Look to the Bible for Questions?
Intention
Many seekers look to the Bible for answers to many of life's questions. But how many look to the Bible for questions? Why look for questions in a book that purports, by believers, to be the unofficial guide to life on this planet and, indeed, the universe? For those Sifi fans who happened onto this site, the answer is not 42, which is the answer, per The Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy, to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. The questions referred to are questions asked in the Bible. Questions asked and the intentions behind the questions, both in the Bible and present day, have consequences.
When someone asks you a question, do you answer quickly and maybe even agree to take action based on the yes or no answer? Do you stop and consider the intention of the question asked? This isn’t Jesus's first question, but it's a good place to start. In Matthew 6:27, Jesus asks, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” Now, there is a life lesson we can all embrace. What was Jesus’ intention? He was trying to impress the disciples and followers by saying that worrying does not resolve the troubles in this life. His message is always about looking to eternal life. This is an example of a straightforward question with a good intention.
Join me as we observe a scene not from the Bible but from a hospital room anywhere in America. The location is of little consequence. The answer to a question and the action taken were indeed consequential. What transpires happens more frequently than imagined—it happens every day.
Stillness. The blue-green monitor screen provided the only light in the room. Heart rate, respiration, and blood pressure glowed white. The mechanical rhythmic sound amplified the stillness. Stillness in the white cotton blanket whose warmth embraced Maria's body. Her parents stood like pale statues at the foot of the bed, transfixed by the enormity of it all. Both statues combined in thought, pondering the preceding events.
Twelve hours earlier, Maria bounded down the stairs like a child on Christmas morning. She was the valedictorian of her class, who had spoken to her classmates, relatives, and parents only hours earlier about school memories, adventure, and, most of all, hope for the future. She announced, “I’ll be home late, Mom. Don’t wait up.”
Rachel, her mother, walked into the living room and urged, “Wait. Don’t be in such a rush.” She stood at the front door before her daughter, with arms open wide. “I’m so proud of you. Your speech at graduation brought tears to my eyes. Have a good time. Be safe.”
“Thanks, Mom. I will. Remember I’ll be late.”
Hours later, Marie, wanting to fit in like most people her age, was approached by a classmate at a crowded party. She didn’t know Jason well, but he was popular with many at school. Everyone liked Jason, who could be counted on to supply drugs at a party. Maria wanted to have a good time and fit in. Jason reached his hand out, opened it, and revealed a small plastic bag. In the bag were two small blue pills with the letters SKY engraved on their surface. “What's that?” Marie inquired.
Jason shouted over the sound of a beating bass. “Molly.”
Maria, tempted, asked “What do they do?”
“It’s a rush. You’ll love it. It’s free.”
Maria vacillated, “I don’t know. My mother said that sometimes drugs can have harmful effects.”
Jason gestured with his hand, pointing at the crowd. “Not harmful. Look at them. They are having a great time. Your parents don’t want you to have any fun. Do you want to have fun?”
Maria shrugged, shouted “Yes” and put the pill in her mouth, downing it with a swig of beer.
An hour later, Maria was found unconscious on the floor in the bathroom, unresponsive, and then transported to the nearest Emergency Room. The doctor informed them that there may have been something she had ingested. Her parents are now holding vigil in her hospital room.
***
What was Jason's intention? Whatever the answer, we can all agree that his intentions were not good. How did he convince Maria to say yes and then act on that answer by taking the pills? He caused doubt and spoke to her prideful intelligence. If you listen closely, you can almost hear Maria thinking, “I’m smarter than my parents. They can’t tell me what to do. I’m an adult.”
To find the Biblical lesson, we must go back to the first question asked in the Bible. You will be surprised by who asked it. Satan didn’t waste any time in his intention to bring humanity down when he asked in (NIV) Genesis 3:1, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” Eve was tempted. And Satan reveals his intention by saying in Genesis 3:4-5 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman.“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Satan, who only has one intention, to cause the ruin of your soul, caused Eve to doubt. Satan also placed in her mind the idea that she could be like God and implied that the only reason God gave that command was so that she would not become like God.
***
The movement of a finger subtly disrupts the stillness of the room. Then Maria’s eyes open ever so slightly. At the foot of the bed, the fixed pale statues of Mother and Father have life again. They move to the sides of the bed. Maria whispers, “I’m sorry, Mom. Please forgive me.”
No words are needed as Rachel bends and kisses her daughter's cheek, then whispers near her daughter's ear, “Of course we forgive you. We love you.”
***
We find ourselves confronted with the same questions at this time, in this century, in this fast-paced technological world. The unseen evil in the world taps into our pride, lust, self-righteousness, envy, and greed. Therefore, when asked a question, all must consider the intention of the question. Remember these facts about Satan: 1 Peter 8 “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”
John 8:44 “… He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
Let us return and remember two of the most important questions in the Bible: Matthew 16:15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Joel, Einstein's original formulation of the General Relativity field equations led to the inescapable conclusion that the universe had to be expanding. Einstein could not accept this and he introduced a cosmological constant--a parameter--designed to depict a static universe. When he visited Hubble in the 1920s and saw the inescapable evidence for an expanding universe, he declared that his introduction of the cosmological constant was his greatest blunder. But with the discovery that the universe's expansion is accelerating, there may be a need for the cosmological constant after all.
The quest of the scientist is to find questions--large questions--which lead us into the forest of possibilities. There are never definitive answers and that is the wonder of science. Even though I am an atheist, I have always delighted in the search for questions in philosophy, neuroscience, metaphysics, scripture ... Your essay reminds me of Hannah Arendt's scepticism of moral philosophy and ethics and emphasis on personal responsibility. But I have always been haunted by Reinhold Niebuhr's, "Moral Man in an Immoral Society." As a Christian theologian, he forcefully argued that religious faith was the progenitor for a way out of the morass of group self-interest and denigration of the "other." It was an argument that had no resonance for me. But his analysis of group dynamics and the causes of social disruption was a powerful predictor for the holocaust to come in the 1930s. And while I sympathize with Arendt's emphasis on personal responsibility, I am drawn to the concept of the "moral imagination." It was a concept that originated with Edmund Burke in 1790 when he explored the causes for the breakdown of the French revolution that led to bloodshed and terror. Einstein went further, he insisted that the imagination was the only thing that gave us the will and power to transcend the limitations of our senses, intelligence, conditioning and personal desires. Your essay was both welcome and provocative.