Following Socrates
Jesus engaged with real people about real issues in real time. He took an interest in them, asking them questions and responding to their answers.
15 JULY 2015 · 12:58 CET
We have looked at some of the big questions provoked by life itself, and the importance of stirring up these questions in people, before trying to engage them with the big answers revealed in the Christian Gospel. Socrates was the great exponent of asking good questions, and Jesus seemed to adopt a similar approach. So we will now look to see what we can learn from the way Jesus engaged people in conversation.
The Gospels record that Jesus had a consistent teaching method of using questions. He employed them in a variety of ways, which I find instructive. If we ask why the church is so ineffective in communicating the Gospel, it is my belief that we are both lazy and unimaginative in our questioning skills. We can’t be bothered to ask and are too lazy to listen. If we do start asking questions, we show little skill in the gentle art of interrogation.
There is another issue worth flagging up here. Many years ago, I was sat next to a prominent Oxford academic at a formal dinner. A Christian friend said he was pleased that I would have the opportunity to talk to this man about the Gospel. My friend had great confidence in my abilities but I found it very difficult to engage with this professor and failed miserably. I not only had little in common with him, but he was twenty years my senior. I did not feel I could engage with him socially on equal terms and I knew little about his academic subject. Worse still, he made no effort at all to talk to me!
The moral of that story is that we do best when we engage primarily with our own peer groups – students with students, doctors with doctors, fashion designers with fashion designers. As the apostle Paul put it, Jews to Jews, Gentiles to Gentiles, the weak to the weak. He was called to become “all things to all men” and sometimes we also will have to engage with people from a different cultural background to our own. But it is always difficult. Our first calling must be to the people of our own sub-culture group.
One reason we are bad at asking questions is that Christians each week listen to sermons which teach us but rarely, if ever, actively encourage us to ask questions. We need to challenge the view that Christians are pew fodder for the clergy. I will suggest later how this could be improved.
Now my Aussie friend “Chappo” helped me to see that the way you answer a question sets up the next question. This must be true in anything that can be called a proper conversation. We respond to what the other person has just said. A person looking to exercise some control over the conversation will be keen to steer it towards some issues and away from others. This can be done clumsily but can also be done with a delicacy of touch.
Some people are very unfocused in their conversations. In medical consultations with patients, doctors are keen to head them off from getting embroiled in irrelevant non-medical issues and lead them instead to what they suspect are the nub issues. Doctors do this all the time, steering the consultation with helpful questions.
For instance, with a patient who is complaining of stress at work, the doctor might ask him how well he is sleeping at night. Why would that be relevant? Because if he is waking spontaneously after two hours, it might well be a sign that he is actually depressed, and helping the patient deal with that could be crucial to his recovery.
I listened in on a “spiritual” conversation recently while on a long journey. The non-Christian was a 38-year-old single, lorry driver who was living a long way from home. My Christian friend took an interest in him and asked a range of questions about his upbringing, achievements at school, the things he was good at, his ambitions (or rather his lack of them), his loneliness, where he thought he would be in ten years time, and what his options were. Casual questions were mixed in with more searching ones. Before the journey had finished, the two exchanged personal details and decided to keep in touch.
Starting from “cold”, this required energy and perseverance. The man opened up personally in a way that I suspect he rarely did. At no time did he try to divert the conversation into trivialities. It was all done in a meaningful but relaxed way, even if it did not get quite as far as discussing the Gospel.
So, with good conversation in mind, let us look at the types of questions that Jesus used.
CONVERSATION STARTERS
Mark 5:4 “What is your name?” he asked Legion.
John 1:38 “What do you want?” he asked Andrew.
Mark 10:51 “What can I do for you?” he asked blind man Bartimaeus.
John 20:15 “Why are you crying?” he asked Mary in the garden.
These are fairly standard openings which should not be beyond any of us! It is always a good start to show an interest in people and offer to help them. It would be quite rude not to acknowledge the distress of someone in tears.
