In Luke 13:23 a group of people ask Jesus “will only a few be saved?” This is one example of people asking Jesus for what I call “insider information”.

Sometimes I hear people muse about “what will you ask God when you see him” and often these are the kinds of questions they want to ask. “Why did this happen? Did any good really come of that?” and we imagine that once we have God face to face that we will pose the question and he will give us the answer and that this will somehow resolve something or do something.

In John 9 when presented with a man born blind the disciples ask “who sinned, this man or his parents?” In Luke 13 Jesus addresses a similar question which was not directly presented to him in the text but may have been or Jesus may have known what they were thinking. Jesus never seems to take the bait on these questions and often instead turns the question back onto the askers in terms of what is germane to them.

Why do we ask these questions? Obviously, because we want to know, but what exactly do we want to know and why do we want to know it?

What’s more these questions aren’t far from many of our prayers. Many of us pray for divine intervention that asks not only for insider information regarding a difficult thing in our lives but also divine intervention to resolve the situation in our favor. I think both the questions and the prayers come from the same place.

What is it we are seeking with these questions and prayers? I think we are seeking lordship and mastery of our worlds. If we are given either the information or the grant requested we arrive at a position where we no longer immediately need and are dependent upon God (until the next crisis). We are looking for that information to give us a strategic advantage in the navigation of our lives towards whatever ends we desire. With this information we can now take everything into account, our neighbors, the rules, even God himself. Everything becomes a piece on the chess board before us.

What this reveals in us is that we truly believe we can play this game to “win” and that all that stands in our way is some tidbit of information or some circumstantial obstacle. If God would only give us a little helping hand resolving these then we would be home free.

This is all of course stupid because if we in fact were capable of mastering this game then neither the information nor the circumstance would be an obstacle and we wouldn’t need God’s help. God in fact would be just another piece on the chess board that we would use towards whatever end we are pursuing.

I think this is at least part of the reason Jesus deals with these questions as he does. The questions simply make no sense. The questions demonstrate that the askers are completely clueless as to what they are and where they stand with respect to whatever it is they are anxious about. When in this case they ask “will only a few be saved” the question can mean a few different things. “Will I be saved” “Will those I love and care for be saved?” “Am I part of an exclusive club?”

There is a great quote from Manning’s Ruthless Trust on Mother Teresa’s response to someone asking her to leverage her perceived position of advantage with God in order to gain insider information. The quote is worth reading and I think she’s exactly right.

In each case Jesus responds to such questions by advising that we give up trying to game the system. We give up our quest of positional advantage whereby we imagine we can see the whole game board and control it. The grabbing of this position is obviously central to our rebellion (the desire to know good and evil) and nothing comes from moving deeper into that self-salvation strategy.

Does this mean that we don’t get to bring to God our list of insider information questions after we die? I’m assuming that when we see him face to face our list will be the last thing on our minds.