I’ve said before regarding discipleship that people’s questions pull out of me what I don’t know that I know. I was thinking about Paul and how he made no apology that his faith was revealed to him directly from Jesus (Gal. 1:11-12). When he went up to see Peter and the apostles, he didn’t go to submit. He went to join, but he made no apology that he knew what he knew, because nobody passed it on to Him. Jesus even took him into the communion supper (1 Cor. 11:23-25).
I’m realizing that a disciple is one who asks questions of the Lord. If there are no questions, then there is no surrender. It is a very simple test He’s given me for dealing with people to realize that if they ask no questions, there’s no surrender.
Their underlying attitude is:
“I know it all; I need to ask nothing.”
But if there are questions… then there is hunger, openness, attentiveness, all leading to surrender. One person first started emailing me and she had fourteen questions in every email. I would read her emails and think, “I need to work with you a year before I answer that.” But she didn’t stop asking questions.
So one of the marks of a disciple is asking questions. The Lord confirmed this to me visibly. I opened my Bible and saw where I had underlined,
“And Jesus explained everything to the disciples
when they were alone” (Mark 4:34, NLT).
So that is discipleship.
