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JACKSON, Tenn. — Dec. 16, 2017 — 51���� President Samuel W. “Dub” Oliver spoke to graduates about the importance of questions at Union’s fall commencement exercises Saturday at West Jackson Baptist Church.

Oliver said in modern society, statements and facts have become the privileged form of communication, but only questions can build relationships.

“Commands and declarations create monologues, but only questions can create dialogues,” he said.

He said the Bible teaches that God asks questions. In the very first conversation that God has with people recorded in the Bible, he asks, “Where are you?” The letters of Paul in the New Testament are also filled with questions, sometimes in place of statements or answers. Oliver said God asks questions not because he needs information he does not have, but because he desires relationship.

Oliver said he spent a week earlier this semester chronicling the questions he was asked, and they fit into many different categories: Common questions, passive questions, questions about life and eating, transactional questions, questions about work, questions related to communication or relationships, questions to make people ponder and riddles.

“Most of the questions we’re asked we don’t even hear because they’re so common and familiar to us,” Oliver said. “But every once in a while, there’s an important one.”

He said the graduates have been asked a million unimportant questions in their lives, and during their time at Union, they have sought to answer some very important questions. In the future, they may be asked even more important questions, such as “Why do you want this job?” or “Will you marry me?”

While these questions are important, Oliver said the most important question ever asked was asked by Jesus to his disciples in Matthew 16:13-19. Jesus turned to his disciples and asked an intensely personal question: “But what about you? Who do you say I am?”

“You have been asked some important questions, and you will be asked some really important questions,” Oliver told the graduates. “But the grandest of those you have been or ever will be asked is found in the sixteenth chapter of Matthew, ‘Who do you say I am?’ Every person must answer that question.”

About 300 Union students graduated at two commencement services, with undergraduate students graduating at 10 a.m. and graduate and BSOL students graduating at 1:30 p.m. Oliver said commencement is a joyful time to celebrate the accomplishments of graduates.

“It’s a time to reflect upon the power of the relationships that have had such a transformative effect during their time here,” he said. “And it’s a time to look with hope to the future.”