The Questions Jesus Asked: Jesus, The Master Teacher

By Dr. Butch Entrekin

Jesus used questions to develop some of His most profound and meaningful teachings. He also used questions to avoid controversy and confound those who opposed Him. This book examines the various styles of questions the Master Teacher asked to find divine truth found in His answers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stratton Press
• Release date: Aug 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781648955303

Dr. Butch Entrekin

Dr. Butch Entrekin is on the faculty of Grace Biblical Seminary and is Pastor of Education and Small Groups at Community Bible Church. He is married to Doreen, his wife of forty years, and has four grown children.

Book preview

Introduction

Jesus Christ is the greatest teacher that ever lived. His intellect was unmatched, and yet He used common objects and everyday events to explain His teaching on a level that reached the masses but also penetrated the hearts of individuals. One characteristic that makes Jesus’s teaching so effective is His ability to employ many different styles and techniques in His instruction. This book focuses on one such technique—the art of asking questions.

Asking questions is one of the most effective methods to inspire learning, and Jesus is masterful at this technique. He employs careful wording and exact timing to make His questions penetrating and insightful. Each of His questions is precisely designed to tweak the interest of His audience and draw a specific response. At times, His tone is sympathetic, at times indifferent, and on occasion, Jesus even comes across as biting and sarcastic. But regardless of the manner in which Christ relates His questions, the purpose is always the same—to reveal God’s truth.

This book divides the questions of Jesus into four separate categories. These categories are certainly not exhaustive or universal in scope, but they help to define motives and identify similarities in Christ’s questions. The four categories are the rhetorical style question, the personal examination question, the truth engaging response, and the ambiguous question.

Christ uses these various forms to better relate to the different attitudes and backgrounds of His audience. This book evaluates examples of Christ’s questions in each form in hopes that the reader will learn to recognize the different forms and better understand the teaching.

The Rhetorical Question

The first category is the rhetorical question. This is a question where the answer or conclusion is obvious to the listener. In this form of question, Christ uses logical reasoning or accepted knowledge to affirm His message. In Matthew 12:3, Jesus asks the Pharisees, Have you not read what David did? There is no doubt that these religious Jews were well aware of the actions of their most celebrated King. Jesus is using their knowledge to give legitimacy to His teaching.

Jesus even employs questions in which the answer is contained within the question. In the Sermon on the Mount, He asks, If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? (Matthew 5:46). The implication of course is that such a person will receive no reward. However, the implication is not necessary since Jesus states that such a person will receive the same reward as the tax collectors, who were universally despised and viewed as men deserving no reward. In such cases, Jesus’s questions function more like declarative statements to validate His teaching.

The Personal Examination Question

The personal examination question requires the listener to consider his own beliefs and draw conclusions based on those beliefs. Therefore the response is determined by personal convictions. These questions may be simple appeals for opinions as in Matthew 18:12 where Christ asks, What do you think? More often, however, the personal examination question requires the listener to take a personal inventory, to discover the true condition of his own heart. Christ asks the Pharisees, Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? (Matthew 15:3). This question forces the Pharisees to ask themselves if they have elevated their traditions above the very law that the traditions were created to keep.

The Truth Engaging Response

This is possibly the most important form of question Jesus asked. These questions encourage the listener to seek God’s truth. Virtually every question asked by Jesus falls into this category directly or indirectly. But Christ’s motive for asking questions was not always to reveal God’s truth directly; therefore many questions are better suited to another form.

Truth engaging questions are effective teaching tools because they require the answerer to understand something about the nature of God. Christ asks, in reference to a man with palsy, Is it easier to say, your sins are forgiven, or to say arise and walk? (Matthew 9:5). Notice that both of these choices require a demonstration of Christ’s divine power. Jesus is asking the audience to make a judgment about God’s priorities. In Matthew 9:28, Jesus asks two blind men, Do you believe that I am able to do this, in reference to restoring their sight. They answer, Yes, Lord. This response verifies not only their faith, but the truth of Christ’s Lordship as well.

