SPIRITUAL DIARY
FOR 11/4/2012 8:42:02 AM
My Worship Time Focus: A Question of Responsibility
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Mark
12:13-17
Message of
the verses: “13 Then they sent some of the Pharisees and
Herodians to Him in order to trap Him in a statement. 14 They came and said to
Him, "Teacher, we know that You are truthful and defer to no one; for You
are not partial to any, but teach the way of God in truth. Is it lawful to pay
a poll-tax to Caesar, or not? 15 “Shall we pay or shall we not pay?" But
He, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, "Why are you testing Me? Bring
Me a denarius to look at." 16 They brought one. And He said to them,
"Whose likeness and inscription is this?" And they said to Him,
"Caesar’s." 17 And Jesus said to them, "Render to Caesar the
things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s." And they
were amazed at Him.”
What we see in this passage before us is different
enemies coming together for a common cause that they both have, and that cause
was to get rid of Jesus of Nazareth. The
two enemies in this case were the Herodians and also the Pharisees. Why were they enemies? The Herodians favored Herod and also Rome, while
the Pharisees along with the other governing parties in the Sanhedrim, the
Sadducees, and the Scribes hated Herod and also Rome. Their common hatred for Jesus was greater
than their hatred for each other and their causes. It seems that at the root of all sinfulness is
selfishness, and both parties wanted their own way. We will see in the following passages that
all the parties of the Sanhedrim would be involved in testing Jesus, the
section we are looking at today has the Pharisees, and the other parties will
follow in the next sections of Mark. The
Sanhedrim had a problem and that is how could they rid themselves of Jesus, and
that is why these three different parties of the Sanhedrim were coming out
against Jesus. Rome was the only one who
had the authority to kill Jesus and so that is why the Herodians were
involved. The problem was that a great
number of the crowd was in favor of Jesus and thus they had to turn the crowd
against Jesus to fulfill their plot.
This was a tall order but what they were actually doing was, as Peter
speaks of it in Acts, fulfilling the plan of God even though they would be
responsible to what they were planning.
This is one of the difficulties in understanding all this and other
passages as well.
If Jesus would answer the question
about the poll tax in a “wrong way” then the crowds would be against Him, and
also the Romans would have a charge that could go against Jesus. In Acts 5:37 we read the following,
“"After this man, Judas of Galilee rose up in the days of the census and
drew away some people after him; he too perished, and all those who followed
him were scattered.” Here we see part of
a story about a man named Judas of Galilee, and this happened in 6 A.D. Judas and his followers were saying that it
was wrong to pay taxes to Rome for religious reasons, reasons found in the
Law. They began a rebellion against Rome
and were defeated, however this rebellion was still in the hearts of the Jews
to this day and would began again with earnest in 66 A.D. and would be stopped
in 70 A.D. when Titus and his Roman Legions would destroy Jerusalem. Jesus prophesied that this would happen. 34 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that
kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather
your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and
you would not have it! 35 “Behold, your house is left to you desolate; and I
say to you, you will not see Me until the time comes when you say, ’BLESSED IS
HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!’"
(Luke 13:34-35)
The question that the Pharisees gave
to Jesus was to trap Him, and they used flowery words before asking the
question to show their hypocrisy. Dr.
Wiersbe writes “We might state our Lord’s reply something like this:
‘Caesar’s image is on his coins, so
they must be minted by his authority.
The fact that you possess these coins and use them indicates that you
think they are worth something.
Therefore, you are already accepting Caesar’s authority, or you would
not use the money! But don’t forget that
you were created in the image of God and therefore must live under God’s
authority as well.’”
When one understands what the
Pharisees were trying to do to Jesus one will think of them in the way that
Jesus thought of them. “13 "But woe
to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of
heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those
who are entering to go in. 14
[["Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour
widows’ houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will
receive greater condemnation.]] 15 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte;
and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as
yourselves. 16 “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ’Whoever swears by the
temple, that is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple is
obligated.’ 17 “You fools and blind men! Which is more important, the gold or
the temple that sanctified the gold? 18 “And, ’Whoever swears by the altar,
that is nothing, but whoever swears by the offering on it, he is obligated.’ 19
“You blind men, which is more important, the offering, or the altar that
sanctifies the offering? 20 “Therefore, whoever swears by the altar, swears
both by the altar and by everything on it. 21 “And whoever swears by the
temple, swears both by the temple and by Him who dwells within it. 22 “And
whoever swears by heaven, swears both by the throne of God and by Him who sits
upon it. 23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint
and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law:
justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have
done without neglecting the others. 24 “You blind guides, who strain out a gnat
and swallow a camel! 25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you
clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery
and self-indulgence. 26 “You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup
and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also. 27 “Woe to
you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs
which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s
bones and all uncleanness. 28 “So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men,
but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. 29 “Woe to you, scribes
and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn
the monuments of the righteous, 30 and say, ’If we had been living in the days
of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood
of the prophets.’ 31 “So you testify against yourselves, that you are sons of
those who murdered the prophets. 32 “Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of
your fathers. 33 “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the
sentence of hell? (Matthew 23:13-33)”
Dr. Wiersbe points out that the word
translated “render” in Mark 12:17 means “to pay a debt, to pay back.” “Jesus looked at taxes as the citizens debt
to the government in return for the services performed.” Someone I heard recently made a statement
about paying taxes and said it was good to pay taxes, just not too many.
We have to look at Romans chapter
thirteen to see what we as believers are responsible about taxes, and it picks
up on what Jesus answered here. Dr.
Wiersbe writes “The individual Christian citizen might not agree with the way
all of his tax money is used, and he can express himself with his voice and his
vote, but he must accept the fact that God established human government for our
good (Romans 13; 1Tim. 2:1-6; 1Peter 2:13-17).
Even if we cannot respect the people in office, we must respect the
office.”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: In the
country that I live in we will go to the most important election that has ever
happened to this country on Tuesday and my prayer is that God will have mercy
on us in this election, but if that does not happen in the way many believers
want then we can be assured that God is the One who brings up rulers and then
takes them down.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the
Lord with the outcome of our national election, and pray that God, through His
Holy Spirit will revive the Church in our country not matter how the election
turns out
Memory verses for the
week : Psalm 130:1-3
1 Out of the debts I cried to You, O
LORD. 2 Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my
supplications. 3 If You, LORD, should
mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?
11/4/2012 9:34:08 AM
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