When Jesus Didn't Answer Questions (and When We Shouldn't Either)

Sometimes in our culture we are faced with tough questions asked by people with bad motives. These people may want to belittle Christ and desire to make Christianity appear absurd, outdated, and backward. What are we as Christians to do when faced with such questions? Must we answer all questions asked of us?

As Christ ministered and taught on earth he was asked often by many people who had different motives. More often than not Jesus blew away all expectations as he answered questions. The result was that his opponents were often stunned, even shamed, as he answered their questions with precision and truth.

Yet there were times when Christ refused to answer questions posed to him. In Luke 20:1-4 the chief priests and teachers approach Jesus to ask him, “Tell us by what authority you are doing these things…Who gave you this authority?” 

Note Jesus could have answered this question, “I am God in the Flesh! The Father has sent me! I am his Son!”  It would appear on the surface that all the chief priests wanted was the truth, all they wanted to know was more about Jesus. Who of us if asked this question about Jesus would hesitate to answer clearly?

But Jesus knew these people were not seeking truth, they were not seeking to believe—they were out for blood. This question was a trap, the leaders were seeking for Jesus to declare himself either God, which would be blasphemy, or the Christ, which would make him a threat to Rome. They wanted to legitimize their opposition to Jesus while at the same time discrediting him. 

So Jesus responded by asking them a question about John’s baptism—did it come from heaven or from man? Jesus pressed them to declare what their hidden allegiances are. Instead of playing along, Jesus turns the table on them. 

When the religious leaders refused to answer, Jesus in turn refuses to answer their initial question. Was Jesus being dishonest? Or course not. He was unwilling to play their twisted game.  Jesus conducts himself in the same way elsewhere (Matt. 15.1-3). The question for us is, “What should we take from Jesus’ refusal to answer loaded questions?” 

Christians in our culture are faced with similar situations. The secular world wants to ask us “trick” questions in an attempt to marginalize us. Most of these questions today have to do with human sexuality—the acceptability of homosexuality and transgenderism. The world goes out of its way to ask us loaded questions in order to lead us into a trap of their own making. When doing so they are not seeking truth, they are not seeking to understand our position, they have an agenda which is anti the gospel. 

It is in such circumstances we should consider Jesus’ actions here. When someone comes to us with a clear agenda of trapping and ensnaring us through their system of thinking, we would be wise to answer their question with our own questions. 

If someone is truly seeking to know more about God and what we believe, we should answer them eagerly. Yet when someone is only seeking to malign Christians, to trample us under the foot of the new mob-morality, we can choose to not play their game.  Now to be clear, such a choice should not be driven by fear or self-preservation; rather, it is driven by a desire to not partake in the false reality being established by the opponents of God.

How can we tell the difference? By asking them probing questions to see why they are asking us and to see if they are actually willing to enter into an honest dialogue. 
Let me give an example of such a conversation:

Non-Christian: “Why do you hate homosexuals? Isn’t all love the same? Jesus only cared about love, and to not judge? Why are Christians so hypocritical?”

Christian: “Why is it wrong to hate? On what foundation do you judge the beliefs of others as being wrong at all? How is that not intolerant and judgmental?"

Now the initial question asked in this scenario is very loaded and it is very close to much of the dialogue our culture has on sexuality.  We know Christians do not “hate homosexuals” yet the world has labelled it as hateful to say that homosexual acts are wrong. So how do we proceed?

Instead of answering the question according to their agenda and terms, we should respond by asking them how and on what basis they are making their own moral judgments. It is clear they think it is wrong for Christians to hold the moral position that homosexuality is wrong, yet at the same time they themselves are declaring that their morality superior to ours. They are making moral judgments which discriminate against the Christian position. 

In my experience, most non-Christians fail to realize how inconsistent they are being. They fail to see that they themselves are making moral claims and being intolerant. This is what prompts the response of the Christian. 

We want the unbeliever to think carefully about why they believe what they believe. If they truly want to have dialogue with us they will answer this question. If all they want is prove themselves to be self-righteous according to their cultural morality, then they will just continue in their insistence that we are the hate-filled bigots they have already assumed us to be. If that is the course they choose, we need not answer them. We do not have to play their game according to their unbalanced scales. 

Jesus told us that there will be occasions when we should not engage with belligerent people who are aiming only to make fools out of us and the gospel. Jesus says in in Matthew 7:6, “Do not cast your pearls before swine. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.”

We are not always obligated to answer questions which are clearly designed to lead us into a trap. Christ recognized this and it is time Christians recognize this as well. We do not answer, not out of cowardice, but out of wisdom. We refuse to play an unbalanced game on an unbalanced field. 