His deceptively simple question to Andrew may have been difficult to answer. Seekers are often unsure what they are looking for. They may be aware of some emptiness in their lives but have difficulty describing it, either in terms of truth, meaning or fulfilment. They are aware that something is missing in life but need help to think it through, as my friend was doing so ably with the lorry driver.
Quite often we walk in on another person’s conversation:
Luke 24:17 “What are you discussing?” Jesus asked on the road to Emmaus.
Mark 9:16, 33 “What are you arguing with them about?” he asked his disciples.
I speak for myself when I say that laziness often stops us from initiating conversations. I am a bit like my garage mechanic, who said jokingly to me that he loves tinkering around with broken air-conditioning systems. “It saves me having to talk to people!” He went on to say that women are generally so much better than men in striking up conversations.
Matthew 24:2 “Do you see these buildings?” said Jesus as he left the temple.
We don’t need a lot of imagination to comment on something - a building, a news item, a current event, perhaps a picture on a wall - and make constructive conversation. Another of Christ’s opening gambits, however, may be more of a challenge.
John 4:7 “Will you give me a drink?” he asked the Samaritan woman.
OK – there were social conventions involved here! He wasn’t expected to chat up a woman and it was certainly not “de rigueur” among Jews to engage in conversation with Samaritans. But the difficulty I want to highlight is our common reluctance to put ourselves in a dependent relationship with others. Christians see their task as trying help to people. We do not readily ask for help for ourselves. Yet by showing our need of others, we establish a context where they can then ask help from us. Going to others for help, whether financial advice, car maintenance or a bottle of milk, can provide great opportunities for conversation.
DISCUSSION STARTERS
The next task is to move a polite conversation into an interesting one. Here is one example which might help us:
John 9: 35 “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” asked Jesus.
Of course, he used this puzzling expression to describe himself. It occurs significantly only once in the Old Testament (Daniel 7:13-14). The man he was talking to almost certainly would not know what Jesus was on about. He could not say yes or no! Rather, he asked, “Who is he, sir?” Being less than obvious in our question may sometimes provoke interest and give us an opportunity to expand on the matter.
Framing a question that has no straight forward answer, that is open ended and invites a range of responses, can set hares running in all sorts of directions. Here are other attempts by Jesus to open up the discussion:
Matthew 22:42 “What do you think about the Messiah?” he asked the Pharisees.
Mark 4:13 “Do you understand this parable?” he asked the Twelve.
Luke 7:44 “Do you see this (weeping) woman?” he asked Simon the Pharisee.
RHETORICAL QUESTIONS
Many of Christ’s questions were rhetorical. He wasn’t expecting them to be answered. He made his points in terms of questions that demanded an obvious answer. This was clearly a persuasive, teaching device that he used and it features particularly in the Sermon on the Mount. Such questions also hook the wandering mind and help his hearers to pay attention. Let us listen to some of them:
Matthew 5:13 “If salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?”
5:46 “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?”
6:25 “Is not life more than food and the body more important than clothes?”
6:27 “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”
7:3 “Why do you look at a speck in your brother’s eye and ignore the plank in your own?”
7:9 “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?”
7:16 “Do people pick grapes from a thornbush or figs from thistles?”
PROFOUND QUESTIONS
Sometimes our questions will hit a raw nerve and become very memorable for that person. I have reached an age when people occasionally say to me, “I remember many years ago, you asked me such and such.” I, of course, have no recollection of it at all and they are probably muddling me with someone else. But someone must have asked them, because it stuck. It unearthed a deep personal truth that came home and stayed with them. In my late teens, Jesus was saying things like that to me. “What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world – and loses his own soul?” (Matt 16:26). That stuck. Here are some others that he asked me as I read the Gospels:
Luke 16:11 “If you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?”
Luke 17:9 “Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do?”
Luke 22:27 “Who is the greater, the one who sits at table or the one who serves? But I came among you as one who serves.”
