we need to create cultures that pursue discernment for the right questions.
Condition of a Question
When we find the right context and culture, we can ask the right questions, which raises the question of how we condition them. As we’ve discussed, the default condition for our questions is the internet, but it should never be the only method. We must balance technology with human interactions to avoid biases.
But I do want to focus on the monumental rise of artificial intelligence (AI), as it seems to be combining both technology and human emotional intelligence. I also want to explore AI in general , as I've started relying more on AI chatbots for answers instead of Google search engine (which is itself shifting towards its AI-powered product).
Over the years, I’ve written several thought pieces on technology and the ethos of this newsletter is examining the intertwinings of faith in our digital age. One trap we keep falling victim to is mass implementing technological solutions with no regard to negative implications. We invest in the promise of these solutions to simplify our lives, but often find ourselves more burdened years later, mainly due to a lack of self-discipline, as the negative effects of technology can be difficult to discern.
However, with AI, people appear more cautious about its effects because of how ‘intelligent’ it really is. After a short time, you can't help but think, 'Wow, this AI chatbot is smarter than I am!' As a result, I've noticed more fears about the potential decline of human intelligence than excitement about human advancement through AI. A typical slogan on a generative AI (AI that“generates” content back to you) platform is as follows:
That’s a big promise. But fortunately for AI (maybe not this example above), a lot of these products are delivering quality content. One way AI models avoid answer bias is by developing models that provide answers with multiple solutions. Because AI models are trained on input and output data, they avoid giving absolute answers, as once an answer is confirmed, they will remember it for future queries. This process rewards more specific questions or better questions with more specific or better answers.
For example, if we ask AI, “My child is throwing temper tantrums, what should I do as a parent to stop this?”
The result is “here’s eight ways to stop your child from doing this…”. Why? It lacks sufficient context. So, we can train the chatbot further to where it has more context about you, and the output will be more personalized answers. Then, as we get more comfortable with the output, we slowly begin to trust it with our decision-making.
This capability will undoubtedly cause the conditions of our questions to shift towards AI. I can’t possibly predict what the outcome of this will be, but I know it’s imperative we’re conscious of our behaviors with it.
_____________
Today, getting to the right question has never been more important. This framework helps us identify our current context, culture and conditions of our questions. We need to recognize this in order to spend more time on the right answer.
The Right Answer
Right now, the demand for answers is suffocating. The internet has trained us to find pleasure in consuming information, so much so that we spend time asking trivial questions just to find answers to things that don’t matter. Most of our Google searches, thoughts, and random questions are fleeting, leaving behind only a record in our search history, a useless fact, an unimportant work strategy, or a forgotten relational uncertainty.
So how do we avoid the trap of meaningless answers to right questions?
Inward vs. Outward
If you want a fun exercise, stop and count how many things promote yourself in the world. Count every:
billboard advertisement you see saying you need something;
podcast episode helping you find your best you;
podcast advertisement doing the same;
co-workers affirming you are “better than this job”;
songs proclaiming “I’m going to do me”;
retail store selling you products that will “change your life”;
retail store selling you clothes that will give you the lifestyle you always wanted;
workout classes and gyms pushing your perfect body;
social media telling you how to live your life;
platforms showing you the house and car you need;
platforms telling you what trips you should take to find yourself;
news stories that somehow put you in the middle of the plot;
and who could forget, your parents/grandparents/aunts/uncles/friends/friends’ parents/friends’ grandparents saying you’re the best person there is.
If you’re under 100 instances, then you sat in silence all day and likely erroneously miscounted your own thoughts that are also bent inward to build you up. It's no wonder that we turn inward when it comes to answering the right questions.
Our world builds us up to be a god, and when we blindly buy into this idea, we must go to every extreme to keep that image from breaking. As society asks more and more questions, it feels like the only option is to dig deeper into ourselves to find the answers. It's like the movie Holes, where we're digging into ourselves to find a treasure that doesn't belong to us.
So how do we avoid the trap of digging inward to find the answers that matter to the right questions? Let’s look at an example and think through it:
Question: Why am I here?
