Luke describes times in Jesus’s life when people wanted him to speak on a given topic and he refused. Jesus wouldn’t have the conversation they wanted him to have. There is wisdom here for followers of Jesus, wisdom that is relevant to daily life and work: You don’t have to engage in every conversation that people invite you into. Sometimes people explicitly ask you to comment on a topic, like the religious leaders do with Jesus in the story below. Other times they subtly, implicitly prompt you to speak on a topic. There are times—perhaps more than we usually think—when the wise thing to do is either stay quiet or decline to comment.

I’m Not Telling You

In Luke 20:1–7, “the scribes along with the elders” explicitly asked Jesus to give an answer to this question: “By what authority do you do these things?” (Luke 20:2). Jesus had just thrown out of the temple people who were selling things there, and the leaders of the people and the scribes want to know why Jesus thinks he has a right to do this. Based on the context, which we’ll get into below, they aren’t asking sincerely. Through their question they are saying, “You don’t have the right to do these things.” You might think that this would be an ideal time for Jesus to teach about his divine sonship or his authority as the Messiah, but he doesn’t. He won’t answer the question. Why?

Why Won’t He Answer

Both before and after Luke 20:1–7, Luke tells us that the religious leaders are trying to trap Jesus in his words. In Luke 19:47 and in 20:20, the chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to kill Jesus, looking for a way to “catch him in something he might say.” Jesus knew they were being deceitful (Luke 20:23), and his refusal to talk about everything they wanted him to talk about was a part of the way he frustrated their plots against him (Luke 20:26). So the surrounding context makes clear why Jesus won’t answer the question—“By what authority do you do these things?”—in Luke 20:2. The people are not asking sincerely. They want to use his words as a fodder to mock and accuse him.

Delusion

There’s more to Luke’s portrait of Jesus’s enemies here. Jesus and those who question him do not view the world in the same way. Jesus tells a story that makes this clear. In Luke 20:9–19, Jesus tells a story about a man who planted a vineyard and hired people to take care of the vineyard. When the man sent servants to collect the fruit of the vineyard, the people hired to care for the vineyard beat the servants. The same process plays out multiple times, until the man sends his beloved son. “Surely they will listen to my son,” the man thinks, but here is where we see their delusion.

When the people hired to take care of the vineyard saw him, they thought to themselves, “This is the heir. Let’s kill him so that the inheritance will be ours.” (Luke 20:14)

In no way does this plan make sense, and everyone in the context surely recognizes it doesn’t make sense. How could killing the man’s beloved son help them keep what belongs to the man? It doesn’t make sense, and that’s the whole point of the story. They are delusional, ready to plot and kill to keep what isn’t theirs. They view the world in a way that doesn’t make sense.

There’s another side to the delusion-coin. Their way in the world is out of touch with reality, but they also look at Jesus and think his way in the world is out of touch with reality, too.¹ You see this when Sadducees come to Jesus with a “theological dilemma,” one that they consider to be a “zinger.” They think the resurrection is absurd, and so they hit Jesus with a story about a woman who dies and has multiple husbands. “Whose wife will she be in the resurrection?” Their point is that Jesus’s view of the world is absurd.

Conclusion

The context makes clear that Jesus and his opponents don’t view the world in the same way. Jesus’s opponents want him to talk so that they can use his words against him. You might think Jesus would take these opportunities to reframe and shape his opponent’s worldview. After all, by all appearances these people and Jesus are on the same team — they are religious leaders and respected people in the community.

At times, Jesus does dialogue with them. He doesn’t always talk about exactly what they want him to, but he does respond. He exposes their delusion through subversive stories, and he asks questions that get to the heart of the matter. But that’s not all he does.

He also refuses to respond: “I’m not telling you by what authority I do these things” (Luke 20:8). We don’t always have to play the socratic card. We can follow Jesus here, too. At times, we can refuse to participate in the conversation. We can embrace the awkward stares and just keep quiet.

1. Granted, I’m lumping together all Jesus’s interlocutors into one category: Jesus vs. those questioning and opposing him — scribes, Pharisees, elders, Sadducees, et al. I think that’s fair based on the context described above. ↩