John 5:44 “How can you believe if you accept praise from one another but make no effort to obtain praise from God?”
PROBING QUESTIONS
In any sensible conversation about Christianity, we are going to need to do some probing in at least three distinct areas.
What does this person already know?
How much do they understand?
What do they feel about it?
Matthew 21:42 “Have you not read the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected became the cornerstone?’”
Luke 7:42 “Two men owed money to a moneylender. One owed him 500 denarii and the other 50. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he cancelled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”
Matthew 13:51 “Have you understood all these things?”
Mark 4:40 “Why are you so afraid?”
Sometimes we need to be quite firm to press a matter home. John 3 tells us that
Nicodemus was a prominent member of the Jewish ruling council. He came secretly to talk to Jesus by night and listened attentively but then asked, “How can this be?” To which Jesus replied, “You are Israel’s teacher and do you not understand these things?” He should have known from the Old Testament about the transforming work of God’s Spirit that Jesus was talking about.
So we might reasonably ask someone if they have ever read the New Testament or even just one of the Gospels. And if not, why? If they have, we can ask them specific questions as to what they have understood. What struck them most? What did they find most difficult? What do they make of Christ?
We can then more easily ask whether they were impressed by his teaching. Did they find his character compelling? What did they make of his innate sense of authority? Did they find it strange that so much of the story concerns the last week of Christ’s life? Why was that?
Clearly if they are substantially ignorant about Christ, we would then need to probe to see if they are interested to learn about him. Perhaps we could offer to look at a Gospel or attend a course together.
If they are really knowledgeable about Christianity, we may need to ask them what holds them back from becoming a Christian.
ENGAGING QUESTIONS
Jesus used many questions to help people engage with what he was saying. Some of them need only minor redrafting for our purposes. For instance:
Luke 12:44 “Do you think Jesus came to bring peace on earth or cause division?”
Mark 3:33 “Who are my mother and my brothers? Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
Luke 13:2 “These people who died so tragically, were they worse sinners than others?”
Sometimes he used a broad general question followed by a specific supplementary one, which really puts the person on the spot!
Matthew 16:13 “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
Matthew 16:15 “And what about you? Who do you say that I am?”
The parables of Christ often started with a question:
Mark 4:30 “What shall we say the Kingdom of God is like?”
Matthew 18:12 “What do you think? If a man owns 100 sheep and one wanders away, will he not leave the 99 on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?”
MOVING THE DISCUSSION FORWARD
Jesus was also adept at moving the discussion to a more constructive place. Famously, he did this with questions, when confronted by the most slippery mouthed geezers you could ever hope to meet. Just listen to them:
Matthew 22:18-22: “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me a coin used for paying the tax.” And they brought him a denarius, and he asked them, “Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then he said to them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
John 6:5: “Where shall we find bread for these people?” asked Jesus. An innocent enough question but it led to a long discussion about “the bread of life,” which comes down from heaven and gives eternal life. It continued into the next day and occupies the whole of a chapter!
I think it would be difficult to achieve that in our secular world, but we must look for issues that have eternal significance and be able to bring them into our conversations at appropriate times. And good discussions can last for days!
PROVOCATIVE QUESTIONS
John 8:46 “Which of you can prove me guilty of sin?” he asked. The Jews responded with an “ad hominem” attack on him. “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?” They played the race card and accused him of being, not just barking mad, but an embodiment of evil.
Such verbal attacks on the person rather than the issues he is talking about are increasingly common today. We can expect them but must guard ourselves not to respond in kind.
The challenge is to bring the discussion back to objective realities. Humour in this situation can be disarming. On one occasion, Jesus responded to hostility with a lovely twist of irony:
John 10:31 Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?”