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Sorrow & Hope

The past three Saturdays I have attended three funerals. I know as I get older and continue in ministry that such things will become more common. Nonetheless, during this time I have had time to reflect on death, sorrow, funerals, and hope. All three funerals I attended were for  believers, which is an encouragement, but I cannot help but think that we have a tendency in our culture, and in evangelicalism, to not take death seriously enough. Because of this treatment of death, our funerals may come across as trite, shallow, and in the process so does our display of the gospel.

Now to be clear, for the families and loved ones who have lost someone, their pain is real and their sorrow is deep at death, yet our funerals often do not communicate this reality.

By this I mean we do not talk about death seriously at a funeral. If we even mention death at all, we are quick to move past it to get to the good news. I understand this tendency, who wants to talk about bad news when you can talk about good news? Yet it is in the severity of the bad news that we can better see the glory of the good news.

We have the same tendency when it comes to sin. We don’t really talk about it, and when we do we only talk about its cure. Yet if we do not establish there is a problem, and that it is a severe problem, then there is no need for to have a cure at all. 

When I have attended funerals of unbelievers I have noticed that no one will talk about death at all, they simply cannot or will not process it—because it is final. In this way they ignore death and its ominous nature. They don’t talk about it because they know one day death will find them and there is nothing they can to do about. It is unfortunate that Christian funerals tend to  the same thing by minimizing death, while not realizing that this also minimizes the gospel. 

So what I am proposing? I am not sure. But here are some thoughts on what we should be able to say about death as Christians:

1. Death is a tragedy- Death is not natural. The world was created and there was no death. Death came about because of sin and it still exists because of sin.  This means man was not originally meant to die. We have eternity ingrained in our souls and this is why death is so daunting to us. Our very being cries out for eternity, and death appears to cut this short. So while through Christ there is victory, death remains a tragedy, a terrible thing which needs to be dealt with. 
2. Death should be taken seriously, even wept over- As Christians we are so quick to get to the good news that we often cut short the process of weeping over the evil of death. It is here that Jesus’ raising of Lazarus in John 11 is instructive to us. Jesus goes to the tomb of Lazarus, being himself the Resurrection and the Life, with the plan to raise Lazarus to life. Jesus comes to conquer Lazarus’ death.  Yet before he does this,  we read how Christ was impacted by Lazarus' death, a death he is about to overcome, “He was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled… Jesus wept.” We too should be deeply moved and troubled by death, weeping over its influence and power, all-the-while knowing that Jesus will overcome it. In order to do this we must not gloss over death with trite and shallow slogans, or by ignoring its seriousness. We should mourn death, as Christ did. 
3. Death is not yet finally defeated- While Christ overcame death on the Cross, and we do through his resurrection, death is not yet fully and finally defeated.  1 Corinthians 15:26 reminds us of this, “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” This destruction of death has been consummated, but it not yet complete. This means our enemy still has some power over us and that is not a good thing. Death will not be cast out until the new creation, until then we must not pretend that it is just a minor inconvenience. Death is our enemy, and in his goodness Christ shall end it once and for all. 
4. We are nothing in comparison to death- There is nothing you or I can do of our own power to overcome death. We ignore death, even at funerals, because of its fullness in comparison to our smallness. When we stare into the abyss of death,  we see clearly there is no hope for us in us. Death will overcome us if we are left to ourselves. Our tendency is to push that thought out of our minds and to focus on the trivial things of life as a distraction from our dire state. A funeral is the perfect place to let the full weight of death sit upon us. It is good for us to see that we can nothing to stop death and that we need someone greater than us to defeat it. It is this all-consuming nature of death which shows how great a savior we have in Christ. 

Christians need to simultaneously treat death with more gravity while at the same time not losing hope. If for a moment we can say that Christianity is not true, what would be the consequence of that? Death would be a truly devastating reality we cannot avoid. The world needs to be confronted with the gravity of what death is and how it is inescapable.  We need to show them that without Christ, if Christianity is false, there is no hope at all.