Now, there’s two ways that we can answer this question: by looking inward to ourselves or by looking outward to the world around us.
Inward Answer: I’m here to do me and gratify whatever my desires are. Whatever I find my identity in, whether that be work, money, family, friends, sex, food & drink, travel, sports, entertainment, information, politics, technology or anything else, it all exists for finding my self-righteousness, self-admiration, self-sufficiency, and self-love. When one of these things changes, then my identity changes to best fit the new self, regardless of whatever I have to discard.
Outward Answer: I am here to live and serve a greater purpose than myself. Through work, family, friends, sex, food & drink, travel, sports, entertainment, information, politics, technology, or anything else, they exist because they have been created according to a plan that is not my own but for my good. I can find joy in these things, but there is a necessary self-sacrifice in order to overcome the hardships that evil in the world creates in each of these. As these things change, there is a greater reliance on remaining faithful to sacrifice for others and not selling out to the idea of discarding others for that change.
As we can see, the answers to these questions will be centered around human desires if we look inward. A lot of these desires are built on the information we consume that largely influences our beliefs. Today, our consumption of influence is mainly through the internet, where we constantly absorb information until we become desensitized to the worldview it shapes within us. As the circumstances change, our inward answers must change to fit a new worldview.
Therefore, this is the dilemma we are living in: an insulated, self-retreating, individualistic society that looks inward for the answers to all of life’s outward questions. We face an even more significant problem when our instant research is shaping our source of truth. If I can find a compelling statistic, study, or correlation and combine it with logical reasoning, then I can confidently present it as truth and build my life around it (I'm guilty! x100).
But unless you created yourself and everything else in the world, you are not the source of truth. There’s an element to these types of questions that provide assurance to find the outward answer that matters - Faith.
Faith
Imagine you're a 5-year-old kid again, taking your first plane trip with your parents. Your day begins with your parents getting you out of bed at 4 a.m. A rush of confusion and irritation starts as this isn’t normal. You watch and listen as your parents frantically gather bags that usually sit in the attic and they shout out checklists of things in them. As you feel tired, anxiety starts to build inside you, mirroring your parents' concern.
Next, a car you don’t recognize pulls into your driveway and your parents begin to load the bags into the car. You don’t know the driver, but your parents encourage you to get into the car - another very unusual direction from your parents! The car ride is quiet until you pull into a building that has a wave of people hurrying into it with bags like yours.
As you enter the building, you're struck by the frantic looks on everyone's faces, including your parents', who instruct you to 'hold my hand and if we make it through security without any problems, then we can get some candy.' The promise of candy at 5:00 a.m. is yet another unusual direction from your parents, but you assure yourself you can hold up your end of the deal. The next hour consists of waiting in line, listening to orders being shouted, and having someone scan the backpack you packed of various toys and snacks.
After clearing security, you receive the promised candy and wait in an uncomfortable chair until a speaker announcement says, 'You may now begin boarding your flight.' As you catch your first glimpse of the plane, you're struck by its massive size - 100 times larger than the toy plane in your bag - and a new wave of worry sets in.
As you make your way onto the plane, you sit down and notice most people have headphones on and are not speaking. A few people in matching clothes begin demonstrating what to do in case of an emergency on the plane, which fills you with yet another wave of fear. Then, the plane starts to slowly “taxi” around until the captain says, “cleared for takeoff.” As the plane gains speed, you look out the window and see the land racing by so fast that you can’t recognize it. Suddenly, the plane lifts up and suspends in the air as the cabin begins to shake from added pressure. Turbulence continues to toss the plane as you get into the clouds, and you, as a 5-year-old child, are finally overcome by all the emotions of the morning.
At this point, you have two options. Amidst the confusion, anxiety, and fear, do you stand up and accuse your parents of lying, demanding that the plane land back home?
Or, do you have faith in their promise of a special beach trip, which they've been telling you about for weeks? And because of this promise, even amidst your fear, you cling to the hope that your parents’ word is true.
