We’ll ask a lot of questions in heaven …

One of the most efficient ways of learning is asking questions. If you’re a parent, you know this to be true as you field the many queries from the curious minds of your children. “Our Daily Bread” related one such story …

A father and his young son were out walking one day when the boy asked how electricity could go through the wires stretched between the telephone poles. “I don’t know,” said his father. “I never knew much about electricity.”

A few blocks farther on, the boy asked what caused lightning and thunder. “That, too, has puzzled me,” came the reply. The youngster continued to inquire about many things, none of which the father could explain.

Finally, as they were nearing home, the boy said, “Pop, I hope you didn’t mind all those questions.” “Not at all,” replied his father. “How else are you going to learn!

Learning by asking questions isn’t something we do just as children, we continue to learn throughout our lives by inquiring about what we don’t know and our curiosities.

And we’ll still be asking a lot of questions in heaven.

There’s a false assumption that once this world ends and we spend eternity with God that we’ll know everything. But that’s not the case. Nowhere does the Bible indicate that we will have all knowledge in eternal life. God alone is omniscient (all-knowing), and that won’t change in heaven. In fact, we see in the Book of Revelation how humans who are with God continue to ask questions:

“When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of all who had been martyred for the word of God and for being faithful in their testimony. They shouted to the Lord and said, ‘O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you judge the people who belong to this world and avenge our blood for what they have done to us?’ Then a white robe was given to each of them. And they were told to rest a little longer until the full number of their brothers and sisters — their fellow servants of Jesus who were to be martyred — had joined them,” Revelation 6:9-11.

The apostle Paul wrote about our clarity improving in our eternal life, but that isn’t to be mistaken for being omniscient:

“Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely,” 1 Corinthians 13:12.

In his book, “Systematic Theology,” Wayne Grudem notes from this scripture, “1 Cor. 13:12 does not say that we will be omniscient or know everything (Paul could have said we will know all things, ta panta, if he had wished to do so), but, rightly translated, simply says that we will know in a fuller or more intensive way, ‘even as we have been known,’ that is, without any error or misconceptions in our knowledge.”

Once we are with God, we’ll know “fully” in the sense of accurately, but not exhaustively.

I can’t help but think one of the wonders of an eternity with God is always learning more about Him, and what He has in store for an everlasting life for us. Doesn’t that sound like an amazing adventure of learning?

Scotty