Pray the Word with David Platt is a resource from Radical.net.

Mark chapter 12, verses 13 through 17.

And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians to trap him in his talk.

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. This is pure flattery here. Insincere praise for

selfish purposes. Then they ask him, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?

Should we pay them or should we not?

But knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them,

Why put me to the test?

Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.

And they brought one.

And he said to them, whose likeness and inscription is this?

They said to him, Caesar's. And Jesus said to them, whose likeness and inscription is this? They said to him, Caesar's. And Jesus said to them,

render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are gods. And they

marveled at him. I love these exchanges all throughout the Gospels between Jesus and people who are trying to trick

or trap him, and then he just turns it around on them.

So what's so marvelous about what Jesus said?

Oh, we could spend like a long time talking about this.

But let's just picture it this way. They're trying to trick Jesus into saying, okay, if you say don't pay taxes, then that's going to be like traitorous in a sense toward the Roman Empire,

towards Caesar. If you say do pay taxes, then that could be

...