Jesus used an interactive teaching method when He made disciples. He did not lecture for hours while His disciples silently took notes. His discipleship process included questions and group discussions.Insecure discipleship leaders are intimidated by tough questions and feel the need to be know-it-alls, making up answers, yet they do not know the real answers. Jesus was never intimidated or offended by questions. He created such an interactive discipleship culture that His disciples felt free to “question him” about the way He ministered to some religious hypocrites. Then the disciples came to him and asked,
“Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”
(Matthew 15:12)
They thought they were more discerning than Jesus, thinking He may not have been aware that His words had offended the Pharisees. When the disciples asked Jesus to clarify His parables and explain the seeds and weeds, He did exactly what they asked. Since Jesus knew everything, He could always give the right answers if He chose to. Since we do not know all, there are many questions we should not even attempt to answer.
I remember as a new Christian coming to my discipleship group each week with new questions. Ron, the Presbyterian youth pastor leading the group, would patiently listen and sometimes give Bible answers to my endless questions.
Occasionally, when I would come up with a question that even Ron could not answer, he would never pretend to be a know it all. Rather, he would humbly admit he did not have the answer and would simply say: “add it to your heaven list and ask God when you get there.” He taught me that there would be many unanswered theological and life questions here on earth, but that part of the discipleship adventure was searching Scripture for the answers. Some of my questions would be answered in time, others would be answered in eternity.