The Ambiguous Question

An ambiguous question is one where there are two or more seemingly correct answers or perhaps there is no definitive answer at all. This form of question is sometimes referred to as a trick question because the listener cannot decide if it is a legitimate inquiry or simply a ploy to entrap him. Jesus used ambiguous questions to stump His enemies and uncover the motives of those trying to discredit Him.

These questions are the least common among the four categories, used more as a defense than a teaching tool. In Matthew 21:25, the chief priest and elders ask Jesus, in an attempt to discredit Him, by what authority did He cast out the money changers from of the temple. He responded by asking them, From where did John’s baptism come, was it from heaven or from men? This question put the elders in a very uncomfortable position as either answer would undermine their popularity with the people. As a result, the elders were silenced, and Jesus was able to continue His teaching.

Each of Christ’s questions will fall into one or more of these categories. There are many times when the question is difficult to categorize, as it seems to fit more than one style. In these cases, Christ’s motivation for asking the question will be the determining factor. However, the form of the question is not the priority, but rather the teaching that arises from the question that is the focus of this book.

The Bible records over one hundred separate questions asked by Jesus during His earthly ministry. Since some are recorded more than once, these total more than two hundred instances of Christ asking questions. (All of these as seen in the NIV are listed in an index at the end of the book.) Some translations differ slightly in grammar and sentence structure. Therefore, one translation may give a statement where another asks a question. For the purposes of this book, the New International Version is generally used, though other translations may be referenced as well.

The sheer number of questions asked by Christ indicates that He considered questions an invaluable method of teaching. I have devoted a great deal of time and energy to the study of Christ’s questions and have been awed by them again and again. They are the inspiration for this study. This book is more than an index of the questions Jesus asked. It is an in-depth look at some of Christ’s most prolific teaching. It is my desire that The Questions Jesus Asked will cultivate within every reader a deeper relationship with our Savior and a renewed interest in the study of His Word.

Part I:

Rhetorical Style Questions

The rhetorical question is widely utilized as a means of teaching and debate. Christ’s teaching is no exception. The word rhetorical comes from the Latin for rhetoric and refers to the art of speaking and writing effectively. It suggests the idea of effective communication. Christ, arguably the most effective communicator in history, skillfully employs this technique. He asks questions to which the answer is so painfully obvious that the message cannot be misunderstood.

Rhetorical questions generate a point of agreement between the speaker and listener that the speaker can build upon. It could be said that these questions are a form of manipulation. However, a cleaver orator can word his rhetorical questions in such a way that it communicates his point without alerting the listener that they are being manipulated.

This form of question is a productive teaching tool because it appeals to the inquisitive nature of the listener without allowing for the possibility of a wrong conclusion. Part 1 will examine examples of rhetorical questions in Christ’s teaching and explore the truth that can be found through them.

Chapter One

The Rejection of God’s Son

In Matthew 21, Jesus tells the parable of the landowner to illustrate that the world would reject Him as the Messiah. Parables are figurative stories designed to teach a specific truth, but they should never be used as a basis for biblical doctrine because they are simply illustrations. Jesus often used parables in His teaching, and the parable of the landowner is one of the most dramatic stories in the Bible. It has a tragic plot in the Shakespearean style that arouses the emotions of the listener. Then at the end of the narrative, when the listener is totally absorbed in the tragedy, Jesus presents two rhetorical questions to highlight the truth of His teaching. The questions ensure that his message will be understood.

This chapter will first examine the parable to obtain knowledge of the setting, characters, and message. Then the two rhetorical questions will be analyzed to glean the truth that Jesus is teaching.

³³"There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey.³⁴ When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.

³⁵The tenants seized his servant; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. ³⁶Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. 37 Last of all, he sent his son to them. They will respect my son, he said.

³⁸But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, this is the heir. Come let’s kill him and take his inheritance. ³⁹So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him." (Matthew 21:33–39)

This parable contains four different characters or character groups that must be identified. The first is the landowner who spends a great deal of money and effort to plant and develop the vineyard. The farmers or tenants that are leasing the vineyard are the second group. They work the vineyard and pay a portion of the yield back to the landowner as rent. The landowner’s servants are the third group. They are commissioned by the landowner to collect his portion of the fruit. The last character to be introduced in the parable is the landowner’s son. He represents the landowner’s final attempt to convince the tenants to satisfy the terms of their agreement. Each of these characters or groups has an important role in the teaching of the parable.

