Asking each other the right questions

There’s a scene in David Adams Richards’s novel Principles to Live By where John Delano, a washed-up police officer trying to get back in the game, is asked by a colleague why he doesn’t have much use for school. Delano responds thus:

Oh, I don’t know—let’s just say that those who know all the answers are often the ones never able to ask the right questions.

A simple enough statement, right? But a profound and instructive one. At least so it seems to me. As someone who has spent nearly ten years blogging and interacting online with people on both ends of the liberal-conservative spectrum, as someone who has been a pastor for nearly eight years and regularly finds himself in dialogue with people holding views that cross the theological spectrum, this statement rings true.