{"id":10729,"date":"2023-06-21T00:00:02","date_gmt":"2023-06-20T14:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/?p=10729"},"modified":"2023-06-22T01:34:10","modified_gmt":"2023-06-21T15:34:10","slug":"pay-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/2023\/06\/21\/pay-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Pay Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark 12:13-17 13<\/sup>And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to trap him by a word. 14<\/sup>And after coming, they said to him, \u201cTeacher, we know that you are truthful and not concerned about anyone. For you do not see a people’s appearance, but you teach the way of God with truth. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Should we pay or should we not pay?\u201d 15<\/sup>But, knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, \u201cWhy put me to the test? Bring me a denarius in order that I may see it.\u201d 16<\/sup>And they brought it. And he said to them, \u201cWhose image and inscription is this?\u201d They said to him, \u201cCaesar\u2019s.\u201d 17<\/sup>Jesus said to them, \u201cPay to Caesar the things that are Caesar\u2019s, and to God the things that are God\u2019s.\u201d And they were utterly amazed at him.<\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Sanhedrin (they<\/em>) got serious about arguing with Jesus and sent representatives of the conservatives (Pharisees) and politicians (Herodians) to trap Jesus so they could condemn him. The Pharisees attempted to follow the law strictly, and the Herodians were supporters of the Herodian dynasty (see 3:6). What brought the two groups together was their common enemy of Jesus. There is no time indicator in the story, which suggests that this episode was not long after the previous confrontation.<\/p>\n

The first thing they do is praise Jesus with a flattery statement with four related parts in an ABB’A’ chiasm focusing on his teaching and character. The first statement about his being truthful<\/em> basically says that he had integrity. There was no hypocrisy or trickery in what he said or did.\u00a0They knew they could not condemn him based on what he taught because he spoke the truth. He had Scripture to back up his claims, and his argumentation was logical. They were smart enough to recognize his authoritative teaching. Second, they could not condemn him because his integrity was demonstrated by not being swayed by public opinions, not like what happens to almost all public figures. The third statement repeats the second, and the fourth repeats the first.<\/p>\n

The question is about paying taxes put Jesus in a dilemma. If Jesus said\u00a0no<\/em> to paying taxes, the Jews could get him in trouble with the Romans. If he said\u00a0yes<\/em> to paying taxes, the Jews would not like him because they abhorred the heavy taxation yoke the Romans put on them. Since they were in Jerusalem, the issue was even more critical because it was both the religious and political seat of power.<\/p>\n

Jesus saw right through their hypocrisy and knew they were trying to trick him. His response was ingenious. A denarius was the amount of poll tax everyone had to pay. It appears that he did not even have a coin for himself, or at least he wanted to involve them in finding the answer to their question. Coinage in the ancient world showed the power of the ruler, the extent of the ruler\u2019s power, and was considered the ruler’s personal property.<\/p>\n

Jesus’ two-part response makes sense in most situations. First, there is a legitimate purpose for government. Paying taxes may have seemed unfair and heavy, but the Romans brought prosperity and peace to much of the Mediterranean region. Paying taxes prospers the whole nation and provides many benefits to the whole. What bothers many people is when the funds are used in unethical or ungodly ways or are wasted in unnecessary spending. Jesus’ statement does not focus on the squandering or misuse of funds by rulers but on the duty of citizens to do as the law says.<\/p>\n

Likewise, giving to God acknowledges his sovereignty overall, even governments. Verse 17 could be used to support the idea of tithing, but that is not the purpose of this response. The simple idea is that God has ultimate authority. The coins contained the image of Caesar, and people are “coined” in the image of God. To each must be given his due. Caesar gets his tax and God gets his people in full dedication. The Pharisees and Herodians could not find anything to say to this simple logic and were amazed again at the authoritative teaching of Jesus.<\/p>\n

No one enjoys paying taxes, and sadly few Christians enjoy giving to the Lord’s work. We are tempted to be like these Jewish leaders who were full of hypocrisy and deceit. Some people try to deceive the government by finding loopholes in their taxes, and others fall short in their giving of tithes and offerings. They think that all their money should be theirs to spend as they want, but they forget that all we have is from God and that God has set up governments for the good of people.<\/p>\n

For older posts, click\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark 12:13-17 13And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to trap him by a word. 14And after coming, they said to him, \u201cTeacher, we know that you are truthful and not concerned about anyone. For you do not see a people’s appearance, but you teach the way of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotions","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10729"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10748,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10729\/revisions\/10748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}