Although it's possible the former could happen, and a 5-year-old child would be justified in acting out of fear, it doesn't change the fact that the pilot isn't stopping, and the promise of a beach trip is being fulfilled. Once the child steps foot in the sand and joyously runs into the water, their faith in their parents' word grows subconsciously. That is what faith is - a hope in things promised but not yet seen.
Right Faith, Right Answer
When we listed things above that our world promotes to us, what the world is really hoping for is that you put your faith in these things. The world's problem is that it can't deliver on its promises, so the solution is constantly being revised - technology evolves rapidly, politicians alter their views, work strategies are adjusted, people's beliefs shift, and so on. This is packaged as “progress” or “advancement”.
I’m not antiprogression by any means. I would argue that progressiveness is necessary in many aspects of life, but the problem arises when we put our faith in the progress the world promises. When we do this, all the world has to do is continually shove its new promises down your throat in the form of new products, new features, new ideas, new systems, and so on. While these things aren't inherently bad, we must recognize that they are temporary, not eternal. When we put our faith in something temporary, we must eventually shift that faith when a new promise replaces the old one.
Therefore, the only faith that is eternal is in a single God and His word and His promise. This faith counteracts the modern narrative that your faith should be within yourself. How?
It’s really simple: God has already revealed himself to the world through Jesus Christ. The answers to all our questions are an ongoing revelation of Jesus' identity. This means we don't have to make a new, revolutionary discovery on how life should be lived… When we have faith in Christ, we're simply re-discovering this gift over and over again!
In my essay, ‘Generation vs. Generation,’ which discusses the unnecessary conflict between generations, I explored Acts 17. Interestingly, Acts 17:22-28 also resonates here, as Apostle Paul skillfully challenges the Greek philosopher worldview, which bears a striking resemblance to modern times. For instance, in Acts 17:22-28, Paul addresses the people of Athens, saying:
22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.Our world is so complex that we are definitively in the category of 'worshipping unknown gods.' I wouldn't put my faith in things like money, politics, technology, or people, because most of the time, I lack the context to understand how they work. But that is not true of God. He has revealed Himself through Jesus and has given us hope through His promise of everlasting life.
Acts 17:22-28
If I were to change the outward answer above with a lens of faith in God, it would be: I am here to serve and worship one God existing in three equal persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I am called to not look inward for answers, but outward to the life of Jesus Christ who paid the ultimate sacrifice through His life, death on the cross, resurrection back to life, and ascension into heaven, so that by faith in Him, we are saved from our sins and given eternal life. Through work, family, friends, sex, food & drink, travel, sports, entertainment, information, politics, technology, or anything else, they have been created by God for my good and should be means of re-discovering God’s plan. Though there is suffering and hardship from these things, we are assured through Jesus of the renewal of all things in new heaven and new earth. God has given me certain talents and called me to work towards establishing His kingdom on earth, and to love and serve others, showing them life with Jesus Christ, no matter what may come.
Jesus is the right answer to our questions. The good news of Jesus calls us out of ourselves, and it is the true outward expression of faith - all else is vanity.
Jesus - The Lord of Questions & Answers
At this point, a skeptic would say, “Great, you rely on this one man 2000 years ago, but human life is so complex today and we can’t simply rely on one God, nor is it practical to rely on one God, to care for all our questions and answers in life.”
First, that’s exactly what Paul was addressing in Athens 2,000 years ago, so apparently that argument hasn’t changed. But this approach to God is a misbelief of who God is. Genesis reveals to us that God is the Creator of human beings and made them in His image (Gen. 1:27). Human beings were created in His image and meant to enjoy a perfect relationship with God in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2).
In the Garden, satan brought into question who God is and His goodness. We believed the lie, and wronged the image of God by rebelling against Him. As a result, we brought the consequence of sin into the world. God condemned satan for his actions and foretold of Jesus’ defeat over him (Gen. 3).
But(!) God didn’t condemn Adam and Eve or speak of Jesus defeating humans because of their sin; he did that to satan. For humans, he chose to clothe us (Gen. 3:21) and invites us to continue to walk with Him as was the promise in the Garden (2 Cor. 6:16).
