Asking questions is one of the most important strategies for learning and increasing the depth and extent of one’s knowledge. There is a reason why children so often keep asking “why?” – it reflects the innate desire for knowledge and understanding which is a characteristic of being made in the image of God. As Proverbs 25:2 states: “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter”. That proverb reveals not only that is it a fitting task for man – who is given dominion over the earth – to search out a matter,but also that God desires to conceal a matter so that it remains hidden to the uncaring and unobservant and is discoverable only to those who are willing to search for it. God revealed Himself to Moses only after Moses went to investigate an unusual phenomenon – a burning bush which was not consumed: “….. So Moses said, “I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.” 4 When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!”…(Exodus 3:3-4).
You should ask questions of your friends, your parents, your teachers, your children, your dialogue partners…….and also the texts that you read. If you don’t ask questions, you knowledge will – at best – reflect only what you are told (by a speaker or a text), and your understanding will be shallow.Asking questions is especially important of those speakers or texts which purport to speak with authority, since as Proverbs 18:17 says: “The first to plead his case seems right, until another comes and examines him.”
Jesus asked many questions. Apparently the four Gospels record that Jesus asked 307 different questions. I have not verified that number but I do know that his first reported speech consisted of asking questions of Bible teachers: “…they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers,both listening to them and asking them questions…..” (Luke 2:46).Incidentally (?), the first direct speech of God to man in the Bible is also a question (Gen. 3:9).
Christians are generally not very inquisitive. They are often satisfied with knowing they are “saved”, or that they are one of the “elect”. If they have been raised in a traditional denomination, they are likely to be uninterested in what other denominations understand the scriptures to teach, except perhaps in the form of a short list of deviant or heretical teachings which are to be avoided. However there are many genuine Christians who believe some things differently than I or you do, yet they all affirm the Apostles Creed – the bedrock of Christian unity and fellowship. How confident are you that you are right and that Mennonites, Baptists, Arminians, Pentecostals, or Messianic Jews are wrong? Or does each have some measure of truth? Differences often result from elevating or absolutizing one aspect of Biblical truth over another in a way that distorts the biblical witness– e.g. divine sovereignty vs. man’s responsibility to choose, or faith vs. works, or God as Love vs. God as Judge….. How would you go about testing another’s truth claims against yours?
This blog seeks to promote the search for truth by asking questions of conventional teachings, long-accepted doctrines, and stock answers. Since my background is Reformed, I ask questions mostly of standard Reformed teachings and views. Since the overall Reformed doctrines are defined in the Belgic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism, my questions will in large measure address material in those two documents. I will avoid the Canons of Dort as they have too much of a polemical and adversarial character to permit much meaningful discussion, and I am not interested in this blog in getting involved in Calvinist – Arminian battles (those can be found on other blogs).
Remember that the Belgic Confession (BC) and the Heidelberg Catechism (HC) were written almost 500 years ago, and although they were valuable resources for their time and continue to have value today, they are the product of fallible men who reflected the concerns, the priorities, the state of knowledge and the theological assumptions and paradigms of their time and place. The Reformers focused on recovering the Biblical theology of salvation, on ecclesiology and related issues; the area of eschatology was not a major concern, and the relation between church and state was more or less accepted unchanged. Thus,the Belgic Confession Article 36 on Civil Government was revised in 1905 because the doctrine of the “state church” was found to be no longer tenable and not scriptural. The BC and HC should thus not be used as the interpretive grid for determining Biblical teaching (an approach that can be termed “confessionalism”); rather they themselves should be subject to review, revision and updating based on current knowledge of the Bible and its thought world. Should we not be “always reforming”?
My intent is to stimulate thinking through the scriptural basis of what one has been taught, with a view to either validating and confirming those beliefs – i.e. to appropriate a more solid Biblical basis for them, or possibly revising them based on convincing Biblical evidence. In addition, the beliefs of other Christians will hopefully be seen to have actual scriptural support and will become more understandable and possibly even be seen as legitimately Christian beliefs.