False Assumptions
Some of the Sadducees, a religious group that denied there was a resurrection of the dead, came to ask Jesus this question: “Teacher, the law of Moses teaches that if a man dies before he has children, his brother should marry the widow and raise up children for his brother’s family line. Now, there was a family with seven brothers. The oldest got married but soon died, leaving his widow for his brother. The second brother married and also died, and the third also. This was repeated down to the seventh brother, when finally the woman also died. So here’s our dilemma: Which of the seven brothers will be the woman’s husband when she’s resurrected from the dead, since they all were once married to her?”
Jesus answered them, “You are deluded, because your hearts are not filled with the revelation of the Scriptures or the power of God. For after the resurrection, men and women will not marry, just like the angels of heaven don’t marry. Matt 22:23-30
This is such a good example of how man’s abstract hypothesis and questions can be based on false assumptions. Let me explain. The Sadducee’s based their question on the topic of resurrection around the assumption that there would be marriage in heaven. Based on this assumption, their question makes sense… who would the woman be married to? But Jesus did not answer their question, he corrected their assumption upon which the question gained it’s legitimacy. He said there was no marriage in heaven. With this knowledge of reality, the question now falls apart. It does not make sense. Your see, the Sadducees had based their question on false assumptions or “abstract thinking” not true assumptions or “reality”. This holds true in science where hypotheses’ are based on an assumption – ‘if’, which then leads one in a certain direction for a conclusion -‘then’. For a scientific experiment to be valid, one must be very convinced that the assumption is correct. Unfortunately, the pseudo-science of our day does not care.
How true this is about much of our present society’s issues. The media draws it’s conclusion on faulty assumptions or “truths”. The conclusions drawn are only half truths or false all together. When you listen to a moderator in the news channels, watch to see if the moderator does most of the talking or the interviewee. If it is the moderator, he/she is building up their case using self-perceived truths, just as the Sadducees did with Jesus. Soon, the question is posed expecting a one or two word response based on the “abstract” assumptions. The wise interviewee does not answer their question directly but provides context around the question to reveal the truth. Based on this observation, if I find the interviewer (moderator) is doing more talking than the interviewee, I do not listen. It seems that most BBC interviewers ask a short question and let the interviewee do most of the talking whereas CBC and CNN interviewers do a lot of talking to “set the stage” for the question and the interviewee either answers quickly or evades the question. It’s just like Jesus. He did not answer the Sadducee’s question but addressed their false assumption regarding marriage in heaven.
Another example comes from the recent demonstrations resulting from the US Supreme Courts decision on Roe v Wade. One sign I saw read, “Abortion saves lives”. I would love to hear Jesus’ response to this one. I know the context is that women’s lives can be at stake when pregnant but that is not what the sign says. My response is, “Do we have to kill thousands of unborn babies to save one woman’s life?” The false assumption is that unborn babies are of no value if the mother does not value them. If unborn babies are of great value, then we, like Putin killing lives to save one life – his. If unborn babies are of little value, then we are setting up a society of discrimination which says some lives are more valuable than others. Now, I realize I have touched a very sensitive subject here and I know when you look at it on an individual to individual basis, there are concerns of having to decide between one or the other, but those cases are very rare if we value unborn babies equally or more than ourselves (father or mother).
Our societal assumptions have gotten us into quite a mess. The result is people are caught in the middle having made decisions based upon false assumptions. This is where grace comes in. We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Or, We have all made decisions based on false assumptions (missed the mark) with the result being, we have fallen short of the integrity and majesty God wants us reflect. We need mercy and grace. Thank God we have it through Jesus our Lord.