End of Questions The Pharisees engaged each other in rabbinic debate--questions to challenge, questions to probe authority, questions to establish position, and questions to illumine Scripture showing God's way. Jesus was one of them and if Matthew is correct he often bested the best at debate.
Does Jesus then want us not to ask questions? I think not. I think his critique is directed more to the motive behind the questioning. Those whose primary goal is self assertion are caught in his web. They not only lose face and the arguments but their egoism closes them to the love of God and they are unable to love in return.
Read the words:
34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35 and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" 37 He said to him, " "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." 41 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: 42 "What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?" They said to him, "The son of David." 43 He said to them, "How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying, 44 "The Lord said to my Lord, "Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet" '? 45 If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?" 46 No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions. Matthew 22: 34 - 46
How will you engage in dispute?
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