We read the Bible and it reads us, or rather, God reads us and examines our lives. Questions which have a particular meaning in the old stories of Israel transcend their contexts and interrogate us. God asks the prototypical humans, Adam and Eve, in Genesis 3, but we know God is seeking you and me. These are not the kind of questions you can answer off the top of your head while they play the Jeopardy theme song just before Alex Trebec asks you to respond and Don Parno tells you what you've won. They are the kind of questions you carry around inside as you go, defining questions, questions which send you on a journey which will shape your life and throw you into the arms of God.
Researchers know the key to finding the right answer is to ask the right question.
The questions they ask of a mass of data will frame and to a great degree determine the results of their studies. Likewise, the spiritual questions we choose and answer with our lives set our direction and determine who we become. The interrogative becomes the imperative. In other words, God asks us loaded questions. We find these loaded questions all over the place in the Bible.