Susie stopped suddenly in the centre of Derby. What stopped her? A single question from an open-air preacher: ‘What will happen to you after you die?’
After listening to the message, I asked if she had an answer. She told me tearfully that she had no idea. She confessed she hadn’t been thinking about this at all, but the question had hit her right between the eyes. A precious gospel conversation followed, and she went away with good literature.
Have you seen the power of questions? We cannot overstate their importance in open-air preaching. They are often the means the Holy Spirit uses to arrest the attention of passers-by and draw them to listen.
Why use questions in our preaching?
1. Questions Are Biblical
The Bible records 3,298 questions. We only have to venture into the first few chapters of Genesis to hear the voice of the Lord himself walking through the garden and asking a question of Adam (some would say the Lord was the first open-air preacher!). ‘The Lord God called to Adam, and said to him, “Where are you?”‘ (Genesis 3:9). The Lord used a question to arrest Adam’s attention as he hid away.
In Genesis 4, the Lord asks Cain, ‘Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted?’ (Genesis 4:6–7). When the children of Israel went out to gather manna on the Sabbath, the Lord remonstrated with them: ‘How long do you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws?’ (Exodus 16:28)
The Lord knew the answers to these questions. He used them to arrest attention and penetrate hearts. As we move through the Scriptures, over and over we hear Moses and the prophets asking questions in their preaching and teaching. Just imagine the scene as the prophet Zechariah cried out to Joash and the Jewish people:
‘Why do you transgress the commandments of the Lord, so that you cannot prosper?’ (2 Chronicles 24:20)
Or think of the scene as Jeremiah the weeping prophet cried out:
‘Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Behold and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which has been brought on me, which the Lord has inflicted in the day of his fierce anger.’ (Lamentations 1:12)
The Lord Jesus and the apostles also made questions central to their preaching.
Take the Sermon on the Mount as recorded by Matthew. In chapters 5–7, Christ asks 21 questions. In the section on worry (6:25–34), Christ asks no fewer than seven questions to drive home the folly of worry. He culminates with a question that rebukes our unbelief:
‘Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?’ (Matthew 6:30)
If the prophets, the Lord Jesus, and the apostles all employed questions to communicate their message, is there not something missing from our preaching if questions are absent?
As Paul addressed King Agrippa, he reasoned with him using a question:
‘Why should it be thought incredible by you that God raises the dead?’ (Acts 26:8)
We find many questions in the epistles. There is a higher concentration in the letters where Paul is passionately seeking to seize the attention of the wayward Corinthian church. In the letter to the Hebrews—which many commentators argue is a sermon—the preacher uses many questions to drive home the supremacy of the person and work of Christ over the Old Covenant. Take the well-known question in Hebrews 2:3–4:
‘How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard him, God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will?’
If the prophets, the Lord Jesus, and the apostles all employed questions to communicate their message, is there not something missing from our preaching if questions are absent?
2. Questions Capture the Attention of Distracted People
Every preacher faces the challenge of seizing attention. In the open air, that challenge multiplies. People haven’t come into town to hear a preacher. They’re busy with errands, meetings, and shopping lists. Some are heading back to the office; others are keen to get home. We compete with screens playing short, dopamine-inducing videos, brightly coloured adverts in shop windows, and buskers blaring music. How are we to cut through these distractions and command attention? We ask questions! Like a fisherman’s hook, we constantly throw them out, trusting they will land in the hearts and minds of our hearers.
I remember one young mum who stopped with her child as a preacher spoke about the most important things in life. He asked, ‘Do you know what it’s like to be so busy, going from pillar to post, so that you never stop and think about the big issues of life?’ The young mum nodded and smiled. The question resonated with her, describing her experience. She listened to the preaching for several minutes afterwards and displayed sincere interest in the gospel message, despite the story of her very sad and broken background that emerged following the preaching.
A perceptive question that shows we understand the lives of our listeners demonstrates that we have something relevant to say to them. Compare these approaches:
Statement: ‘The world is getting worse and many people don’t know why.’
Questions: ‘Do you ever look at the world and see it getting worse? Have you ever asked why?’
Which is more likely to stop a passerby and make them listen?
