Shema Israel - Mark 12:28-34 - November 29, 2020

These are the Sermon Notes for November 29, 2020. We are meeting at the church with limited seating and specific procedures and protocols that need to be followed. Read our Covid-19 plan here. You can still watch our livestream service every Sunday at 9:37 am on our facebook page or watch the livestream recordings any time.

 Mark 12:28-34 Shema Israel

Good morning! I hope you all had a happy thanksgiving!

We are returning in our study to the Gospel of Mark with chapter 12, verses 28-34, page 848 in the pew Bibles. 

I have to admit, every time I look at the Scripture in preparation for that Sunday’s service the topic that is discussed in that section pops up on a mental scale in my mind of easy to hard for preaching. As if to say, “this topic will be easy and fun to deal with,” or, “Oh no, what am I supposed to do with this.” That’s the scale, “oh good,” to, “Oh no…”

Just so you are aware, I am wrong every time.

When I looked at this text for today I thought, this one will be fun, love God, love your neighbor, let’s talk about how we can do that! Sounds great!

The trouble with that is, that I don’t think that is the author’s original intent, that is not why this passage was included in the Gospel of Mark. 

Well let’s look at it and you’ll hopefully see what I mean.

28 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” 32 And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. 33 And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 34 And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions.

Let’s pray.

So this scene is a little different from the ones that we have examined over the last few weeks. Jesus has been questioned over and over by Jewish leaders seeking to trap Him in His talk, to try and expose fraud, or fanaticism, to try and get the people or the authorities to turn against Him. But every time, He answers in such a way that has only exposed their faithlessness and hypocrisy.

This time, however, it is a little different. This time Jesus is questioned by a man that actually seems sincere, he actually wanted to know Jesus’ opinion on which commandment was the most important.

29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

So my first thought in approaching this account was: love God, love your neighbor. Let’s start with a more accurate definition of love than just feelings of affection, and let’s look at how we apply that with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and exercise that same love towards our fellow man.

I’m sure that would make a fine sermon.

Jesus quotes what is called “the Shema,” a Hebrew word that means, “hear,” from Deuteronomy 6:4-9:

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

And also from Leviticus 19:18,

18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

Robert Jamieson wrote, “God will have all these qualities in their most perfect exercise. ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,’ says the Law, ‘with all thy heart,’ or, with perfect sincerity; ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul,’ or, with the utmost fervor; ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy mind,’ or, in the fullest exercise of an enlightened reason; and ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy strength,’ or, with the whole energy of our being!”

And John Calvin wrote,  “And although we ought to love God far more than men, yet most properly does God, instead of worship or honor, require love from us, because in this way he declares that no other worship is pleasing to Him than what is voluntary; for no man will actually obey God but he who loves Him. But as the wicked and sinful inclinations of the flesh draw us aside from what is right, Moses shows that our life will not be regulated aright till the love of God fill all our senses. Let us therefore learn, that the commencement of godliness is the love of God, because God disdains the forced services of men, and chooses to be worshipped freely and willingly; and let us also learn, that under the love of God is included the reverence due to him.” 

A fine sermon indeed!

But if that was Jesus intention, then the second half our text makes no sense.

32 And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. 33 And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 34 And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions.

You are not far from the kingdom of God.

Do you know where, “not far from the kingdom of God” is? It’s outside the kingdom of God. 

Was Jesus right? Is loving the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, the most important commandment, and the second like it, to love you neighbor as you love yourself? Yes, of course.

What does this commandment have in common with all the other commandments?

They are a summary of the two tables of the Law, they summarize the Ten Commandments.

You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make an idol to bow down to. You shall not take the Name of the Lord in vain. You shall keep the Sabbath holy.

All of these are summarized by Jesus’ statement from Deuteronomy, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”

Honor your father and mother. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not lie. You shall not covet.

All of these are summarized by Jesus statement from Leviticus, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

The Jews saw the Ten Commandments as instructive, as rules for living. They had 613 rules for living in the Old Testament, 365 prohibitions, and 248 commandments. They saw the way to honor God was to follow the rules. 

