Quotes about Inquiry

Wouldn't you rather be asked a question than be given an order?

Alexander Pope: Men must be taught as if you taught them not And things unknown proposed as things forgot. Over three hundred years ago Galileo said: You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it within himself.

Pastors now are mistakenly seen, and perhaps even see themselves, as teaching what Christians are supposed to believe (perhaps what we had better believe), not what is known and what can be known through fair inquiry.

We want to ask questions and not just make assertions.

What has to be done, instead of trying to drive people to do what we think they are supposed to, is to be honest about what we and others really believe. Then, by inquiry, teaching, example, prayer, and reliance upon the spirit of God, we can work to change the beliefs that are contrary to the way of Jesus. We can open the way for others, Christians or not, to heartily choose apprenticeship in the kingdom of God.

I'm not smart, but I like to observe. Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why

the rhetorical formulas of objurgation with which I was to begin a page of inquiries of you: whether you were dead

People don't ask questions about spiritual matters unless God is at work in their lives. When you see someone seeking God or asking questions about Christianity, you are witnessing God at work.

Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing.

1. WHAT IS THE BOOK ABOUT AS A WHOLE?

Ask questions while you read—questions that you yourself must try to answer in the course of reading.

I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.