After Genesis 3, God’s written word is a long journey of people choosing sin and God redeeming creation. This narrative of human history brings up so many questions as the Old Testament is full of woefully sinful events, and as God foreknew this, His plan was always redemption by sending His Son Jesus Christ who is the answer to all of our questions.
In fact, God created humans with the ability to reason, unlike any other creation on earth. Thus, in Jesus’s ministry on earth, He is consistently engaging with human reasoning. Let's examine a couple of questions that Jesus is addressing in His ministry:
Question #1 - How can this be? (John 3:1-21)
I would consider the Southeastern Conference (SEC), a collection of colleges that play organized sports against one another, one of the biggest religions in the United States. If it’s Saturday in the fall and you’re in the south, there’s a great chance you’re around people watching football in bright team colors.
Let’s try and compare what’s happening in John Chapter 3 to the SEC (I’m nervous about how this reference will turn out): Imagine I get invited to watch a Tennessee game with some highly sophisticated and very knowledgeable Tennessee fans. I’m invited based on the fact that I wear Tennessee orange and that I went to college there, but otherwise everyone is a complete stranger to me. Before the game begins, suppose I say, “Tennessee is going to throw for 326 yards, rush for 154 yards, create two turnovers, and sack the quarterback 4 times.” I then describe in detail how every scoring play would happen, but unfortunately Tennessee will lose the game 31-30. But, this game won’t be the end of Tennessee’s season. In the end, Tennessee will make it to the post-season and win the National Championship.
Naturally, everyone would be skeptical of my prediction because a) they don’t know me, and b) There would be mixed feelings because the immediate outcome is defeat, but the final outcome is ultimate victory. As the game unfolds, everything happens exactly as I predicted it would and Tennessee loses the football game 31-30.
At the conclusion, everyone would be astounded and ask, “How could this be that you knew this?”
The expected response from me would be, “It’s my lucky day!” or “Who wants to go to the casino?” But instead, what if I respond with, “Y’all are very sophisticated and knowledgeable fans, and yet did you read or understand the preseason prediction book you have that explained how every game would turn out?”
And that would be as good a modern comparison as I can make to this scene in John Chapter 3 of Jesus and Nicodemus. Nicodemus is a Jewish Pharisee who would have been a select few highly sophisticated and strictly trained Jewish leaders. Up to that point, they would have been well-versed in the written word of God, able to recite scripture, and convinced they were fully following the law - they believed they were God's most devoted fans.
Yet, the Pharisees were adamantly against Jesus’s teachings. Being a Jew himself, Jesus was the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament, and He proclaimed this during His ministry. The Pharisees had created a legalistic structure of their own traditions and felt their power was threatened by Jesus.
Despite his reservations, Nicodemus recognizes something unique about Jesus's teachings, so he secretly visits Jesus and addresses him as Rabbi (John 3:2), acknowledging Jesus as a genuine teacher. Jesus states that no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again (John 3:3). Nicodemus is perplexed by this idea that one must be “born again,” whereas Nicodemus has his eyes set on his works and physically accomplishing a re-birth on earth; Jesus explains that being born again is a spiritual process, accomplished only through the Spirit of God, not by human effort.
In verse nine, Nicodemus asks, “How can this be (that someone can be born again)?”
Jesus responds in verse ten, “You are Israel’s teacher, and do you not understand these things?” Although Jesus’s response to Nicodemus’s questioning of his credentials may seem rude, it is reasonable to expect the Pharisees, who have memorized the Old Testament, to understand the reference to being born again. Despite this, Jesus doesn't withhold Himself based on what we should know, and He reveals Himself through one of the most quoted passages of text in the history of the world:
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
He meets Nicodemus's question with the words of eternal life that have been used to convert the most unlikely people to faith in Jesus. Jesus doesn't condemn the Pharisee for asking this question, so how much less will He condemn you for yours. Bring your questions to Jesus who came to save you - not condemn you.
