Questions Jesus Asked
Another biblical exercise: here I’m gathering together in one place just those passages in which Jesus asks a question. Warning: Of necessity, this means taking these verses out of their context. If any of these questions here listed seem surprising or confusing, the reader is urged to look at it in context, in your favorite version. I’m going to do this for all four gospels, and then eventually go to another series, namely, Questions Jesus Answered, and perhaps yet another, Questions Jesus Never Answered. Let’s get started (quotations from the NRSV, emphasis added to highlight just the questions.)
From The Gospel According to Matthew:
Matthew 5:13: You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?
Matthew 5:46: For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
Matthew 5:47: And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
Matthew 6:25b: Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
Matthew 6:26: Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
Matthew 6:27: And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?
Matthew 6:28: And why do you worry about clothing?
Matthew 6:30: But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?
Matthew 7:3: Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?
Matthew 7:4: Or how can you say to your neighbor, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” while the log is in you own eye?
Matthew 7:9: Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone?
Matthew 7:10: Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake?
