Questions to Ask About Jesus
Twenty questions about Jesus for an unhurried conversation or for your own reading: how someone first came to a picture of him, which teachings they find hardest, what they make of the resurrection, and how their view has shifted over time.
The questions
Open any question for the note
When did you first hear about Jesus, and who from?
Why ask it
The source varies enormously: a grandparent, a school assembly, a hospital chapel, a film. People rarely notice how much of their lasting impression came from one particular person.
How would you describe him to someone who knew nothing at all?
Why ask it
Explaining from scratch forces a choice about where to begin: a teacher, a claim about God, an execution, a resurrection. Whatever they put first is the part they treat as load-bearing.
Which story about him has stayed with you longest?
Why ask it
A remembered story tells you more than a stated belief. Ask why that one, and listen for whether the pull is the mercy in it, the reversal, or the argument he wins.
Which of his teachings do you find hardest to accept?
Why ask it
Naming a hard teaching is a sign of engagement rather than weak faith. Loving enemies, giving away possessions and the warnings about wealth come up most, and most people have a workaround they can describe if asked.
Is there something he said that you have never fully understood?
Why ask it
This gives permission to be unsure, which many people are never offered in a religious setting. The sayings named are usually the parables that stop without an explanation attached.
Which of the four gospels reads most differently to you?
Why ask it
The four accounts differ in tone, order and detail, and noticing that is not an attack on faith. Answers show how closely someone has actually read rather than how firmly they believe.
Do you think of him mainly as a teacher, a friend, a judge, or something else?
Why ask it
The dominant image shapes everything downstream: how prayer feels, what guilt does, whether forgiveness is assumed or earned. Many people can name both the image they were taught and the one they actually carry.
What do you make of the passages where he loses his temper?
Why ask it
The temple, the fig tree, the sharp exchanges with religious authorities. Whether someone finds these embarrassing, energising, or simply skips them tells you how they read the rest.
What do you think he meant by the kingdom of God?
Why ask it
Answers range from an afterlife, to a present political claim, to a description of how people should treat one another. It is one of the questions where members of the same congregation most often diverge.
How do you understand the resurrection?
Why ask it
Deliberately open: bodily, symbolic, or unresolved. What matters is whether the person can describe their own view without reaching for a formula, and whether they let the question stay hard.
Has your picture of him changed since you were a child?
Why ask it
Childhood versions are usually gentler and less demanding. Ask what caused the change, since it is more often a bereavement, a book, or leaving home than an argument.
What do people around you get wrong about him?
Why ask it
People are candid here about their own community as well as about outsiders. Answers tend to split between those who think he gets made too soft and those who think he gets made too severe.
Where do you see his teaching used to justify things you think he would have rejected?
Why ask it
This is where inherited language separates from actual conviction. Expect answers about money, nationalism, or the treatment of outsiders, and expect the conversation to become uncomfortable.
What did you make of him during the hardest stretch of your life?
Why ask it
Belief under strain is different from belief at rest. Some people describe closeness and some describe absence, and the honest answers often include a period of not praying at all.
Which parable do you think is most often misread?
Why ask it
Misreading is easier to discuss than error. The good Samaritan, the prodigal son and the talents come up repeatedly, usually because familiarity has worn the sting off the ending.
Did he make any difference to a decision you had to take recently?
Why ask it
Grounding it in a specific decision moves the conversation from doctrine to practice. A blank is informative rather than damning: plenty of people hold the belief without consulting it.
If you could ask him one question, what would it be?
Why ask it
The chosen question shows what remains unresolved, and it is frequently about suffering, or about a particular person who died, rather than anything theological.
Is there anything about him you struggle to reconcile with what you believe about God?
Why ask it
Suffering, judgement, and the fate of people outside the faith are the usual pressure points. Whether someone can hold a tension without resolving it says more than either certainty or doubt would.
What would change in your life if you stopped believing what you believe about him?
Why ask it
This asks what the belief actually does: community, restraint, hope, or a way of carrying a death. Answers are more often about relationships than about ideas.
What do you wish people asked you about this, instead of what they usually ask?
Why ask it
Anyone who gets asked about faith regularly is usually asked defensively. Handing them the question lets them talk about what actually occupies them, which is rarely what outsiders assume.
Having the conversation
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Setting it up
Say which conversation you are having
Curiosity, disagreement and persuasion sound identical for the first two minutes. Saying which one you intend at the start saves the other person spending the whole conversation working it out.
Ask, then leave room
These questions produce long pauses. Filling a pause with a second question, or with your own view, turns an exchange into a debate faster than any disagreement does.
Take the answer you are given
If someone answers a question about belief with a story about their grandmother, that is the answer. Steering them back to the doctrinal version usually ends the honest part of the conversation.
Which questions suit which setting
One to one
- 1When did you first hear about Jesus, and who from?
- 2Which story about him has stayed with you longest?
- 3Has your picture of him changed since you were a child?
- 4If you could ask him one question, what would it be?
In a group or study
- 1What do you think he meant by the kingdom of God?
- 2Which parable do you think is most often misread?
- 3Which of his teachings do you find hardest to accept?
- 4Where is his teaching used to justify things he would have rejected?
Across different beliefs
- 1How would you describe him to someone who knew nothing?
- 2What do people around you get wrong about him?
- 3What do you wish people asked you instead?
What goes wrong
Do not use a question as an argument
A question designed to expose an inconsistency is recognised immediately. If you want to disagree, disagree plainly, which is more respectful than a leading question.
Do not press for a testimony
Asking someone to account for their belief in front of others puts them on a stage. In groups, invite answers from whoever wants to speak rather than working around the table.
Watch the power gap
A parent, a teacher or a minister asking these will often get the expected answer rather than the true one. Where that applies, answer first yourself, and include something you find difficult.
If your own view is unsettled
These questions work for reading as well as for conversation. Take one gospel and read it straight through in a couple of sittings rather than in fragments, marking the places where the person described surprises you. What surprises you is more useful than what confirms what you expected, and it gives you something specific to ask someone else about.