3. Questions Keep the Attention of Our Listeners
How often does your own mind wander when you’re listening to preaching? Asking questions in our preaching ensures that we keep the attention of those already listening. If you notice people drifting off, look your listeners in the eye and throw them a question. You’ll often notice the glazed-over look dissipate in a moment as minds snap back into action.
Pastor and author Stuart Olyott describes how questions hold attention:
‘Questions are wonderful things, aren’t they? What happens when a preacher asks a question? (What is happening to you as a reader whilst I ask this question?) The answer is that you try to answer it! This happens whether you reply out loud or not. The moment that you try to answer it, even inwardly, the preaching ceases to be a monologue. It becomes a dialogue. Inside your own mind you hear not only the voice of the preacher, but your own voice as well. Everything becomes suddenly much more interesting. Our Lord is a master of such questions and the best preachers in history have followed his example…'(1)
If you notice people drifting off, look your listeners in the eye and throw them a question.
He then shows how Jesus increases the frequency of questions towards the end of the Sermon on the Mount to revive the attention of his hearers:
‘Why does our Lord arrange his questions in this way? It is because we all have trouble sustaining our concentration. So our Lord teaches for a while, and then asks several questions to bring his hearers to life again. He then teaches for a while longer, before reviving them again with several more questions. Then, as they begin to become weary, he puts in his questions quite regularly. As a communicator, the incarnate Son of God is a genius. How wise that preacher is who works to develop an oral style like his!'(2)
4. Questions Answer Objections
Jesus often used questions to overcome the traps and objections of the Pharisees (see, for example, Matthew 12:3–4, 22:20–21, 42, 44; Luke 6:9, 10:26). We often face hostile questions in our open-air preaching. As we respond, remember that questions are among our weapons to fight ungodly ideologies and false religions. We can use questions to expose the inconsistency of an unbiblical worldview.
Take, for example, the atheist who denies the virgin birth of Christ and the miraculous. You could state the following: ‘It is entirely rational to believe in the virgin birth if you believe in a God who had power to create all things.’ Or you could ask them this question: ‘Are you saying that you cannot believe in the virgin birth of Christ, but you can believe in the virgin birth of the universe?’
I remember an atheist in Newark telling me the only thing he was sure of was that there was no such thing as truth. In reply, I asked him, ‘Is that statement true?’ After repeating it a few times, the fallacy of his atheism became evident.
5. Questions Reach the Conscience
In Romans, Paul addresses his Jewish readers:
‘And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practising such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgement of God?’ (Romans 2:3)
By using this question, Paul confronts his readers with the reality that they are in the same boat as the very people they accuse.
Many people we meet on the street like to point to great sinners in history and claim that surely they’re going to hell. But we can ask them, ‘Why should God let you into heaven if you too have [example of sin here]?’
Questions force the conscience to be confronted with our condition!
6. Questions Help You to Remember Your Message
I was recently speaking with a brother who preaches from a manuscript. I encouraged him that he could preach without notes in the open air if he could just remember a few questions. Few of us will get stuck in a conversation if someone is asking us questions. That’s because our memories respond well to prompts. We can apply this in our preaching to help us remember our message. Good preaching asks and answers questions throughout the message. Each question is a prompt. Not only does it engage the listeners, but it jogs your mind.
Think of the types of questions you can ask: Why? Who? Where? How? When? What? Throughout your message, ask questions and answer them. This helps your message flow logically and be memorable for yourself and those who hear you.
Conclusion
Remember Susie in Derby. One question stopped her in her tracks. One question, empowered by the Holy Spirit, could bring spiritual life.
Questions are a biblical pattern modelled by the prophets, the apostles and Christ Himself. They cut through distraction, touch the conscience, and lodge in hearts even after the preaching finishes.
The question is: which questions will you use in your next message?
Are you looking for practical experience and training in open-air evangelism? This year, we are hosting a special weekend to equip believers in the theory and practice of biblical open-air evangelism.
Join our training weekend in Liverpool this May.
‘Teach and Go’ open-air training weekend
Notes
(1) Olyott, Stuart. Ministering Like the Master: Three Messages for Today’s Preachers. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2003. Page 8.
(2) Ibid. Page 9.