The landowner is the central character in the parable. He represents great power and influence. He is the lord of the vineyard and has ultimate authority over who will be allowed to cultivate the land. He is presented as a man that demonstrates great patience in His dealings with the tenants. Jesus describes the landowner with this powerful position and long-suffering character for a reason. He wants the listener to associate the landowner with God. This association is critical to the teaching. (It should be noted that there is no disagreement among fundamental Bible scholars that the landowner is representative of God.)

The tenants are clearly the villains of the parable. They are wicked and treacherous in their dealings with the landowner and with all of his representatives. They should have been thankful to the landowner for the opportunity to manage His vineyard. After all, they were mere sharecroppers on his land, completely dependent on his benevolence for their livelihood. They had no rightful claim to the vineyard or to any of its fruit beyond what the landowner offered them. Jesus presents the tenants as selfish and ungrateful, having no respect for the landowner or for his position as the lord of the vineyard.

Since these tenants are the ones entrusted with cultivating the vineyard, we can assume that they are representative of man. This is a reasonable and even obvious conclusion. The tenants live and work in the landowner’s vineyard and have been given the responsibility of making the vineyard fruitful for both their benefit and the landlords. God has entrusted us with authority over His creation (Genesis 1:28), and since the landowner is a picture of God, it only follows that the tenants represent man.

The third group consists of the landowner’s servants. Their duty is to collect the fruit that is owed to the landowner. It is difficult to connect this group to any certain body of people because there is little information given about them and because they represent the landowner himself. It is likely that this group denotes past agents of God. This would include a host of Old Testament saints and prophets that had the responsibility of relating God’s will to the people. Just like the landowner’s servants, these saints and prophets of God were often unaccepted and even persecuted for voicing God’s message.

The landowner’s son is easiest to identify. Since the landowner has already been recognized as God, the landowner’s son must represent God’s Son. The only other information given in the parable concerning the son is that the landowner assumes that the tenants will honor him. This is a natural conclusion since in Jewish culture, the son is assigned the same authority as the father.

Jesus hopes that his listeners will recognize the similarities between Himself and the landowner’s son. This is an extremely important parable because Jesus indirectly reveals Himself as the Messiah. This parable is also significant because it forecasts Christ’s rejection and the death that He will suffer at the hands of the people.

There is much that can be learned about the character of God by the actions of the landowner and by his involvement with the tenants. The landowner is presented as creator of the vineyard, as benefactor to the tenants, and as one that entrusts his possessions to his stewards. The landowner provided a fertile environment for the tenants, but he expected them to bear fruit. Likewise, God created a rich and beautiful world in which we could live and prosper. But He too expects man to bear fruit for His kingdom.

The landowner also displayed tremendous patience and restraint with the tenants. He gave them many opportunities to repent from their treachery and to fulfill the requirements of their agreement. In the same way, God did not give up on man. The Old Testament recounts the stories of prophet after prophet that God sent to urge man to turn back to Him. Then in the New Testament, God finally sent His Son in a last-ditch effort to reach His wayward children.

Just as the tenants would not honor their agreement with the landowner, man has rebelled against every agreement that he has had with God. When Adam and Eve were in the garden, they had only one restriction, and yet they would not honor their agreement. Then the Children of Israel were given Ten Commandments, but they rebelled against them. Then God sent prophets to speak on His behalf. But God’s chosen people disregarded the prophets and chose to satisfy their own desires. The coming of Christ initiated a new agreement or, as stated in Hebrews 12:24, a new covenant that presents Christ as the mediator between God and man.

The parable of the landowner is, in short, the story of man’s rebellion against God and man’s need for redemption. At the conclusion of the parable, Christ asks two rhetorical questions. The first question pronounces judgment on any who reject Jesus. The second validates Him as the true Son of God. The first question, although it is answered in the text, is still considered rhetorical because the answer is so blatantly