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 understand 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 four 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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