It has been a long time.  Once I finished with seminary, I took a hiatus from writing.  I experienced some real challenges in life and dealt with some devastating losses.  In short, I actually spent some time struggling to come to terms with a lived faith that is weathered and strengthened by the various afflictions and trials that life will throw in your path.  I spent a lot of time thinking and questioning, reading the scriptures, and trying to makes sense of the calling which I felt God had placed upon me.

In the midst of my questioning and pondering, I began to notice something as I read the book of Job.  When God does finally appear to Job at the end of the book, He does not answer any of Job's questions.  Instead, he poses a series of questions to Job in response.  The questions themselves inverted the position which Job had initially taken at the beginning of the book.  Job, in God's presence, would no longer be allowed to ask the questions which we all tend to ask in our more philosophic moods.  Rather, Job found himself being questioned by the author of life itself.  The questions which God asks Job remind Job, and the readers, that while we may have questions regarding our life's purpose, the meaning of suffering, and other like questions, ultimately, we do not even understand the questions which we are asking.  We do not have answers for God's questions, because they are rhetorical and are designed to remind us that God, the Poet which spoke the entire cosmos into being, is the only Being which is capable of asking or answering such questions in a meaningful manner.  All human philosophical exploits are, essentially and fundamentally doomed to failure.

While I was thinking about all of these things, my mind was continuously drawn towards Jesus.  I began to think about His teaching and recalled that Jesus also frequently asked questions.  Indeed, as I read through scripture, He appeared to ask just as many questions as he answered.  I was reminded of a quote by Victor Frankl

"Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life..."

Jesus being the very Word of God, the divine Logos through whom all things came into being, is the author of the "questioning" by life to which Frankl is referring.  His questions then are designed to stimulate us to respond not only to the content of the question, but the One who is asking the question.  They are in scripture for us to respond to directly, and, in our responding, to direct our response toward the Grace and Salvation of God.  With all of this in mind I thought it might be good to respond to each question I find our Savior asking in Scripture, and then journal my response on this blog.  It will become a devotional journal of sorts.  I know that all efforts to engage with the Holy Word of God are fruitful, but I truly hope that whoever reads this will find something of value in my endeavor.  I short I hope that God will use this blog for his purposes.

Please forgive the ramblings and incoherence of my earlier posts.

Mark 8:27 (The Message translation)

"Jesus and his disciples headed out for the villages around Caesarea Philippi.  As he walked, he asked, "Who do the people say I am?"

Initially, this question of Jesus may appear odd to the believer.  Why does Jesus care what people other than His disciples are saying about Him?  He of all people knew that there would be misconceptions as well as opposition in relation to His identity and His ministry.  This question would be odd if it were not followed by the next question which Jesus asks His disciples in verse 28, "And you- what are you saying about me?" The disciples are not, however, allowed to skip the first question.  In fact, Jesus doesn't even ask the second question until the disciples provide a response to the initial one.  They are not allowed to defer the answer about what others are saying about Jesus, and neither are we.  We must also first answer the first question because it forces us to engage with the world and the people we are called to minister to.  It is all well and good if we say that Jesus is the Christ, but if we are not listening to what others say about Him, we do not know how we need to approach them when we share His divine love and grace.  We need to hear what others think about the Gospel before we share it with them.  Being aware of others perspectives regarding the Messiah often determines our evangelistic starting point.

Additionally, this question also forces us to reengage with our own understanding of the Gospel message.  It brings our own view of Jesus back into perspective and, if necessary, convicts us of any confused or mistaken ideas that we have adopted from our own cultural milieu.  Of course Jesus is a great teacher.  If, however, our understanding stops there we have missed the point badly.  Of course Jesus is a prophet, but His claims in Scripture go far beyond a simple prophetic vocation.  The operant half-truths present in our culture often work their way into the church subtly, which is why we need to always be aware of "who the people say" that Jesus is and using this awareness as a constant foil against which we sharpen our own biblical understanding of Jesus' identity.  We need the first question so that we can develop a clear understanding of Jesus' own self-understanding as it is revealed in Scripture, and so that we can unflinchingly echo the disciples response to Jesus' second question, declaring that He is "the Christ, the Messiah."