Matthew 22:15 – 22

Is It Lawful to Pay Taxes?

15 Then the Pharisees went and plotted how they might entangle Him in His talk.

16 And they sent to Him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that You are true, and teach the way of God in truth; nor do You care about anyone, for You do not regard the person of men.

17 Tell us, therefore, what do You think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”

18 But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, “Why do you test Me, you hypocrites?

19 Show Me the tax money.”

So they brought Him a denarius.

20 And He said to them, “Whose image and inscription is this?”

21 They said to Him, “Caesar’s.”

And He said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

22 When they had heard these words, they marveled, and left Him and went their way.

The Pharisees had a meeting and discussed ways they could trap Jesus, they wanted to get Jesus to say something which they could turn into an accusation against Him.

The Herodians were people who sided with Herod Antipas and thus were supporters of the Romans in Palestine, the Pharisees were not supporters of the Romans so this is a very interesting alliance in attempting to thwart Jesus and His work. The pro-government forces joining together with the anti-government forces to try to sabotage the work of God's Son.

First of all neither of these factions had any respect for Jesus or His work, the Pharisees were envious of the attention Jesus was getting from the people, and perhaps with the talk of a new kingdom being formed the Herodians believed He was a threat to the existing government. But the main thing to see here is despite all of the nice things they were saying to Jesus, it was all flattery. They wanted to get him to say something either anti Law of Moses or anti-Roman government.

Their ignorance of the nature of Jesus kingdom made them believe Jesus would be opposed to all other governments. If that were the case then He would naturally oppose giving them taxes, or financial support.

If He answered in that manner, then He could be charged with disloyalty to the Romans, perhaps charging him with treason or inciting insurrection.

Jesus called these men hypocrites because they were pretending to want information but in reality as said in verse 16 they were hoping to trap him into saying something he could be charged with.

Jesus method of answering their question, fooled them. He asked for a piece of the kind of money used in the currency of the Roman empire. This is what would be used to pay the taxes.

Image and inscription means whose face was on the coin, and what writing was on the coin.

They had to answer his question by identifying the coin as being a coin of the Roman empire which had Caesar as its emperor or king. His face was on it, and the writing identifying it as Roman currency.

The coin was identified as Roman currency, so Jesus said to give to the Roman government their currency which was lawful to give it.

He said to give to God what belonged to God, give to God the devotion which is required by His children.

These hypocrites marveled at His answer, this does not mean they became followers of His, or they agreed and respected His teaching and His doctrine. No, they marveled, but it was astonishment they could not catch Him in any wrong doing. So they left Him.