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

Mark chapter 12, verses 13 through 17.

And they said to Jesus 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. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay them,

or should we not? But knowing their hypocrisy, Jesus said to them, why put me to the test? Bring me a

De Narius and let me look at it. And they brought one. And Jesus said to them, whose likeness

an inscription is this? They said to him, Caesar's. Jesus said to them, render to Caesar the things that are Caesars, and to God,

the things that are gods. And they marveled at him. So why were Jesus's words here so marvel

worthy? And there's so much we could talk about, but in addition to him wisely avoiding this trap set before him,

Jesus just provided a revolutionary picture of how people should relate to government.

Since Caesar's image was on a coin, that in a sense,

that coin belonged to Caesar. So Jesus affirms here what we see throughout Scripture that God

ordains government as a good institution under his authority for the good of people. So we should

render to Caesar the things that are

seizures, including taxes in this circumstance. But then what does it mean to render to God the

things that are gods? Think about it. Caesar's image may have been stamped on a coin,

but where was God's image stamped? And the answer to that question is so significant.

Think all the way back to the very beginning of the Bible, Genesis chapter 1. God's image

is stamped on every human heart. In other words, Caesar may be worthy of a coin,

but God is worthy of our hearts.

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