That is what religion is all about, following the rules to show God how much you love Him and are worthy of His love.

The Jews were hardly the last to think this way. This has been the way of the church as well. Following the rules to show God how much we love Him and that we are worthy of His love.

Is that the purpose of the Law? Is that the purpose of the greatest commandment? To show us how we should live?

No.

Alistair Begg said, “Unless our religion shows us our need of God, our religion will actually keep us from God.”

This Scribe agreed with Jesus’ words, he agreed with God’s desire for obedience rather than sacrifice but yet, Jesus said He was not far but not in the kingdom of God.

He was near but not in because he didn’t see that obeying this great commandment was impossible. Can we truly love God with all, all, all, all? All our thoughts, and feelings, and desires, and purposes, and actions?

No.

This commandment does what all the others do: it reveals our sinfulness and our need of a Savior. It reveals that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

This sincere, religious, well meaning Scribe was near the kingdom but not in the kingdom because he didn’t recognize his need for God’s grace, he didn’t hear Jesus’ words from all the way back in chapter 1, “The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

Repent, turn away from your own efforts to show God that you love Him and are worthy of His love, turn away from your own self-righteousness, or even your selfish indifference towards God.

Believe in the gospel. 

The Good News, that though God commands you to love Him with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, you can’t, and you don’t, no matter how hard you try, that though God commands you to love your neighbor as yourself, you can’t, and you don’t, know matter how hard you try. 

Believe the Good News that God sent His only Son, who loves God perfectly, who loves His neighbor perfectly, to take the penalty for our failure, for our sin and sinfulness, upon Himself on the cross. 

He willingly shed His blood so that we, through faith in Him, would be forgiven, would be adopted by Father God, and would be welcomed into His eternal kingdom as His children.

So ask yourself, are you like the Scribe, near the kingdom of God, but dependent on your own efforts and understanding to get you in?

Or are you in the kingdom of God, adopted as a child of God by trusting in His grace through faith in Jesus Christ?

It’s not too late!

We can love because he loved us first!

Let’s pray.

The Christmas We Didn't Expect - Our Advent Devotional for 2020

Here is Pastor John Piper with an introduction to our Advent devotional for this year. Please join us as we prepare our hearts for celebrating our Savior’s birth! Pastor Heath will be creating another Facebook group for everybody who would like to join in and share their thoughts and questions with the group. There is a link to purchase the book in the original post or you can order it on Amazon.

 

Resurrection Hope - Mark 12:18-27 - November 22, 2020

These are the Sermon Notes for November 22, 2020. We are meeting at the church with limited seating and specific procedures and protocols that need to be followed. Read our Covid-19 plan here. You can still watch our livestream service every Sunday at 9:37 am on our facebook page or watch the livestream recordings any time.

 Mark 12:18-27 Resurrection Hope

Good morning! Have you ever hear the expression that a person is so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good? Have you ever met anybody like that? I haven’t.

CS Lewis said just the opposite; that the reason that people are so ineffective in this world is precisely because they think so little of the next world.

To be effective in this world is to be about the business of inviting people to join us in the next.

It’s the question of this next world that our text from the Gospel of Mark is all about this morning. 

Let’s look at Mark 12:18-27, page 848 in the pew Bibles.

You may remember from last week that Jesus had been confronted by the Pharisees and the Herodians. This week He is confronted by yet another group called the Sadducees. This account is Mark’s only mention of this group by name. Let’s read the text together.

18 And Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection. And they asked him a question, saying, 19 “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 20 There were seven brothers; the first took a wife, and when he died left no offspring. 21 And the second took her, and died, leaving no offspring. And the third likewise. 22 And the seven left no offspring. Last of all the woman also died. 23 In the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife.” 

24 Jesus said to them, “Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God? 25 For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 26 And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? 27 He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong.”

Let’s pray.

