The Things That Are God’s



Matthew 22:15-22
15Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words.
16And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances.
17Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”
18But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites?
19Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius.
20And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?”
21They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
22When they heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away.



We will soon be thrust into the ugliness of political battle yet again. It’s one of my least favorite parts of being a citizen of the United States. One side baits the other and waits for their opponent to say something really stupid then uses that comment to berate them until the end of the campaign. It makes my head hurt. And oddly it is exactly the position in which Jesus has placed Himself as He goes back and forth with the Pharisees. Despite numerous attempts by the Pharisees to embroil Jesus in a heated debate that could lead to reason for His arrest, it never works. Of course He is far more skilled at verbal debate than they are and; and this is a BIG and – Jesus knows their thoughts! They will never win at this war of words.

In today’s skirmish, the Pharisees hope to trap Jesus into speaking against the Roman government. If He does that they won’t have to deal with Him at all. The Romans will take care of the situation for them. So today’s trap question is about taxes. Should a Child of God pay taxes to an unjust government? Jesus’ answer is brilliant, clever, and successfully removes Him from their trap.

Upon reading this familiar passage today, the phrase that jumps out is “and to God the things that are God’s.” Who cares about human designed coinage? Certainly not Jesus. But what matters are the things that already belong to God that we tend to withhold from Him mistakenly thinking they belong solely to us to do with as we please. While my taxes may be owed to the government under whose care I have been placed, everything else about me belongs to God. That idea is simple and complex at the same time. My heart is at the core of that statement. If my heart is sold out to God, everything else will fall into place. The things that belong to God will be handed over to Him. But here’s where the complexity settles into the equation. I don’t always want to hand it all over to God. I want to hold onto a few things for myself and keep the control in my corner. Our lives here are spent, I believe, gradually learning how to surrender more and more of ourselves into His hands. It simply doesn’t happen in a flash. It takes as much lifetime as we are given, which means I will never be completely done with that work until Jesus comes to take me into eternity. And that’s okay because there is so much to that journey. It is the stuff of life and something to be embraced. So handing over to God the things that are God’s isn’t easy but it is certainly worthwhile.

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