Then we need to point them to the gospel. Once we see how terrible, unnatural, and all-consuming an enemy death really is, then we can see how great and good the news of the gospel truly is. This is what a Christian funeral should be marked by sorrow, gravity, weeping, and hope. When we see death clearly we can then see the overwhelming beauty of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

He Gives and Takes Away: In Memory of a Friend, Father, and Missionary

I woke this morning to the news a friend of mine, his wife, and their three children died in car accident last night. They were travelling as a family to their final training before departing to be full-time missionaries in Japan. Just short of nine years ago Jamison was a groomsman in my wedding. This week Emily and I will celebrate our anniversary, but we will do so with heavy hearts. Jamison was a dear friend of mine, and more importantly a co-laborer in the kingdom of God. I have many fond memories of him, and a lot of grief at this unexpected news. I must admit, I don’t know what to think, let alone what to write in the face of such a devastating loss. My grief though cannot be compared with the sorrow of the family impacted by this tragic loss.

I am not sure why I am even writing this, probably because writing helps me to process what is going on, and I have a lot to process today. I met Jamison freshman year at Northwestern, he had known my wife Emily in high school, and in a short time we became good friends. I remember the hours we spent playing football, basketball, and volley ball and just hanging out and growing in our faith that first year.

Today many of the conversations we had are running through my mind as I think of Jamison and what made him the man he was. He was a man of God. He cared for people and he loved God. Jamison was a true friend who helped me through a difficult time in my life and who helped to shape me into the man I am today. What I remember mostly is his passion for God and his deep belief in God’s sovereignty. One night junior year, Jamison and I had a discussion about Calvinism. Jamison was explaining to me why Calvinism was true and how his class with Dr. Helseth had shaped his thinking on this topic.  My response was typical; in my obstinate tendencies I explained why Calvinism didn’t make any sense at all. God does have a sense of humor as it wasn’t long before I admitted my errors and adopted Calvinism (also after having a class with Dr. Helseth). Jamison was shaped by this view of God, his sovereignty, and that true joy could be found in the gospel alone. That is what motivated Jamison to be a missionary, a friend, a father, and a godly man.  

It was this trust in the sovereignty of God that led him to desire to be a missionary in Japan. He wanted to dedicate his life in service to God. He had a passion to bring glory to God by living in dependence on God’s sovereignty. That was who Jamison was. Last year, we sat down and talked about his upcoming ministry and what stood out to me was his dedication to sacrifice what he knew and loved here in America in order to follow God’s call for his life to Japan. He wanted others to know the God he knew.

Jamison and Katheryne trusted in the sovereignty of God.  They lived that out without regret. They died in service to God’s kingdom and I do not believe they would change a thing if given a chance.

Picture from Jamison's blog

It is at times like this that we who are left behind start to question God’s goodness and his sovereignty. Why now Lord? Why on the eve of seeing all that his family worked and sacrificed for to serve you that you would take them? It simply doesn’t make any sense to me at all.  I have no capacity to get my head around it today. This though is not what Jamison would want for me or for us. He would look at me and remind me that God is good and that he is sovereign, even when this sovereignty is bittersweet and makes no earthly sense.  

Here are some thoughts on what I believe Jamison would want from us this day:

• Jamison would not want us to question God’s goodness and his sovereignty. In the face of this suffering, he would remind us to trust in who God is even more. To draw near to God when we don’t understand why this is all happening. He would want us to turn to God in faith and trust especially when it’s difficult. He would encourage us to continue to praise God for who he is. 
• He would want this tragedy to somehow and some way further God’s kingdom. Jamison and Katheryne dedicated their lives to bringing God glory and to expanding his kingdom through reaching the lost. As they are now in God’s presence, that desire has surely only increased. They would want us to share the gospel knowing it is the only hope for a world full of tragedies. They would want someone else to pick up where they left off by bringing the good news to Japan.
• Finally, Jamison would remind us there is no balm and no healing for tragedies like this found in the world apart from the gospel. What comfort and what hope is there offered in secularism in the face of such an unthinkable tragedy? None. There is only trite sayings and an avoidance of the all-consuming nature of death. Yet in light of God’s sovereignty and the gospel of Jesus Christ, we may mourn, but we do not mourn without hope.  In the cross of Christ death has been overcome and a new creation is coming where there will no longer be such tragedies. The Pals family is with the sovereign Lord who they love and they are now at peace. There is hope alone in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Jamison, Katheryne, Ezra, Violet, and Calvin have entered that rest which is promised to God’s people. It is days like today that I long for that rest to come to this earth with a renewed vigor. Come Lord Jesus, quickly! The Lord truly does give and take away, but his name remains blessed.  God remains sovereign, and in the cross even this terrible tragedy is overcome by the blood of the Lamb. That is our anchor in times like these.

“Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,

Let this blest assurance control,

That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,

And hath shed His own blood for my soul

It is well, it is well with my soul”

Maranatha!