So the Sadducees came to Him, who say there is no resurrection. Acts 23:8 says that the Sadducees didn’t believe in the resurrection, nor angels, nor spirit. This wasn’t a secret, it was well known that this group of religious aristocrats believed this way, that they rejected anything that wasn’t expressly mentioned in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, the books of Moses.

So when they asked Jesus a question about the resurrection, it was no secret that they were trying to trap Him in His talk just like the Pharisees and Herodians tried to do in our text from last week.

Now, before we get to their question for Jesus, I want to examine the reality of the teaching of the Sadducees. Their unofficial position was that they rejected any of the other writings in what we call the Old Testament as the Word of God. Psalms, Proverbs, the Prophets, they rejected them all. They took away any expectation of future life. Reward for the godly and punishment for the wicked were limited only to this life and that was it.

Good people get good things, bad people get bad things. That’s it. This is clearly proven false by both the Scripture and history, it’s ridiculous. However, it’s no more ridiculous than the false idea that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell. (Or at least people we don’t like go to hell.)

They are both wrong.

Paul wrote about some people who were coming from this school of thought and denied the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:12-19:

12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

I share that just so you can have a little context when thinking about the reality of denying the resurrection of the dead.

So here come the Sadducees, notorious resurrection deniers, to question Jesus. 

In their deception they quote Deuteronomy 25:5-7. The heading reads “Laws concerning Levirate Marriage,” levirate is a Latin word that means brother-in-law. 

5 “If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. 6 And the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.

So based on that, they ask Jesus about this fantastic hypothetical lady. 

19 “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 20 There were seven brothers; the first took a wife, and when he died left no offspring. 21 And the second took her, and died, leaving no offspring. And the third likewise. 22 And the seven left no offspring. Last of all the woman also died. 23 In the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife.” 

Ladies, I’m sure you can attest that this lady’s cause of death was exhaustion, and perhaps her resurrection would be one of punishment having to deal with all seven husbands for eternity!

But that wasn’t Jesus’ response.

What do you think that they were hoping for from Jesus? That He would deny the resurrection, or that He wouldn’t be able to come up with an answer at all? They thought they had the perfect hypothetical to expose Him as a fraud.

Boy, were they wrong!

Jesus responds in a marvelously politically-incorrect way: you’re wrong, and here’s why… 

24 Jesus said to them, “Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?

You neither know the Scriptures nor the power of God.

Now remember, in those days, nobody carried around a Bible, there wasn’t an app for that yet. The Bible that they had at that time was huge scrolls that were kept in the synagogues and the Temple, they actually had to memorize the Scriptures because they couldn’t just look it up real quick whenever they wanted to. (A practice that I highly recommend.)

They knew the Scriptures, but they didn’t know the Scriptures. They had them memorized but they didn’t truly comprehend their meaning, and they did understand God’s power to do more than they had experienced. Their unbelief came from a lack of historical faith from understanding the Scriptures and a lack of personal faith that came from experiencing the power of God in their own lives.

And though they came at Jesus with this ridiculous hypothetical, their question really had to do with whether or not there really would be a resurrection from the dead. In their school of thought they were guilty of at least two errors: one, they denied any kind of spiritual realm by denying the resurrection along with angels and demons, and two, they defined eternity by their present understanding.

People today are often guilty of both of these errors, by living as if there will be no final judgment, that faith in Christ doesn’t matter because, if there really is a heaven, all the good people will go there, and if there is a hell, I’ll be too busy shaking hands with all my friends there to care. 

Every time I hear someone say that our loved ones are up in heaven looking down on us that conjures more thoughts about what hell would be like than heaven.

But eternity will not be defined by our understanding and our present experience.

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:6, quoting Isaiah, “No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him.”

So when Jesus says, 25 For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. That shouldn’t be a bummer to us, that somehow I won’t know my wife or you won’t know your husband, our personhood and personality won’t be removed, but things will be far beyond anything we could ever conceive of, far better than we could ever imagine!

Those who believe will not become angels, another popular error, but we will be like the angels, deathless, free from sin and the corruption of the flesh that comes with it. We will be totally centered around fellowship with God. 

