Hey everybody, I'm Tim McEy and this is my podcast Exploring My Strange Bible.

I am a card carrying Bible history and language nerd who thinks that Jesus of Nazareth is

utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have.

On this podcast I'm putting together the last ten years worth of lectures and sermons

where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites

us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith.

And I hope this can be helpful for you too.

I also help start this thing called the Bible Project.

We make animated videos and podcasts about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology.

You can find those resources at thebibelproject.com.

With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week.

Alright, well in this episode we're going to keep exploring the gospel according to Matthew.

This is part of a long series.

These are teachings that I did years ago when I was a teaching pastor at Door of Hope Church in Portland, Oregon.

At this point we are in Matthew chapter 17 and we're looking at a fascinating story of when the Jewish leaders of the temple in Jerusalem

approach Jesus asking him about a tax that is paid to the temple.

There's a more famous story about Jesus in Texas where the Jewish leaders approach Jesus and it's the famous story of

should we pay taxes to Caesar into the Romans?

That story will come later.

But first is this story about how Jesus relates to the power and religious institutions within the Jewish people, the people of Israel, of which he was one.

So this is an interesting story to understand how Jesus related to these powers that he believed were corrupt

and still submitted to them.

...