Hi everyone. Welcome back to the podcast where we take an in-depth Catholic academic look at the

scriptures and particularly the gospel reading of the day. So today we're going to look at quite a well-known

passage, but I think you'll see that there's some quite interesting things that come out of this

passage when you really study it. So Matthew chapter 22 verses 15 to 21. The Pharisees went away

to work out between them how to trap Jesus in what he said.

And they sent their disciples to him together with the Herodians to say,

Master, we know that you are an honest man and teach the way of God in an honest way,

and that you are not afraid of anyone, because a man's rank means nothing to you. Tell us your

opinion then. Is it permissible to pay taxes to Caesar or not? But Jesus was aware of their

malice and replied, you hypocrites, why do you set this trap for me? Let me see the money you pay the tax with. They handed him a

denarius and he said, whose head is this? Whose name? Caesars, they replied. He said to them,

very well, give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give to God what belongs to God.

So this is quite a famous teaching of Jesus.

You've probably all heard this before and it's often used in discussions about political

activism and the relationship between politics and the church.

I think there's more going on in this passage than people

realize. There is obviously some things in this text that most people realize, but there's

also more going on here. So we want to have a look at that. And the key thing, as you'll see,

is what was written on the Roman coin that was given to him. There's a specific title that's

written on that Roman

DeNarius, which isn't mentioned in the text, but we now know from history what was written on it.

So let's start by thinking about the context. So Jesus has entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

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