God will establish a whole new order of life after death and will resolve any difficulties with that that we might perceive from our limited perspective now.

The Sadducees questioned Jesus with a quote from the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses, and so Jesus responds to their question with a quote from the same source.

26 And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? 27 He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong.”

The Bible Knowledge Commentary says, “[God] is still the Patriarch’s God which would not be true had they ceased to exist at death, that is, if death ends it all. And His covenant faithfulness implicitly guarantees their bodily resurrection.”

The souls of believers that have died, including the Old Testament saints who were looking forward to the coming of Christ, still exist separate from their bodies, and those souls will, at some future time, like us, be united with a new glorified body, like Jesus has, at the resurrection when He returns.

Warren Wiersbe wrote, “The resurrection is not the restoration of life as we know it; it is the entrance into a new life that is different.”

20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. Philippians 3:20-21

Amen.

Baptism Romans 6:3-11

3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 

5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Covid Update - NH Mask Mandate

 Good evening CrossRoads Family,

As of tomorrow the state of New Hampshire will have a statewide mask mandate. This means that we must all wear masks in public places along with social distancing. It's no coincidence that we have been talking about submission to earthly authorities over the last few Sundays. For the duration of the mask mandate, in submission to the authorities put in place by the Father, the Elders of CrossRoads church will require the wearing of masks for everyone five years old and older visiting the church property. This is what we need to do in order to continue to meet in person as a church family. These are indeed trying times but God is still on the throne and this will pass.

We love you all and pray for your good health,

Heath

Submitting to One Honors the Other - Mark 12:13-17 - November 15, 2020

These are the Sermon Notes for November 15, 2020. We are meeting at the church with limited seating and specific procedures and protocols that need to be followed. Read our Returning to Worship plan here. You can still watch our livestream service every Sunday at 9:37 am on our facebook page or watch the livestream recordings any time.

 Mark 12:13-17 Submitting to One Honors the Other

Good morning! We are returning to our study in the Gospel of mark with chapter 12, verses 13-17, page 848 in the pew Bibles, and what a timely passage it is!

You’ll remember from last week Jesus was teaching in the Temple when He was confronted by the Sanhedrin, the rulers of the Jewish people. They questioned where he got His authority from but they got no answer, He told the parable of the tenants against them as they were proving that they were falling in line with all those Jewish rulers who had murdered the prophets, and were looking to do it again. And now we see that they were at it again, this time sending a smaller delegation to question Jesus.

So let’s look at our text together.

13 And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to trap him in his talk. 14 And they came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?” 15 But, knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why put me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” 16 And they brought one. And he said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said to him, “Caesar’s.” 17 Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they marveled at him.

Let’s pray.

So as we often do, let’s start our study by examining the players on the stage.

First, there’s Jesus. Perhaps you’ve heard of Him.

Second, there is a group of Pharisees and Herodians sent to trap Him in His talk. The fact that this delegation was made up of people from these two groups is very significant. These two groups were not normally allies, they hated each other!

The Pharisees were, in large part, the religious leaders of the Jewish people. They were, at least on the surface, loyal to God’s Law, and the traditions passed down from their forefathers. These guys were notoriously opposed to the Roman yoke, opposed to Rome ruling over Israel.

The Herodians, on the other hand, were Jews who were loyal to Herod, hence the name. This was a political party, whose allegiance was to Roman rule that only pretended to be righteous in the sight of the people.

So this group that was sent to Jesus to trap Him in His words was a kind of unholy alliance. The Pharisees and Herodians hated each other, but they joined forces here because they hated Jesus more. If this doesn’t sound like politics at work, I don’t know what does…

So here we have our slimy little group, now let’s examine their slimy little approach to Jesus.

How else do you approach someone you are trying to trap so you can kill them? Just like you would trap a mouse, you offer them something you think they will want. In this case, instead of cheese, it’s flattery. After all, who doesn’t like to be told they are awesome?

Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God.

