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Secondary: Current Assemblies

TRUE OR FALSE?

By Stuart Kerner

Suitable for Key Stage 3

Aim

To consider how Jesus dealt with those who sought to catch him out.

Preparation and materials

You will need at least two volunteers with pens and paper to answer the true or false questions. You might also like to have some small rewards ready.

Assembly

Begin by asking students what kinds of tests they might be given in school. Suggestions might include essays, oral exams, multiple choice, and (hopefully) true or false questions. Mention that some tests are harder than others, but given the choice you would rather do true or false questions because they’re the easiest. At least you think they are!
To test your theory, ask for at least two volunteers to answer some true or false questions. Give them pen and paper and put the following five questions to them (you may like to substitute your own questions, but ensure they contain an element of trickery).

(a) King George VI’s name was George – True or False?
(b) The Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean are named after birds – True or False?
(c) There are twice as many sheep as people in Australia – True or False?
(d) The Hundred Years War lasted for 100 years – True or False?
(e) Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony was written by Mozart – True or False?
Give the answers as follows:

(a) False – it was actually Albert.
(b) False – the Spanish Canarias comes from the Latin word meaning ‘of the dogs’.
(c) False – there are an estimated ten times as many!
(d) False – it lasted 116 years.
(e) False – it was written by Beethoven.
Hopefully your contestants will not have achieved 100 per cent, so you can observe that perhaps true or false answers are not as simple as all that – especially when most of them are trick questions!

Give your volunteers a little prize and send them back to their seats with a round of applause.
Say that trick questions are nothing new. We read in the Gospels that Jesus was often the victim of people trying to catch him out by asking ‘loaded’ questions.

The Pharisees and Sadducees were two groups of Jews that virtually ran all religion in Israel in Jesus’ time. The Sadducees were priests who kept power by working with the Roman government. The Pharisees were a radical group that were very popular with the poor for their great shows of piety. Both groups were jealous of and threatened by the popularity of Jesus and his claim to be the promised Messiah.

In order to get Jesus in trouble, the Pharisees and Sadducees would ask Jesus trick questions. They thought that no matter what Jesus answered, he would get into trouble with either the people or the government. Jesus knew that they did not really want a true answer, but he did not refuse to answer their questions. Instead he was able to answer their questions in a way that no one could disprove.
In Matthew chapter 22, the Pharisees ask Jesus whether the Jews should support the Roman government with taxes.

The Trick: If Jesus said that they should, the people would be angry, for they hated Roman rule and expected their Messiah to defeat Rome. If Jesus said that they shouldn't, the Pharisees could turn him in to the Romans for inciting rebellion.

The Answer Jesus gave was: Give to the emperor what is [already] his, and give to God what is [already] his. Jesus described a difference between what was God's and what was mankind's. God wanted the heart of his people, which they would not give. The emperor wanted tribute, which they resented. Jesus said that there was no conflict. Besides, it is all God's to begin with anyway.
When the Pharisees failed, the Sadducees thought that they could trap Jesus with a question. If a woman is married several times in her lifetime (as God had forbidden), which of her husbands will she be wife to in heaven?

The Trick: They thought this question proved that there was no life after death. They were attempting to make Jesus look uneducated.

The Answer Jesus gave was: Life after death is not like life here – there is no marriage. If they had correctly understood the scriptures they would have known this, because in the Old Testament God says that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, not was their God. They had limited God's power to raise the dead, and they had ignored scripture when it did not fit their opinions.
On both these occasions and several others Jesus gave answers that showed his message went beyond the understanding of those with closed minds and closed hearts. No trick question could catch out the Son of God, from whom all wisdom ultimately came.

So successful was Jesus at answering these loaded questions that Matthew’s Gospel concludes the scene by saying: ‘No one was able to answer him a word, neither did any man dare ask him any more questions from that day forth’ (Matthew 22.46).
But for Christians, what is the real question being asked here? Sometimes, when we talk to others about Jesus, the questions they ask us aren't really the questions they want answers to. There is an important difference between a sincere question about our faith or Jesus' teachings, and a hypothetical question designed to create controversy or deny ideas. We must be careful to avoid trying to ‘win’ a discussion rather than ‘winning’ souls.

At the end of the day, only God’s way is true and everything else is false!