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Three days later they finally discovered him in the Temple, sitting among the religious teachers, listening to them and asking questions (Luke 2:46, NLT).
Jesus traveled with his parents to Jerusalem for the Passover.
When his parents left, Jesus stayed behind. After a day of travel, thinking Jesus was walking with other relatives, they noticed He wasn’t with them.
They returned to the temple to find Jesus asking the teachers of the law questions.
If Christianity followed the example of Jesus, we would be an “ask” organization. In the Gospels, we find Jesus asking at least 300 questions. It was His primary manner of teaching.
We too often find ourselves in “tell” organizations.
Parents tell children what to do, and then children tell parents what they won’t do. Businesses with policies and endless meetings tell employees how to act. Even the church with doctrines, vision and mission statements, and new members’ classes all tell rather than ask.
Please, don’t get me wrong, all of you need to be told a few things, and most of the time, being a preacher, I love telling you these things!
But research in the science of learning indicates we learn better in environments of asking rather than telling. Jesus asked two types of questions: easy questions like, “What good is salt if it has lost its flavor?” and difficult questions, “Who do people say that I am?”
Any question—asked with legitimate concern—is educational and relational.
One recent book about questions says, “Asking is more than just a tool for learning; it’s an act of caring that connects us deeply to those around us.”
So, let’s ask ourselves, “Do we tell more than ask?” Answering correctly can change our lives.
And more questions: Do we lead by dictates? Do we ask, in safe environments, what others are thinking? Do we lead by telling or asking?
One management expert at Harvard Business School writes . . .
It comes down to this: Our ability to make the best possible decisions in the face of conflict, with a lack of easy answers, depends on whether we engage in high-quality conversations—conversations driven by a genuine intent to learn and problem-solve together. To replace mindsets and habits of unilateral control with those of mutual discovery.
And we discover best through asking questions.
Agreed, often we don’t want to know the answer or even ask the question, but learning to ask specifically and compassionately will increase effectiveness in an organization and create mutually supportive relationships.
The key principle of asking is learning to ask non-invasive questions. Questions about the other person’s thoughts and feelings without underlying accusations or challenging their competency. A question of, “Help me understand,” rather than, “Why did you do this?”
In a recent book simply entitled Ask, the author introduces the book with . . .
If you could have any superpower you wanted, what would you pick? When pollsters asked Americans this question, two answers tied for the number one spot: reading other people’s minds and time travel.
We can’t time travel, but we can learn the superpower of understanding by asking others what they think and not by telling them what they should think.