Curiosity, while it might kill the cat, just might be one of the most needed virtues of our time.
I recently turned fifty. Birthdays that end in zero have a way of prompting reflection. They make you look back at where you’ve been and wonder what still lies ahead. After fifty trips around the sun, I find myself less preoccupied with proving what I know and more interested in shaping who I want to become in the years ahead.
One of the qualities I most hope will mark this next season of life is curiosity.
As a younger man, I was desperate to be right—or at least to be thought of as smart. I read voraciously. I listened to intelligent people, hoping some of their brilliance might rub off. I even took a vocabulary course so I could sound smarter. For a while, I fooled a lot of folks with my ten-dollar words (though honestly, shouldn’t that phrase be adjusted for inflation by now?).
But for all my book smarts and big words, I was so filled with certainty that I had no room, or time, for listening.
Curiosity may not make the list of traditional virtues, but I’m convinced it’s one of the most important for our cultural moment. The ability to wonder, to listen, to ask questions without already scripting the answers: this is not just a personality trait. It’s a posture of the soul. It requires humility, openness, and a security in Christ that frees us from the fear of being wrong or exposed. I’m convinced curiosity grows best in the soil of humility, but its roots are in grace. Curiosity springs from the life of a person who knows their own brokenness, who realizes they don’t have it all together, and who can admit they might be wrong, maybe about a lot of things.
Aristotle once said, “It is the mark of an educated man to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
That statement resonates deeply with me. To “entertain” an idea is to welcome it in like a guest—without the pressure to adopt it as your own. It’s not agreement; it's engagement. It’s the willingness to consider something on its own terms, to suspend judgment long enough to really listen.
Without grace, curiosity feels like a threat.
Sadly, we in the Church often struggle with this. Sometimes it’s a lack of reading broadly. Sometimes it’s the fear of stepping outside the boundaries of what our community accepts. But at its root, I believe it’s usually because we don’t understand grace very well.
Without grace, curiosity feels like a threat. What if the wrong idea pulls us off course? What if we start doubting our faith? What if listening looks like compromise? Those concerns are legitimate, but they also reveal how much we are relying on ourselves rather than on Christ.
Grace changes the equation. Grace says our standing with God doesn’t depend on how airtight our arguments are or how perfectly we guard our beliefs. Grace assures us that we are secure in Christ, fully known and fully loved. Grace frees us to be wrong, and to be able to willingly admit it. It's that security which frees us to be curious. We can welcome new ideas without panic, test them against truth without fear, and even be corrected without losing ourselves. Because in the end, our identity is not built on always being right, but on Christ who is the Truth (John 14:6).
Grace and the Freedom to Ask Questions
Grace tells me that my standing before God is not based on the strength of my arguments or the sharpness of my intellect. It is grounded in Christ alone: in his life, death, and resurrection and in his finished work accomplished for me. That means we can risk curiosity. We can ask hard questions and entertain ideas outside our presuppositions. We can engage with people who see the world differently without being undone by their perspectives.
The cross of Christ reminds me that my failures are covered and my identity is secure.
When I forget grace, curiosity feels like a threat. When I remember grace, curiosity becomes a gift. It allows me to explore ideas without fear that every question is a slippery slope. The cross of Christ reminds me that my failures are covered and my identity is secure. That frees me to listen more than I speak, to explore more than I defend, and to see people as image-bearers rather than opponents to defeat.
Curiosity in an Age of Outrage
We live in a time when outrage is cheap and curiosity is costly. Social media trains us to react quickly, to stake our positions loudly, and to treat every disagreement as a battle. In such a climate, curiosity looks almost like weakness. It’s easier to signal certainty than to admit we don’t have it all figured out.
But the Christian life is not built on certainty in ourselves; it’s built on trust in Christ. Certainty in him gives us space to be uncertain about many other things. I don’t have to solve every cultural debate or answer every theological question with absolute clarity. As a Christian my call is to trust Christ, the One who embodies truth. That trust allows me to engage the world with an open heart rather than a clenched fist.
Learning to Listen
One of the ways I want to embody curiosity in this next season of life is by listening better. Listening is not passive. It’s active, deliberate, and often uncomfortable. It means suspending the instinct to respond, correct, or persuade, and instead giving someone the dignity of being heard.
Listening well doesn’t mean I’ll agree with everything I hear. It does mean I’ll take seriously the reality that the person speaking is made in God’s image and just might have something to teach me. They are not a problem to solve but a neighbor to love. And love listens. Love asks questions. Love entertains thoughts without rushing to dismiss them.
The Fear That Kills Curiosity
So why do we resist curiosity? Why is it so much easier to retreat into our certainties or defend our turf? At its core, I think the obstacle is fear. Fear of being wrong. Fear of losing control. Fear of looking foolish. Fear of betraying our tribe. Fear, ultimately, of being exposed.
This fear is not new. It’s the same fear that led Adam and Eve to hide in the garden. It’s the same fear that drives us to self-justify rather than confess. Fear closes us off; grace opens us up. Fear silences curiosity; grace sets it free.
Curiosity as a Form of Faith
The gospel speaks directly to this fear. God isn’t waiting for us to get everything right; he’s already met us at our worst and called us his own. The cross is proof that our errors, misunderstandings, and failures don’t disqualify us—they’re the very places grace does its best work. When that sinks in, curiosity stops feeling dangerous. You can listen, wonder, and even be wrong, without fear of losing yourself, because as a child of God you’ve already died to yourself and your life is held secure in Christ (Col. 3:3).
Curiosity, in the Christian life, is not just an intellectual exercise; it’s the natural result of faith. Faith believes that God’s truth is strong enough to withstand scrutiny. Faith trusts that Jesus is Lord, even when my understanding is limited. Faith frees me to say, “I don’t know” without fear of losing God’s approval.
Think of the disciples. They asked Jesus countless questions—some profound, some naive. Not once did he rebuke them for asking. He rebuked them for unbelief, but never for curiosity. Questions were part of their discipleship. They learned by wondering, by probing, by listening. That’s still how discipleship works today.
A Closing Word
Aristotle was right: education is not about clinging to every idea but about entertaining them wisely. Yet as Christians, we can go further. We know that our curiosity is not secured by our intellect but by God’s grace. We can afford to be curious because our salvation doesn’t hang in the balance. Christ does.
I typically bristle against pragmatic steps to solving our problems—three ways to cultivate curiosity or something. However, I am going to suggest one practical move that might help us in this area. Let’s stop trying to win the culture war on social media. There’s very little “socializing” that happens on social media platforms. Mostly it’s just me, a keyboard, and my opinions attempting to convince everyone else how right I am. It’s primarily individuals having conversations with themselves hoping to get affirmation from strangers. So, just a thought—-let’s use it as it’s intended but don’t expect more from it than it’s capable of achieving. At worst you’ll just get frustrated at your inability to make any positive change. At best you'll create an echo chamber for yourself; where all your friends tell you how right and smart you are but no one actually learns anything.
So as I step into this next season of life, I want to practice curiosity without fear. I want to listen better. I want to ask questions freely. I want to welcome ideas without panic. Most of all, I want to live in such a way that the grace I’ve received in Christ spills over into every conversation, every question, and every encounter.
It’s that understanding of grace that frees us to be curious. And curiosity, while it might kill the cat, just might be one of the most needed virtues of our time.
