About this episode
Asking the wrong questions always yields wrong answers just as the trick question “Have you stopped beating your wife?” forces a false dilemma and incriminating replies. Today we still fall into such traps: “Is it heredity or environment that determines man?” Both sides evade the real issue by denying personal responsibility. Much of modern politics, education, and social debate is built on these misleading questions that obscure rather than solve the crisis. We are told to “fix” economic, racial, political, or environmental problems, yet failure only multiplies because the root problem is not a list of issues but man himself a sinner in rebellion against God. The only question that truly matters is the one the Philippian jailer asked Paul: “What must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30). Until we start there, every other question is a distraction or deception. Like God’s piercing word to Adam “Where art thou?” (Gen. 3:9) right questions compel us to face reality, confess sin, and turn to Christ. Only when our questions are rooted in faith, obedience, and the gospel will we find answers that heal instead of deepen the wound. #TrickQuestions #WhatMustIDoToBeSaved #TheRealProblem
Get every episode summarized
Each time CR101 Radio - Podcast Network publishes, we email you a written briefing from the transcript — the topics, who appeared, and any specific claims, with the ad reads skipped.
Email me new episodesFree for 3 shows. No card needed.
Transcript ready
43 searchable segments. Every word is indexed and playable.
Full transcript
CR101 Radio - Podcast Network — Trick Questions. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.
C-R101 Radio dot com. Podcast and more. 17. Trick questions. Ask the wrong questions and you always get the wrong answers. The old trick question, have you stopped beating your wife as a good example? A bad question deserves no answer because it raises false issues and requires incriminating answers. Another such bad question still very widely debated is heredity versus environment which determines man. There are scientists on both sides of the question and people feel duty-bound to choose sides, but for a Christian perspective both sides are false. Both sides effectively deny human responsibility and transfer accountability away from man. To be trapped into answering on either side is to be committed to falsehood.
Much of our politics today is tied up in such trick answers which are the result of wrong questions. These problems arise out of trick questions, questions which falsify the problem and thus magnify instead of solving the crisis. One of the worst of these tricks or devices which falsify life is the idea that at the heart of our difficulties there are some problems which need solving. Therefore we are told let us face these problems squarely whether they be economic, racial or political and then come up with the right answers. We have been trying to come up with the right answers for some time now with no success and one college president has expressed the fear that people are beginning to doubt that answers are possible. Well there are no good answers to bad questions. It's the questions which must be changed. We do have serious difficulties in the various areas of life, economic, racial, political,
educational, religious and other areas, but the essential problem is man. He's a sinner. He's a man who pollutes whatever he touches as long as he remains a sinner, as long as he refuses to ask the first question, what must I do to be saved? Acts 1630. This first question then must be followed by other right questions so that man can learn to obey and to serve in truth and understanding. And questions must be related to faith, obedience and action. They must be real questions essential to life, not games and puzzles which but clod issues. They must recall man to reality and they must not further his illusions like God's question to Adam. Where are though Genesis 39? They must compel us to face up to what we are and where we are because only good questions can have good answers.
More episodes
More from CR101 Radio - Podcast Network
Covert Theonomists
CR101 Radio - Podcast Network
Not by Bread Alone
CR101 Radio - Podcast Network
How to be a Failure - Part 3: Worry
CR101 Radio - Podcast Network
The Revival of Paganism in the Green Movement
CR101 Radio - Podcast Network