Were they right? Of course they were. Jesus, the ultimate Teacher, is true, He taught the truth, He was not swayed by anyone’s opinion of Him, He didn’t change His teaching based on the whims of men, like any good politician will do, He wasn’t swayed by appearances, but truly taught the way of God.

All this was true… Don’t fall for the bait! Their motivation was what made their speech evil. Feeding cheese to mice is nice if you care about the well-being of the mice, it’s not so nice if you’re using it to lure them into a trap.

So here is the trap: “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?”

This is a simple yes or no question, right? Should we pay the Roman tax or not?

The tax that they were asking about was based on the Roman census, the annual poll tax, which every man counted in the census as a citizen in Israel had to pay since Israel became a Roman province in 6 AD. 

The Jews resented this tax, not like everybody doesn’t resent paying taxes, but this one they hated in particular because it really represented Israel’s subjugation to Rome. It was an annual reminder that they were not their own nation and they hated that.

So this question was a little pointier than just a question of paying any old tax. But what would Jesus’ answer mean?

If Jesus simply said, “yes, pay the tax.” The Pharisees would turn the people against Him for being loyal to Rome, they would make Him out to be a traitor to Israel.

If Jesus simply said, “no, don’t pay the tax.” The Herodians would turn Him in to the governor as a traitor to Rome, they would charge Him with sedition, rebellion against the Roman Empire.

This is a question with no right answer! Well that’s not entirely true, Jesus gives them an answer and it was the right one.

Just as a point of interest, does anybody remember the former occupation of the disciple Matthew? His name was also Levi, he used to be a tax collector. What about the disciple named Simon, not Simon Peter, but Simon the Zealot. Do you know what a Zealot was? The Zealots were a group of Jews in Israel that refused to submit to Roman rule, they refused to pay taxes to Caesar. And only in the kingdom of Christ can you have a tax collector and a zealot united in fellowship.

So how does Jesus answer their question? He doesn’t fall for the bait.

15 But, knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why put me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” 16 And they brought one. And he said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said to him, “Caesar’s.”

A Roman Denarius was the roughly the equivalent of a day’s wages, it was a silver coin about the size of a quarter. The image that was stamped on these coins at this time was the image of Tiberius Caesar, and the inscription read, “Tiberius Caesar Augustus, son of the Divine Augustus.” Under the image of Tiberius Caesar were the words, “Chief Priest.”

So think about this with me. The Romans held Caesar up as a god, and demanded him to be worshipped. This idea was repulsive to the Jews. And it wasn’t many years after this that Christians would be martyred for refusing to proclaim that Caesar was lord, because Jesus is Lord. The idea is repulsive, but Jesus wasn’t telling them to worship Caesar, just making it clear whose likeness and inscription was on the coin.

Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” 16 And they brought one. And he said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said to him, “Caesar’s.” 17 Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they marveled at him.

The word, “render,” means to pay what is owed. What was owed to Caesar was the annual tax.

Paul taught on this same topic in Romans 13:1-7.

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

Peter also commented on this in 1 Peter 2:17.

17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.

John Calvin wrote, “When we perform our duty towards men, we thereby render obedience to God.”

Christianity, in no way, fosters disloyalty to the government. The annual tax was a debt owed to Caesar that could be paid with the coins that bore his image. But just as Jesus commanded them to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, the coins, He also commanded them to render unto God the things that are God’s.

Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

Caesar’s image was stamped on the coins, but whose image is stamped on mankind? God’s!

This statement of Jesus is a command that carries with it a reminder. It’s a command to submit to the human authorities put in place to govern and protect us but it also carries a reminder that human authority is limited in its duration and scope. We must not submit when Caesar stats to demand the things that belong to God.

Jesus responded to their trap with the truth, and the Pharisees and Herodians responded to the truth with wonder. They marveled at Him. What they didn’t do was change their position, they didn’t accept the truth, they simply wondered at it.

What I wonder, is what will we do with that truth?

Jesus told them, pay what you owe. What you owe Caesar is taxes, what you owe God is worship. 

By submitting to one, we honor the other.

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. 3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.

Amen.