Question #2 - Why does God not care for me? (Luke 15:1-7)
Imagine you're at a dinner with the President (I'm more nervous about how this one will turn out). You are being recognized for extraordinary work or service to your country, so you’ve made it up to the head table with the President. After pleasantries are exchanged (I have no clue how a pleasantry with the President would go), the conversation bends toward a pressing domestic economic issue. The President turns to you and asks, “What do you think?” At that moment, for as badly as you would want to bust out your phone and Google (AI) the question, you have to rely on the ole brain to answer this one.
Let's pretend the President is pleased with your answer, and as a result, he opens the door to more advisory opportunities with the executive branch in the future. You accept the opportunity and suddenly you’re now in a counsel role for executive decisions. Everything goes smoothly until the day your counsel comes under scrutiny for causing a major national issue. The President severs ties with you, and within a few months, you go from dining at the White House to being back home with no presidential connection.
You are estranged from the glory you once had with no chance of returning. And you quickly find out that the leader you thought cared about you actually only cared about the work you could bring.
I guarantee that at some point in life, you will encounter someone who only cares about your title or position and disregards you once that relationship changes (guilty guilty - me, I’m guilty of both). The good news for us is how the message of the Gospel of Jesus is in opposition to this, and we see that in Luke 15.
Jesus is speaking to a crowd Luke describes as “sinners”, or people that the Jewish religious leaders see as not worthy of being with because of their past. Jesus begins a parable and asks this crowd of sinners what they think a shepherd would do for one lost sheep out of 99. For statistics enthusiasts, this shepherd currently boasts a 99% retention rate for his sheep. Considering the fact that sheep aren’t the smartest animal, I would say this shepherd is doing very well and likely has a strong resume with these results.
What do you think the shepherd should do? If you were a hired shepherd consultant, should he care anything about the lost sheep or just worry about who is following him?
Any good consultant here would say to forget about the one sheep and care for the 99. But with God as our shepherd, 99% is not how God’s economy works - He wants 100%. It doesn’t say what the one sheep has done or why it is lost, but if God is our shepherd, it doesn’t matter. He is going to leave the 99 sheep that are accounted for to seek out and rescue the one.
Moreover, when the Shepherd returns with the lost sheep, He will joyously celebrate the rescue. This is in contrast to religious piety at the beginning of the parable, where Luke writes that the Pharisees were upset Jesus was with sinners.
Not only is Jesus with sinners, you and me, but He actively seeks us out because He cares for us! The next time you feel lost or abandoned by God, call out to him! God is actively seeking you out and wants to care for you. All you have to do is allow Him to do it.
Conclusion
So what is a “good question”? Your question is my question there. But the next time you hear someone praise a question as being good, observe what is happening in that exchange:
In a specific context, culture, and condition, someone is genuinely curious enough to ask a question about a person, place, or thing. When someone receives a question, they are usually willing to share their thoughts. Together, they can work toward finding the right answer to the question, as well as progressing deeper in their relationship and knowledge of one another.
When done correctly, it’s an exact representation of what God invites us to do!
God knows the context you’re coming from, culture you’re fighting, and conditions you’re in. He wants to provide answers so that you come to a deeper relationship, knowledge, and ultimately love for Him. God knows these answers are revealed through questions of faith. We only looked at a couple instances, but Jesus asked roughly 307 questions across four written Gospels and he was asked even more by those around His ministry. Additionally, the Bible is full of narratives, poetry, prophecy, and letters all containing people bringing questions before the Lord.
When we bring our questions of lament, praise, fear, joy, sorrow, wonder, and all else to Him, that’s where we find the right answer of faith in Jesus. In turn, Jesus shows us that He can handle it by turning our earthly questions into heavenly realities. His plan is greater than anything we could think, ask, or imagine! So, by His grace, God has given humans the ability to ask questions and reason, so that we would come to have faith in Jesus.
I'll conclude with these words from the apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans, addressed to all who have faith in Christ:
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Romans 8:1-4
References
https://searchengineland.com/google-5-trillion-searches-per-year-452928