Sorry about the title and yes it is a trick question. I borrowed it from Stuart McAllister. Does your mother know that you are stupid? There is no good answer to this question. If you say yes – you are acknowledging your stupidity. If you say no, you are acknowledging her ignorance of your stupidity. If you say I don’t know – you are saying you are too stupid to even know how your mother feels about you.
Indeed, questions can have an embedded assumption or assertion. No wonder, very often Jesus would ask a question in return, when confronted with a question. He did it to force people to think, and to force them to open up within their own assumptions. He had a way of helping people come to grips with their motivation.
When asked in Matthew 19 “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” he responded, “Why ask me about what is good?”
When approached by some Pharisees about a woman caught in adultery they asked: “The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?” he responded with a statement – but really with a question of self-examination “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!”
Consider this classic example in
Luke 20:20-22 nlt Watching for their opportunity, the leaders sent secret agents pretending to be honest men. They tried to get Jesus to say something that could be reported to the Roman governor so he would arrest Jesus. 21 They said, “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right and are not influenced by what others think. You sincerely teach the ways of God. 22 Now tell us – is it right to pay taxes to the Roman government or not?”
To understand what is happening here, we need to consider the context. The religious people asking the question believed they were God’s chosen people and enslaved by the Roman Government. Their belief was that if you pay taxes, you are financing oppression of God’s holy people. It is why Jesus just couldn’t say yes. If he did, due to their cultural assumptions, they would accuse him of compromising his holiness to save his own life. If he says no, they would then turn him over to the Roman government to be charged with tax evasion. Jesus chose to respond to the question with one of his own.
Luke 20:23-26 He saw through their trickery and said, 24 ”Show me a Roman coin. Whose picture and title are stamped on it?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. 25 “Well then,” he said, “give to Caesar what belongs to him. But everything that belongs to God must be given to God.” 26 So they failed to trap him in the presence of the people. Instead, they were amazed by his answer, and they were silenced.
He answers the question – give to Cesar what belongs to him and by that, he shows them that it doesn’t make you unholy. Holiness is about giving to God what is rightfully His. I have wondered, why they didn’t ask the next logical question. So, what belongs to God? He could have then led them into how a right understanding on how to worship God in a way that is true and holy.
It is important that we check our motives before we launch the question. Here are some “questions” to prepare our hearts toward God.
Am I honestly seeking to know what is true? Have I “loaded” the question to shape the response I want to hear?
Lord, what wrong assumptions about you have I brought into this conversation?
Great post, Pastor David – so true about the importance of examining motives and being authentically honest in asking questions. Reminds me of the verse in Psalm 51:6 I was reading recently: “You desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.” Being honest leads to greater revelation and truth.