The State
Render to Caesar what is Caesars and give to God what is God's. Mark 12:17 When this is quoted, people often leave off the question and give it as an example of Jesus's wisdom—sometimes it is simply cited as an example of cleverness. The question before it is interesting: Is it lawful to pay taxes to the Romans or not? By "lawful" they meant under Jewish law of course. The question is an example of religious scrupulosity and legalism being wielded as a weapon against the Lord who spoke over the top of the details of law most of his earthly life. Standing against that was the state, Roman law and the hammer of Roman power to enforce it. I was thinking about that moment this morning when I read about the S...