Paying Taxes and Tribute

Matthew 22:15-22

The Pharisees: Is It Lawful to Pay Taxes to Caesar?

15 Then the Pharisees went and plotted how they might entangle Him in His talk. 16 And they sent to Him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, "Teacher, we know that You are true, and teach the way of God in truth; nor do You care about anyone, for You do not regard the person of men. 17 Tell us, therefore, what do You think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?"

18 But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, "Why do you test Me, you hypocrites? 19 Show Me the tax money."

So they brought Him a denarius.

20 And He said to them, "Whose image and inscription is this?"

21 They said to Him, "Caesar's."

And He said to them, "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." 22 When they had heard these words, they marveled, and left Him and went their way.

The religious Pharisees were out to stop Jesus by discrediting His words so that the people would continue to listen to them instead.  In their human capacity for cunning they tried to trip Him up by asking if it was lawful from a scriptural standpoint to pay taxes to the government of the occupying forces of Rome.  They despised the government and wanted Him to denounce supporting those in charge.  First they cunningly complimented Jesus for being true and teaching that truth of God’s way, then they slipped in the subtle lie that He did not regard anything from anyone while yet truthfully admitting He showed no partiality at the same time.  This is the same vector of attack used by the enemy in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:1, 4-5) to mix truth with a misleading direction leading to make someone sin.  Their attack led to trying to get Jesus to condemn supporting the legal government set over them which they did not accept or like instead of submitting (Romans 13:1-2, 6-7, 1 Peter 2:13-14, 17) and honoring by paying taxes among other things.  Jesus of course knew the thoughts and intent of their hearts (Hebrews 4:12) as the living Word of God who is our standard to live by as it is written in the scriptures.  He therefore turned their corrupt motives back on their reasoning by a clear demonstration of the right for the authority to collect taxes.  He asked them who owned the money by letting them see whose image was on it and who struck the coinage of the realm.  It was the government.  Jesus pointed them to give what was the government’s and to more importantly give God what was due to Him in obedience to His word, disarming their treason against heaven and putting into perspective the world’s due as lesser but necessary.  The simple truth of this perspective left them dumbfounded and stopped the attempt to argue with the word of God.  Likewise today we are obligated to obey the authorities put over us by God and be about our Father’s business instead of wrangling in the political arena to enact change which is fitting to our priorities over those of the Lord acc to the scriptures.  We really do need to still render to the Caesars of our nations what is theirs and not assume because we live in a democracy that we are granted a different set of rules to prioritize that over God’s rule of them and us.  As Romans 13:7 says, “Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.”  May we then render what is due to God in all things, taxes to the owners of those set over us and the tribute of devotion to God in Christ in willing and humble obedience according to the word of God.