Usually when this is read our mind is captured by the indefinite pronoun. What “it” is Jesus discussing? Anything? Everything? Or perhaps it is something more specific that we should discern from context. Could it be righteousness? Could it be peace?
Many scholars believe this passage in Matthew may be based on a similar phrase in the Gospel of Thomas. A complete text of this lost gospel was found in 1945 at Nag Hammadi in Egypt. Thomas parallels Matthew, Mark, and Luke in many ways and is considered contemporary with, if not predating, the first three gospels of the New Testament. Some scholars date Thomas to as early as 60 AD.
The related text in Thomas emphasizes the verb, “Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find.” (Thomas 2:1) This would suggest that the very act of asking is fundamental to a faithful life. The next two verses in Thomas read, “When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all.”
A question is the most powerful tool available to a manager. A question opens up new possibilities for both the questioner and the one questioned. The absence of a question suggests a continuation of the status quo, of the known, of the expected.
Every new product begins with a question. Most relationships are founded on and perpetuated by a shared interest in answering a question. In conceiving a strategy we are mostly asking questions about the future.
In seeking to understand what is real and what is unreal we ask questions of ourselves and others. The more we ask the more our assumptions are likely to be overturned – the more likely we are to perceive something new – and to be “disturbed.”
Image Duplicator by Roy Lichtenstein (1962)
As Jesus so often turned to Isaiah, I am inclined to draw on Peter Drucker. In 1992 discussing fundamental demographic and social shifts he wrote, “Business people need to ask: What do these accomplished facts mean for our business? What opportunities do they create? What threats? What changes do they demand – in the way the business is organized and run, in our goals, in our products, in our services, in our policies? And what changes do they make possible and likely to be advantageous? ... These are not particularly arcane matters. Most executives know the answers or how to get them. It’s just that they rarely ask the questions.” (Management in a Time of Great Change, pages 40 and 43)
The manager should seek to proactively disturb the status quo before competitors, customers, or others with less benign intent do so. The manager wants to ask a question that will lead to a new insight on reality – to an aha! moment – when we will marvel at a new understanding and its related opportunities.
An authentic question is a seed that will always blossom. When we ask and earnestly seek the answer, we will find it and – like a mustard seed (Matthew 13:31-32) – marvel at how our seed has grown.
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