Levi Secord

The Tyranny of Feelings

Feelings are not inherently good or evil. They are not inherently true or incorrect. They can be any of those.  Sometimes Christians get a bad reputation for being against feeling anything. While that generalization is not accurate, it may appear that way to the world because Christians are not to become slaves to our feelings, or to the feelings of others.

In our relativistic culture, personal feelings have become the ultimate truth or reality. If someone feels a certain thing, then it is true to them and is to be encouraged, unchallenged,  and that is all that really matters. This is how our world operates. Christians rightly refuse to bend the knee to the cultural obsession with feelings. This  causes us to appear stoic to a world obsessed with feelings. 

Why is this important? Our culture has rejected absolute truth as the standard to live by. Despite our culture’s claim of not having an ultimate standard, it in fact does. When you remove one standard something has to fill the void. Since everything has become hyper-personalized and truth matters not, the feelings of individuals have supplanted truth. Feelings are absolute. They are not to be questioned. They must be accepted and listened to, even if they have no basis in reality or truth. The problem with the rise of feelings to prominence is that our feelings are a terrible taskmaster who rules with an iron fist.

Sadly, our culture is experiencing this tyranny everywhere we look. We have safe places on campuses where students are free from all “threatening ideas” so that they feel however they want. We see the feelings of an immoral and perverse culture played out in our national media, entertainment, and politics constantly. In no uncertain terms American culture is reaping what it has sowed when it bent the knee to personal feelings as the ultimate standard.

As I look out at this culture one other thing becomes painfully clear—all this emphasis on our feelings has left us not feeling very good at all. Feelings are not ultimate; they can be and often are wrong. If I feel that I can fly like superman that does not make it so. Christians are not to be driven by feelings alone, rather our feelings must be shaped by the truth.

The Problem of Inaccurate Feelings

In Christian ministry, whether preaching or counseling, I am constantly faced with helping people shape their feelings so that they align with the truth rather than allowing their feelings to tell them what is true. This is a monumental task in our current culture.

Just a few weeks ago a man came into my office convinced that the Holy Spirit had abandoned him. When I asked him how he knew this, he replied, “I Just know it. I can feel it.” I empathized with his predicament, but I did not stop there. I walked him through Scripture (truth) where it is rather clear that when you are “sealed” by the Holy Spirit that you are indeed sealed forever. No matter how much truth I gave the man from Scripture, he would not turn away from his incorrect feelings. For him, feelings were ultimate, not truth, and not Scripture.

This line of reasoning, the unquestionableness of feelings, is the false gospel of our culture.  To even suggest that someone's feelings can be incorrect is modern-day cultural blasphemy. How often does the phrase, “I feel like God wants me to be happy,” or something similar get thrown out as a trump card in modern evangelicalism? The problem is we have absorbed so much of our culture that we do not even recognize that we have allowed this false gospel impact the way we think, live, and feel.

One of the major problems I face in my own life is that I am tempted to feel something which is rooted in a lie. Sometimes my feelings are deceptive. My feelings are also constantly changing, God’s truth doesn’t. And if I embrace these deceptions then I am need of repentance because I have sinned. I do not have the right to feel whatever I want, however I want, whenever I want. To do this is idolatry at the altar of the self. There is no enlightenment or salvation found in how I feel. But Scripture reminds us that the truth will set us free.

This is important to remember, you do not have the right to feel however you want. Such thinking not only ignores the gospel but it is anti-gospel. This is a major battleground of growing in personal godliness. You will not grow to be more like Christ by chasing your feelings, but changing them to align with the truth of Scripture.

Our culture tells us to “follow our heart” to our own destruction. Our culture tells us we need “safe places” to feel whatever we want. Our culture tells us feelings are ultimate. But the gospel says repent. The gospel says your heart is treacherous. The gospel says the truth will set you free. The gospel says we are to renew our minds with the truth. The gospel says we are to put off the old self and to put on the new. We need more  gospel and less "safe places."

The Cancer Spreads to the Church

There has been discussion lately about the church being a safe place for people to feel without being confronted with arguments or truth. While we do not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, we must not adopt the attitude and reasoning of the world. Feelings are not inherently bad, but they must align themselves with the truth.  While it is true there is a time for silence and a time for weeping with those who weep, none of this should be done out of a respect for the unalienable right to feel whatever you want. That is not the gospel. We must not make arguments that appear to protect our culture's idolatry to feelings by labeling the church a "safe place to feel" without any consideration for the truth.

