“When someone tells you a story, no matter how good it is, asking questions is always a helpful exercise. Questions help reinforce the story, bringing depth and breadth to our understanding. Questions can aid us in retention and memory. Questions help us meditate upon God’s Word” (11). 

It was about a year into my ministry. I was unsatisfied with my preaching. It seemed like every sermon sounded like the one from last week. I was preaching myself into a rut and I needed to find a way out. I pulled out my notes from Junior homiletics with James Tiefel. On one particularly helpful handout, Prof. Tiefel offered a long list of questions to help dig deeper into a text, and to distinguish it from other texts. I immediately copied a selection of them into the text study template that I still use every week. (That portion of the template is titled “Tiefel’s Ten.”) 

When we study the Word of God, it’s easy for our eyes to pass over important details as though they are insignificant. It’s easy for our minds to approach portions of Scripture with an “I already know this” attitude. This is detrimental both to our personal meditation and to our preaching. Inserting simple questions into the devotional and text study process can help us force ourselves to dig deeper. Even if the answer to the question is obvious, intentionally acknowledging that answer helps the student of God’s Word to better understand and appreciate what God is saying. 

With his book, Andrew Jones strives to share that benefit with many more readers of the Bible. His ten questions begin with the immediate text itself (1. Who is the enemy? 2. How is the enemy defeated? 3. Whose point of view am I taking? 4. Who are you, Lord?), expand to the larger context in Scripture (5. Where are we? 6. How did we get here? 7. What happens next?), and finish with personal application (8. What have I experienced that connects to this? 9. What am I feeling? 10. Where have I heard this before?). 

The questions are well thought out, organized, and worded in a way that would make it difficult to answer them superficially. A certain level of thoughtfulness is required. “Who is the enemy?” may not be a question that we would naturally think of attaching to a lot of Scriptural passages, but asking the question anyway leads the reader to identify an underlying problem and solution (or, if you would prefer, a malady and a cure). As a result, the reader interacts with the text in a more meaningful way than if the question had never been asked. 

Beyond the structure of the questions themselves, what I especially appreciated about this book was the way each question was explained. In introducing each question to approach Scripture, and by providing ample examples, Jones has produced a sort of guidebook of Lutheran hermeneutics without ever having to use the word “hermeneutics.”  

For example, when he explains the question “How is the enemy defeated?” Jones definitively states, “We do not defeat the enemies – [God] defeats them for us. Every time. That is who He is. God may choose to use and empower His people in the fight against those enemies, but He deserves all the credit for the victory over sin, death, and Satan…’How is the enemy defeated?’ is a humbling question because the answer is never ‘By me’” (32-33). Too often, people go to the Bible asking the question, “What do I need to do for God?” Jones invites readers to ponder the better question: “What has God done for me?” The hermeneutical aspect alone makes Jones’ book worth putting in the hands of people who are newer to reading and understanding the Bible. 

I also appreciated the way Jones deals with human emotion. Because we are surrounded by Christian denominations that tend to over-exalt experience and emotion, Lutherans tend to be rightly suspicious of feelings. In that suspicion, there is a danger of veering into the other ditch of ignoring emotions entirely. Jones walks the middle road when he encourages readers to ask the question “What am I feeling?” “Emotions are a good gift from God. They are not to be set aside or ignored when reading the Bible…Still, our feelings do not overrule God’s Word. We may not want to hear what God’s Word says on a variety of topics…As we ask ‘What am I feeling?’ we must attend to the reality that God’s Word is more trustworthy than our emotions. We may not feel like God’s promises are true, but they are” (130-131). 

In reading Ten Questions, the typical parish pastor will probably not walk away with a lot of newly learned information. But what can be found in this book is a concise, accessible encouragement to meditate intentionally and continually on the Word of God. Such an encouragement is needed by pastor and layman alike. Ten Questions invites the student of God’s Word to never view his understanding of Scripture as “good enough.” “Asking ‘What questions remain?’ allows us to keep searching. It helps us retain a sense of humility as the answers to these remaining questions are at least for the moment ‘I don’t know.’ This question reminds us that reading the Bible is not something that can be done once and forgotten about. Reading the Bible is a lifelong endeavor, discipline, and joy. It is a lifelong gift of getting to know who our God is” (151). 

This would be a good book for any pastor whose devotional life or preaching has grown stale. This would also be a good resource to have on hand to share with members who want to build stronger habits in their devotional lives.