Afraid to ask

But they did not understand this saying, and were afraid to ask Him. – Mark 9.32

Mark does a good job of letting us know how often Jesus told the news of His death. We also get a glimpse of how the disciples responded to the news. In the previous verse Jesus said ‘I am going to be delivered to men. They are going to kill Me, and then I will rise on the third day.

We need to remember that these guys were just regular people like you and me. When Jesus said this they didn’t know what to make of it. They were thinking He was the Messiah that they were all expecting. They though the time was right for Israel to throw off her Roman shackles and that soon the mighty kingdom of David would be restored.

But now He said that he was going to be arrested, and killed, and rise again.

Of course the disciples ‘did not understand.’

But the interesting thing is that they ‘were afraid to ask Him.’

I don’t have a great theological truth here, but maybe just a practical observation for us today.

These men had no need to be afraid to ask. God’s word never tells us not to ask questions. If anything it tells us just the opposite. We are told to ask and seek and inquire and learn.

We need not be afraid to ask. When we don’t understand something we should not ignore it because we are ‘afraid to ask.’ The reasons may vary. We may be afraid of looking foolish. We may be afraid of the response. We may be afraid of what we are to find out.

Too often we spend many years with questions and problems about things we don’t understand. When we have question let’s be sure that we read and study and research and do the best we can to find answers. There are times when we still won’t get and have to live by faith, but it is far better than living in doubt and uncertainty.