Women In The Word

A study of the Book of Mark

An Invitation to Study from Women in the Word

Click on study guides to view and/or print them.

You can tell a great deal about a person by the kind of questions that he or she asks – or maybe by the questions that are not asked.  By the way, what kind of questions do you ask?  Good friends know how to ask questions that reflect their genuine interest in the other person, appropriate questions that are not too personal.  Capable teachers have learned how to ask questions that promote curiosity and cause the students to think and to pursue the answers.  Competent doctors need to ask questions so that they can diagnose the illness properly and prescribe the correct procedures or medications.  Children seem to be born with the ability to ask questions, many questions.  Their inquiring minds, curiosity, and thirst for knowledge motivate them to ask questions which will help them to learn and to understand.

A skill that is equally important as knowing how to ask the right question at the right time is the ability to listen and really hear the answer or the silence that follows.  When you look at the way that Jesus communicated during His life on earth, you soon discover that He was a master at both of these skills.  By the water’s edge, in the synagogue, at the home of friends, or in the court of the authorities, wherever He went, Jesus used carefully formulated inquiries.  Then He paid close attention to the responses that were given to Him.

There are more than fifty of the questions that Jesus asked during the time of His ministry and the final days before His death and resurrection that are recorded in the gospel of Mark.  Looking at these questions and noticing how Jesus responded to the answers can give you great insight into the mind and heart of the Messiah.  Just as these questions penetrated the thinking of His disciples and the people in the first century, they will also help you to grasp important truths and meet the Savior.

You will come to understand the message and the mission of Jesus in a deep and meaningful way as you study His questions.  I pray that as you encounter The One who came to “give His life as a ransom for you”, your own life will be transformed by His power.