This worked. It brought the discussion right back to the central issue lying behind the miracles. “We are not stoning you for any of these”, replied the Jews, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”
When I first read that story fifty years ago, such violence seemed difficult to credit. Today, the picture is all too common. Arguments about blasphemy in the Middle East rapidly descend into horrendous violence, while in Britain, violent and abusive “ad hominem” attacks are commonly seen in blogs and emails. As for the question about miracles, they completely failed to see the connection between the miracles and his divine claims. Miracles shouldn’t cause a difficulty for any of us if Jesus was whom he claimed to be. They merely beg the question.
SOCRATIC QUESTIONS
But the most graphic example of a Socratic response is reported in Luke 10:25-37:
“On one occasion, an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’”
We are not told why it was obvious that this was not a genuine question. Perhaps he had met this man before. Perhaps there were smirks on the faces of his friends. Clearly, Jesus spotted the insincerity and politely returned the question. “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” The man was, after all, a lawyer!
So the lawyer finished up answering his own question. (Now that is funny, as lawyer jokes often are.) “Love God…and love your neighbour,” the man says. And Jesus replies, “You have answered correctly.” And adds, as if to terminate the exchange and move on, “Do this and you will live.”
The man was clearly wrong footed. This exchange had not worked out at all as he had expected. Luke records that he wanted to justify himself. You can almost hear the hesitation in his speech, “And.. er.. who is.. my neighbour?”
This was, of course, the cue for one of the greatest stories of all time – the man who set out from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves. He was left for dead by the roadside. A priest passed him by on the other side and a Levite also. These were both religious people, going down the same road from the temple in Jerusalem. The third man in the story (shock-horror) was a Samaritan. He might just as well have been a Nazi. The Jews hated them. Yet this man was the one who stopped and at great personal risk and expense, he bound up the wounds of the injured man, took him on his donkey to the safety of an inn, paid the landlord, and promised to return later to settle further bills.
So Jesus turns the question around. He now asks, not “who is my neighbour deserving my love”, but who behaved like a neighbour: “Which of these three do you think was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” Can you hear the lawyer choking in his reply? He can’t possibly say it was the Samaritan! These people were their enemies. “Surely,” he must have muttered his answer under his breath, “It was the one who had mercy on him.” And Jesus told him, “Now you go and be like him!” The hated Samaritan becomes the role model.
CLOSING QUESTIONS
A final category of questions must be considered. Many of us have difficulty in bringing a profitable conversation about Christ to a clear resolution. We are outside our comfort zone when being personal and confrontational. What can we learn from Christ about that?
I think the best approach can be seen in Christ’s three-stage example of starting with an easy question, which in effect is just a point of information. He then asks it personally and finally he presses the matter home:
Mark 8:27 “Who do they say I am?” “What about you?” “Who do you say that I am?”
We might translate that into: “Who do Christians believe Christ is? What do you personally think? Are you ready to acknowledge Christ as your Lord and Master?”
Hopefully, then, we can learn some lessons from the Master as to how we can engage people in conversations about God. We have seen him talking to men and women, fishermen and scholars, friends and enemies, the powerful and the weak, sick people and outright slime balls. He constantly initiated discussion with questions. He never browbeats them or traps them in a corner. He is happy to say something pertinent and true, and then allow them to walk away.
Of course, he lived in rather monochrome culture. Nearly all the people he engaged with were Jews. As such, the Old Testament writings were their background story and their authority. Images and ideas from Jewish Scripture featured repeatedly in his conversations. When the Church took the Gospel to the wider world, they had to engage with all sorts of different cultures, very few of them would have known about Scripture. But some fundamental lessons about engaging people with questions to create meaningful conversations can be learnt from Christ himself.
And they were two-way conversations! He engaged deeply with people – sometimes one to one, sometimes in small groups, and occasionally with large crowds. He asked them questions and allowed them to question him.
He was not like some guru who stood aloof, uttering mystical notions. Jesus engaged with real people about real issues in real time. He took an interest in them, asking them questions and responding to their answers.
Peter May is a retired medical doctor, former UCCF Trust Board chairman and lay member of Church of England's General Synod.
Published in: Evangelical Focus - Forum of Christian Leaders - Following Socrates