The church is not a safe place to feel whatever you want. While the church should be a place where you can express your feelings, but you should be doing so in order to examine your own heart. We are called to repentance and this includes repenting of incorrect feelings. God’s Word, the gospel, is sharper than any sword and it should cut us to the heart, including our feelings. This means the church is not a place where we can emote whatever we want while neglecting reality and the gospel.

When I bend the knee to my feelings alone this leads me to wandering away from God and toward sin. But when God’s truth shapes my feelings, then I draw near to him. If the church adopts a list of feelings from the world which are not able to be questioned, if we transform the church into a “safe place” where feelings reign supreme, then we forfeit the gospel. If we do this, then we are bending our knees to the false gods of this world instead of God of the universe.

The Irony of it All

This is where things get a little crazy. Our culture which rejects absolutes, which rejects morality, is constantly telling us how we should feel about the latest event or tragedy. They claim no absolutes exist and then when something happens which offends their (im)moral standard they demand that everyone feel as they do! If you do not feel as they do, then your feelings are incorrect and must change, otherwise you fall short of their (un)holy code. And so the feelings of the (un)holy majority take their place as dictator on the throne demanding that there be no challenge to its reign! Our cultural feelings will suffer no rival. So our culture which claims no absolute morality ironically has a very strict (im)moral code.

The problem is too often Christians line-up to show the world they can feel exactly the same things in pretty much the same way as the world does. If there is something which should cause us to not feel very good, it is the eagerness many Christians possess to appear righteous  according to the unrighteous standards of our society.

Christians must remember that feelings alone are a terrible tyrant which will never be satisfied. Feelings without the truth of the gospel will be controlled by our sinful desires. We must remember that we cannot serve two masters;  the truth is important and it must inform how we feel.

Christians are only to bend the knee to Lord of Lords and the King of Kings, Jesus Christ. And his call is for us to renew our minds, to repent of incorrect feelings, and to follow him no matter the cost. If we find our identity in Christ, and not the tribes of this world, our feelings will look a lot different than the abject tyranny our culture tries to pass off as freedom.

No, the church is not a safe place to feel whatever you want. It is not a place where feelings reign supreme. But the church is the only place to find true peace and true rest in the light of the truth of God’s gospel. In his kingdom feelings take their proper place and form. That truth is the foundation for how Christians should not only feel, but also how we think, act, live, and love.  

How Jesus Thinks About False Teaching

The letters to the churches in the book of Revelation are like tests, they tell us what a church should care about and what dangers a church must avoid. These seven lettersshows us how Jesus wants his churches to behave, what they are to value and what they are to reject. There is a lot we can learn by reading what Jesus rebukes churches for and what he praises them for doing.

In his message to the church of Ephesus (Rev. 2.1-7) Jesus warns the church because it has forgotten its first love. This is generally what we think of about the letter to Ephesus. Recently as I was preparing for fall Sunday School, I reread this portion and what jumped off the page was what Jesus praised the Church of Ephesus for doing. Jesus says in verse two, “I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false.” He then elaborates in verse six, “Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.”

Jesus praises the church of Ephesus for not tolerating false teachers and he praises them for hating the works of those false teachers. Why does Jesus praise them for hating false teaching? Part of the reason is that Jesus hates false teaching.

In our culture it is considered a virtue to be accepting,  this is even true in the evangelical church, so much so we are very accepting of aberrant and even false teaching. We accept false teaching but we often reject those who stand against false teaching. But Jesus in his letters to the other churches rebukes those churches who accept, tolerate, and endorse false teaching (2:14; 2:20). It is not a good thing to be indifferent to or accepting of false teaching.  How a church responds to false teaching, whether they accept it or reject it, is one of the major tests of its faithfulness. Why?

False teaching is not just being in error about any belief or doctrine. False teaching is a corrupting of the core of the Christian message, the gospel, how we are saved. If a corrupted message of salvation is believed, those who believe in it will face destruction. In other words, false teaching is not neutral, it brings harm to people who accept it. Therefore Jesus hates it and he calls his people to hate it as well.  

The danger does not stop there. If a church allows false teaching to go unchallenged it weakens the entire body of believers leading to spiritual decay and even spiritual death. False teaching is spiritual cancer and it only spread if the church does not oppose it.

If we desire to be faithful to Christ, we must examine what teaching we approve of, which teaching we tolerate, and which teaching we hate. If there is no teaching which you respond to with a firm hatred of its evil, then you need to reexamine what you believe. Far too often we accept,  invite and even promote false teaching in America today. We do this to our own harm, as well as the harm of others. Jesus hates false teaching, we must as well. The question becomes, “Do we?” This is one question Jesus asks his churches.  We must be prepare to answer it.