DEVOTIONS - MORE MATTHEW BLOG

Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words.

Jesus had made a direct attack on the leaders of the Jews and they knew that He was talking about them when He spoke in these parables, so they began to plot how they might have Jesus killed. They were used to using the laws of the church in order to accomplish their own evil plans and so they tried to trick Jesus into saying something that they could arrest Him for.

In this section they asked Jesus if it was right to pay taxes to Caesar? Some of the Jews said that to pay the tax to Caesar was to dishonor God. The Jews felt that to pay a tax was to admit that the Caesar had control over them and they did not want to be slaves to anyone except God. Jesus knew that they expected him to say that it was not right to pay the tax, but then they could turn him over to the Romans and tell them that he was a rebel. At the same time if Jesus said that they should pay the tax to Caesar then they could go to the Jews and tell them that Jesus was not being true to the Jewish nation, and he was not giving God all the honor that He was due.

Jesus’ answer is very crafty and He carefully gets himself around the problem. The rule was that you could not pay your temple tax, the tax that the Jews levied for the work of God, with any coin except the Jewish coin. You were not allowed to pay the Roman tax with any coin except the Roman coin. So Jesus says that we live under two rulers, the earthly ruler, who we owe an earthly tax, and we live under God and we owe Him a Heavenly coin. Jesus is saying here that to simply pay money to the temple is not what God wants, He wants us to give him our whole life. Caesar is content if we give him our money.

The Pharisees could not really find fault with this answer, since Jesus was still saying to honor God and yet he said that Caesar also was due his coin. They went away sad.

In your life what belongs to God? To Caesar?

How are you giving to each?