Truth Quest - Sometimes It Is Not

Why Give an Answer?

Why give an answer when all potential answers have been predetermined by the questioner to be indictable and misunderstood?

Jesus told his disciples to be as wise as serpents and as gentle as doves. He models this.

He would not let his detractors set the agenda for his mission, ministry, and message. Neither should we.

His teaching was outside the box and he did everything a human could do to make sure no one built a box around it. I say, “anything a human could do,” because that was his chosen self-limitation at the time. He would not magically manipulate thinking.

There is more to this dialogue than I am taking the time to discuss here including the implications of “authority” in the setting, but what it boils down to is that Jesus is making a claim to authority that the questioners were predisposed not to accept and he is saying, “Take it or leave it.”

Now, what about you?

Are you subject to being baited, manipulated or backed into a corner?

It has been said that the person asking the questions controls the conversation. That is why the smart-alec detectives on television respond to their subjects’ inquiries with, “I’m asking the questions here.”

Of course there is no law that says outside of court, who can ask questions or who must answer or how they must answer.

Sometimes either an affirmative or dissenting answer will be equally a lie or a half truth. The intention of the interrogator is to lock you in to something that is not the full truth.

You are free to reject someone else’s agenda for your life or convictions. Jesus provides an example of that.

Of course, we should always be open to dialogue with honest seekers and earnest conversation partners in a mutual exchange and quest for truth.

Photo by Ozan Safak on Unsplash

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Luke 20:1–8 (NRSV)

One day, as he was teaching the people in the temple and telling the good news, the chief priests and the scribes came with the elders and said to him, “Tell us, by what authority are you doing these things? Who is it who gave you this authority?” 

He answered them, “I will also ask you a question, and you tell me: Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” 

They discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ all the people will stone us; for they are convinced that John was a prophet.”

So they answered that they did not know where it came from. 

Then Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”